Building a Rock-Solid Regional 'Grow Your Own' Teacher Pipeline

Dr. Jim: [: 00:00:00

In this conversation, we're going to zoom out and take a look at a regional perspective. What are the best practices at a regional level that we should have on our radar when it comes to growing your own talent? That's the question that we're going to tackle today. And joining us, we have Al Betri, who is going to be guiding us through that conversation.

A little bit about Al. Al says that teaching has always been part of his family business. His grandmother, father, two brothers, and one of his sisters have all been teachers. He's been fortunate to work in the field of education for over 30 years as an eighth grade social studies teacher, a middle school principal, a CISA director of school improvement services.

or at CISA nine in Tom Hawk, [: 00:01:00

And he's also blessed with an amazing family that includes his wife, Jamie and two kids, Larkin and Lily. Al, welcome to the show.

Al Betry: Thank you, Jim. Great to be here.

Dr. Jim: I'm looking forward to this conversation because this is the first of a series that we're doing where we're talking to regional folks in the K through 12 education space, and those folks typically help multiple districts within that region in terms of developing best practices across the educational landscape.

a little bit more about your [: 00:02:00

So why don't you share with us a little bit about that.

Al Betry: Yeah, it's been a great journey. I started off as, of course, as a teacher in eighth grade, and I always saw students as just a chance to really grow their ability and help them, be successful in their life. And it's really shaped me. And I was able to be a principal of the middle school.

Gotta love middle school students. Those are either middle school teachers or leaders out there great age and also an age where they're trying to figure out what they want to do someday. And I think that's been the fun part. And then I was able to go to gym to work at CESA, Cooperative Educational Service Agency number nine, about 12 years ago as an associate director of school improvement services.

le to really allow me to see [: 00:03:00

And now as a regional director of CESA to help kids and teachers.

Dr. Jim: So one of the things that I'm curious about when I think about your career progression, you've gone from an individual contributor as a teacher and then you came you became a principal. Now you have this much broader scope role where you have multiple superintendents that are. Relying on you in some sort of way for guidance.

So what were the changes that you made from your last role within a district into that CESA function that you felt was most important in terms of how you ship, shift your leadership style and the influence that you have?

Al Betry: Yeah. As a teacher and a lead principal, you always have a servant, leadership heart, and you're thinking about kids and those kinds of families. As you go to a CESA, I really had a shift into. How do I make sure I'm helping our teachers and our leaders in our region do the best things they can do with students with the resources that they have.

So it's really [: 00:04:00

So preparing for that, I think was a big shift, but also a very I think it made me better as a leader because I would see all these great people in action doing great things for kids every day.

Dr. Jim: So when you look at that broader perspective that you're bringing down to the district level What are some of the things that you're doing from a day to day perspective to bring those regional? statewide national trends and make that accessible for the individual superintendents and leaders within your districts

ent or different things that [: 00:05:00

Act 20. And we also have networking sessions. We're bringing people together across district boundaries and borders to learn and grow with one another. And that's really what CEASES do. I always say we are what our districts need us to be. And that means that we have to make sure that we are giving them the opportunities to learn what they need to see or grow, but also to provide training, resources.

I'm on speed dial, right? Whatever they need from us, we try to make sure we're helping them navigate the educational waters, so to speak.

Dr. Jim: Digging in a little bit. I think it's going to be important for us to get line of sight into your district in a in and of itself. So you're part of season nine. So what's the landscape within that district?

teachers, [: 00:06:00

Dr. Jim: So when you look at a region that has. A pretty wide range of school sizes employee footprints, how do you, and all of the other factors that are associated with that and a pretty wide geographic footprint as well. What's your strategy when it comes to providing resources that are broadly relevant to most of the districts within the school?

How do you go through that process and maximize the value that you're bringing to every district within within the region?

ings that we're trying to do [: 00:07:00

Okay. Maintaining high quality staff, right? And making sure that we're following what's required federally and also in our state. So I think you really have to look at I always say that a CESA is like a filter between, the state ed, the department of public instruction in Wisconsin and our districts.

And we try to make sure we help that way. So we have to look at. The regional needs, but also the state needs, and we really try to make sure that we're giving resources and impact that hit all of our districts, regardless of size.

Dr. Jim: So you mentioned something that was interesting. And that was, retaining high quality staff. That's a challenge for just about every organization that's out there, particularly in the K through 12 space. So when you think about staff retention. Best practices.

What are some of the things that you've talked about at the regional level? That's really had some pretty solid impact across the region.

doing a great job with that [: 00:08:00

Dr. Jim: When I opened the show, I talked about, one of the challenges that a lot of districts have is finding good talent. And post COVID, that becomes an even bigger issue. So tell me a little bit about what you noticed as one of the leaders within CESA 9. What the trend line looked like across the region in terms of educator educator pipelines and education shortages.

What were the things that you observed coming out of COVID?

Al Betry: It was really, we [: 00:09:00

That was a challenge. Like we had a lot of virtual schools, the connections were lost in some situations with that. And people wanted to get back into the buildings. So I think that was one of the things that people really had to focus post COVID I've seen is we've had this dip and it's do I want to keep on teaching?

Do I want to stay? And then the folks that do want to say okay, now how do we get better? How do we get, what do we lose? But also I think, Jim, what do we learn from COVID? What are some things that we did that made us better in ways that we didn't think about because we were forced to do something in a different way.

Dr. Jim: And I think our districts that did the best with that were the ones that took that learning from COVID and made some adjustments. And that was, I think that made a difference in some, in quite a few situations.

he things that you mentioned [: 00:10:00

Dr. Jim: Post COVID, a lot of people are considering leaving the profession. What have you seen across the region that should stand out as best practices that keeps that conversation as an open discussion and maybe changes some folks minds in terms of staying in the profession?

Al Betry: Yeah that's a great question. And I think really it's about understanding and making sure people are appreciated by and showing them the impact that they have every day on kids. I think that's one of the things that our folks have done a nice job with is to saying you make a huge difference in kids lives.

And here's what we're seeing because of you, kids that struggle during these times are coming back to school because they want to see their teachers. They want to make sure they're feeling a part of the school community. Yeah. And I think that's been one of the things that's helped. I also think that we have to work on rebranding the profession.

I think that [: 00:11:00

And I think that's been a focus that we've tried to help with and also to realize that, we always want to be a part of something bigger than just ourselves. And I think that teachers that stay see that and they also know that their impact is very important. Nothing more important.

In kids lives and their teachers in many cases.

Dr. Jim: So it's interesting that you're talking about impact and making sure teachers understand the impact that they make on a day to day basis, making sure that they understand value. Those things are a little fuzzy. So what are organizations across the district doing to make that impact and that sense of value and belonging more quantifiable?

try: Yeah. I think of course [: 00:12:00

But I think the ones that you try to stay. You try to stay where you can provide that as a destination location, I think is important. And I also think that we have to look at how do we provide more opportunities for teachers to have time to do their things they need to do around curriculum, to network with other teachers to have a chance to have leadership.

Possibilities to grow your own kind of idea of internally to grow your teachers into leaders in the district. I see some of those things happening too. So I think that's tough. I think you always have to deal with what else is out there. Do I want to leave the profession to want to stay? And it comes down to how you feel about, your importance where you're at.

But of course, salary paid benefits, those kind of they matter. And I think that's really important to people.

e of the other things that I [: 00:13:00

Al Betry: I think you, you just learn a lot of things about how you're doing things efficiently and what can we do different? For example we, sometimes we have, we had some upper, like better attendance at IEP meetings. Okay, that were virtual in nature, right? Some of the parents felt like maybe they weren't comfortable going to the school, but a virtual meeting was met a lot of people's needs, but also what created like what are the most important things that we have to teach?

really great job of saying, [: 00:14:00

But these are the need to knows and we got to focus on these things. And I also think that teacher networking sharing resources, collaboration, sharing expertise around what was working well, Created even more collaboration internally in schools. I think that was a key factor too, that made us better at parent teacher relationships because they were in virtual nature, but also looking at our practices about, Hey, if we have a snow day in north central Wisconsin, we're pretty good right now at running a full day virtual where before maybe we didn't quite have all the things ironed out.

Dr. Jim: So in the post COVID landscape. What were some of the trends that you noticed across the region when it came to your education, educator depth across the region, but also the ability to fill ranks and have a funnel of candidates coming into the profession.

were seeing some concerning [: 00:15:00

And after covid, we had some folks leave that made those even more. I guess concerning and our shortage areas grew. So I think we knew we had to really. Try to do our best to say what are, what areas, what groups of folks can we tap into that we haven't tapped into yet as far as a grow your own mentality.

Dr. Jim: So when you talk about grow your own, that can mean a lot of things in a lot of different places. So give us a sense for what some of those programs. Look like across the region. What is it? What is a really high performing grow your own program look like within sisa 9?

program that looks at career [: 00:16:00

And it's called it's a pathway for people to have an opportunity to become a teacher that maybe don't want to go back the traditional way. So very successful program is what we started in 17, 18, 2017, 18 here at CESA 9. And it was meant to tap into the grow your own about who do I have already in communities that are a part of schools.

That might want to go into the teaching profession that we've overlooked or said, Hey, I want to be a teacher, but I don't know how to get there. So we, that's the one that has been very successful in our region.

Dr. Jim: So when we talk about grow your own from the perspective of career changers, that's that's one way Of addressing the need I think the challenge in Career changes coming into the district. You're going to run into some of those compensation issues that you might run into from the private sector into the public sector.

So how have districts been dealing with that?

found is there's some people [: 00:17:00

And if I can make a living that we, that they feel that they can be comfortable, but also work with students and their community and help their community, that we're finding that they're very, they're okay with that trying to get that attractive level of pay. It's not going to be probably maybe what they were making as an engineer.

ey feel that they can have a [: 00:18:00

Dr. Jim: So the other thing that I'm curious about if you're Part of your grow your own strategy has to be based on career changers. That's not exactly reliable because the volume of people that might be interested in switching careers into teaching is probably going to be You know, relatively low.

So when you look at some of the other ways that districts are handling grow your own, what does that look like across CESA nine?

Al Betry: Yeah, a great area is paraprofessionals. We have a lot of folks in the Excellence in Teaching program that are currently paraprofessionals districts that, that want to go to that next step that want to become a teacher, right? So that's been something that has been very promising and successful because number one, They're already in the school district.

h. The other one that's been [: 00:19:00

In the teaching program that we have, but schools trying to make sure that they're hitting this, the kids in the high schools, for examples, for example, giving them a chance to say, I want to become a teacher someday. What are some things that I could do to do that? So ramping up some of those programs about getting kids chances to work with elementary students and do some role modeling some help in classrooms, and then also.

Giving them information about how do you become a teacher and how might they want to come back to their district someday and stay in their district where they went to school. And that's been something that's been very, I think, just starting to really gain a lot of traction as well.

Dr. Jim: So digging in a little bit you mentioned transitioning pair of professionals and using prayer for pair of professionals as your pipeline into teaching. Give us a little bit more detail on what a good paraprofessional transition program looks like.

at's realistic as far as how [: 00:20:00

And I think in our program, that's how it works, right? They need hours to do that to qualify for different, different things in different areas for just hours of service, but then they can go and be like they can student teach in that same district as they're in that, they could work a half day as a paraprofessional in the afternoon.

Maybe they're student teaching in a social studies classroom, right? So that's be a big part of that. And I think that's what we've seen is to make that happen. It has to be. It can't be going back to school, nights and weekends for four years. We have to find a way to, look at that program that they already have a lot of coursework, right?

r a way to do that? One more [: 00:21:00

We run substitute teacher trainings. And. A lot of the folks that I would train would come and say, I really, I want to further this. Like I'm in a, I'm in a district like one day a week. I want to do this full time. How do I do that? So that, that also helped. That's another group that I wanted to mention that we tapped into for Grow Your Own.

Dr. Jim: it's interesting that you just mentioned that the Grow Your Own program started with the substitute teacher ranks within the region and then expanded into some of these other areas. So when you look at going from substitutes to paraprofessionals to career changers, what are some of the changes from a program or recruitment perspective that you had to consider as that Grow Your Own program overall at the region evolved?

e degrees in math or biology [: 00:22:00

So I think and also the day to day, you don't just walk into a classroom and say, I'm gonna teach today. This is, that's not the way it rolls. So I think what we had to do is really think about, okay, in our program, what are the most important things that are needed for these folks to be successful?

And as a CESA, we have people that are teaching our coursework and running and advisors in our program that are in the districts. Every many days the week, like helping train teachers and doing this work. So I think the relevance of what's happening currently in schools in our program, we have to match it.

We have to make sure that they're ready for what they're going to come into. Because, like I said, They're really good at the their background, their content they need some, of course, some more work with that. But really the, how do you work with students and what are the ins and outs of being a teacher that you don't think about until you're up in front of them, in a classroom?

ow this program has evolved, [: 00:23:00

Al Betry: Yeah, they're, it's basically, so your Department of Public Instruction approves your program, right? So you go through the approval process. And I think because we're not a university, we're not credit bearing. We have to make sure that we are trying to, do that. We require to do the same things in many ways, but I think developing the content and the coursework within a way that is manageable for people because what's happened, I think, Jim, and this is when we first started this many of our students would still student teach, right?

And that was the old model of you student teach for, 16 weeks or whatever it is. And then you become a teacher. Many times in today, especially in Wisconsin many of our folks are hired on what's called a license with stipulations, so they'll get hired and they're on the job, from day one.

but we provide a mentor for [: 00:24:00

Dr. Jim: I need some help with this. How do I handle the situation? So we've really had to overcome that hurdle of it's changed. We, our student body is most of them this year. 65 students. The majority of them are teaching full time and going through our program at the same time.

When we talk through this program, I get the broad strokes of it. But one of the things that I'm wondering is that, a lot of the things that you mentioned make sound pretty turnkey if you're in a bigger district. How do you make this stuff work if you're in a rural district or a small district and still build that pipeline because your options are much narrower because you don't have huge population centers around you?

y've really looked at people [: 00:25:00

Who I know that, is maybe they're coaching volleyball or basketball and then they're there have a full time job and they say, Would you ever be interested in being a teacher? What are your thoughts? And they've really done a nice job. I think of basically just saying we would love to have you.

And if you're interested, we'll help you with this program, and we'll offer some incentive for you to go through this program and work with us. So we partner with our districts to offer, a discount on tuition because they're membership districts in our CESA, but also some of our districts pay for part of their tuition.

And that is very, that's very helpful for them, but it's hard. I don't think they have a whole lot of people to draw from when it comes to our smaller, but rurals, but they do have people out there that are interested. And I think they've done a really nice job of tapping into people that maybe just want to change or would want to be a bigger part of the school.

ent ways that a district can [: 00:26:00

Avenues that you can use as well. Is there anything that you've seen from a data and measurement perspective that tells you that, hey, this particular channel of candidates ends up being our highest performing source of of educators within regions in general or within districts in general?

Al Betry: We've seen some great things. I said one of the before this episode, I was just looking at some of our information around our program. And what we found is of the folks that we've licensed since, 17, 18, 90 percent of them are still in the teaching profession, right? And that's a pretty great number.

We're pretty proud of that. And I think the other one, about 80 percent of them are in the same district. Okay. That they started it. So even the mobility, I think, is has been that rate is pretty good. I think as far as what we're seeing, we're still looking at, like, how do you measure that impact and what data to use for your question?

[: 00:27:00

What we have as we have more details and more facts and more data about that, I think we'll find out more, but I just was very interested to see in like, how are we doing with far as people leaving the field? Because not only do you have to retract, attract them, you have to retain them. And that goes back to the district, though, your earlier questions.

Dr. Jim: Our districts have to be doing the right things to keep them too, like you said. So what we're finding is our districts are doing a nice job of getting them in the door and then keeping them, especially through our program.

where you're at now, how has [: 00:28:00

Al Betry: Yeah, it's been pretty awesome. One of the things we just, we've had about oh, I think a little over 200 and 50 students that we've enrolled in our program since 17, 18, and right now, currently, we have 96 of those folks that are currently employed in our, in 20 of our 22 school districts.

So we've impacted 20 of our 22. And also that's been really exciting. And I think with that, we've also outside of our region, we have our students in 80 districts outside of those 20 in the state. But regionally, we've had a really big impact. If we could, if we can place. Almost 100 teachers in our district, especially in some of our rural schools that, they have needs in.

t would go for an interview. [: 00:29:00

So I think we've had an impact, and I think it's because of that partnership that we have with our districts, knowing that the program is successful, and we've, we get feedback from those districts about how can we make it better. It has really helped. I think in there, in our districts, if you talk to some of our administrators, would say that, yeah, they are, our folks are doing a great job, but it's helped them keep people in, in the, in their classrooms that are high, high flying folks that are doing a great job with kids.

Dr. Jim: When I think about, what we've covered so far, this whole program, this whole Grow Your own, that that's been put together for CSA nine came out of projections that you saw coming before Covid even hit, you saw the trend lines in terms of education.

to change or evolve to meet [: 00:30:00

Al Betry: Yeah, going forward, I think we have to keep our eye on a few things. Number one is how are we doing once we get them in the doors? Are they staying? And I think the other thing is, what are the areas that we're seeing rise to the top as far as areas of need? Is it ELA? Is it science?

Is it math? And we're starting to see, like some of those areas begin to rise to the top. But I also think we have to look at what's happening in our state, right? Are we seeing like in as a state, look at all the different folks going into education are where are numbers going?

Are they come? Are they starting to go up? Are they going down? So I think we have to think of that as far as what other areas as far as shortage do we have to make sure that we offer? As far as license areas, right? So we have to really keep that in mind. And the other pieces we have to listen to our districts.

tion that they might have in [: 00:31:00

And what else do we have to shore up? And how are we doing with those folks, our paraprofessionals and our substitute teachers? Are they still, going into the teaching or are they not? And I think that's where it's going to be key for us. I also think we have to adjust our coursework based on those factors.

Are we have to make sure that we're nimble. Okay. When it comes to how we prepare our students so they're successful with our districts, but we, I just think there's some bigger picture things we have to keep our eye on in the state and also the nation as far as how we're doing with our teaching in general and are they going into education, are they staying in the state of Wisconsin, are they going to neighboring states?

Those are all things that we have to keep in mind.

ings that other districts or [: 00:32:00

Al Betry: Yeah, I think the best thing that happened to us is you have that conversation around regional needs what you're seeing happening in your schools and then having those conversations like I just, I'm using CESAs as an example, six of the 12 CESAs in our state have a program like ours at CESA 9 and that comes from trusting, partnerships with our districts, relationships have been built and also taking that input when you design a program, what are some best Practice strategies that they want to see from you and your students coming out.

happening every day that we [: 00:33:00

So that's the key is conversations around it and regional needs are going to develop, but also having a chance to have input. We have a board, that we have district folks that serve on our board with us and we meet with them. We have surveys that go out, they give us feedback. We try to make things better.

We have to always get better every day. And I think that's the key.

Dr. Jim: If folks want to continue the conversation with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Al Betry: You can email me a time at abettry at CSUN9. org. I'm on our, or our website, which is CSUN9. org anytime. And I'm happy to reach out and talk with you further. We're, we love to share our story and we can get, if you have questions and thoughts, or you just want to bounce some ideas around we have a wonderful staff that works with our Excellence in Teaching program that can help you with those questions as well.

hat is going to be important [: 00:34:00

And also the impact that they make, if you're not starting at that point and making people feel valued within the district who are already in the seat, you're going to have a problem in keeping them within your organization. So that's going to be a first area of focus is keep the people that you have, and also make sure that they understand the value that they bring.

And then once you have that locked down, you have a really distinct and compelling message. That you can offer to other people that are considering coming into the environment to join the profession. So appreciate you hanging out and sharing that with us. For those of you who've been listening to this conversation, we appreciate you listening as well.

them build a high performing [: 00:35:00