Building a High-Quality Rural Teacher Pipeline through a Partnership-Based Residency and Induction Model

One of the most pressing issues facing rural school districts is the shortage of teachers, tied in part to higher levels of turnover as compared to urban and suburban districts (Ingersoll & Tran, 2023). A key strategy for addressing nationwide teacher workforce needs, including rural teacher workforce needs, is teacher residencies. This article presents the case of a sustainably-funded residency program co-designed as part of a partnership between a university-based teacher preparation program based at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and a rural school district, Fabens ISD. The university is a large, public Hispanic Serving Institution with a student population that is more than 80% Hispanic/Latinx, more than 70% Pell-eligible, and approximately 50% first-generation college-going. The rural school district partner is made up of nearly 2,000 PK-12 students, more than 95% of whom are Hispanic/Latinx and 92% of whom are categorized as economically-disadvantaged. In the paper, we present the key design features of this residency model, with a particular focus on asset-based recruitment strategies, faculty coaching support in the district, and district-based innovations aimed at sustaining paid pathways for residents across undergraduate and graduate levels. We also situate our partnership-based residency and induction efforts within larger region-wide collective impact efforts focused on strengthening and diversifying the teacher pipeline. Finally, we present emerging impact findings of the residency on teacher candidates and on the district employment outlook. This multivocal piece represents a burgeoning research-practice partnership (Coburn & Penuel, 2016), and we as co-authors outline our findings from the perspectives of the university preparation program, on-the-ground faculty support, and school district leadership.