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are partnering with local
school districts to train
...Grow Your Own (GYO) teaching assistants and
other school staff to teach
programs...cultivate teacher high-need subjects such

candidates from the local as mathematics (Rock,
2023).
are
states
community, addressing both addressing the teacher
Other
the issues of recruitment and pipeline issue with
retention. Grow Your Own (GYO)
programs that cultivate
teacher candidates from
the local community,
addressing both the
issues of recruitment and retention (Turner & Cohen, 2023). Tennessee’s teacher
apprenticeship model is one such GYO program that sponsors registered teacher-
apprenticeship programs between specific school districts and postsecondary
teacher-preparation programs (Tennessee Department of Education, 2022).
Tennessee’s apprenticeship model was the first teacher-apprenticeship program
federally registered and approved by the U.S. Department of Labor. It now offers
multiple credential pathways—master’s and bachelor’s degrees, certifications, and
apprenticeship programs designed for teachers—to address district needs as well
as labor market competition and to fill critical vacancies in areas such as secondary
mathematics, special education, and English as a second language, all at no cost to
the teacher candidates (ExcelinEd, 2023).

Delta Kappa Gamma and the Teacher Shortage
Although professional organizations such as Delta Kappa Gamma cannot
implement pay increases, shorten school schedules, or orchestrate apprenticeship
programs, they may impact the teacher shortage in other ways. Recent articles
published in The Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin: Collegial Exchange have
highlighted Maine State Organization’s statewide professional development
opportunity for both members and non-members (Hendrickson &Whitten, 2023)
as well as Texas State Organization’s chapter/university partnership to train
teachers working with multilingual learners
(Kevorkian, 2022). Perhaps DKG, an
organization of professional educators, might
further impact the profession—especially Perhaps DKG, an organization of
in the areas of teacher retention and teacher
recruitment. To that end, the 2022–2024 DKG professional educators, might
Editorial Board surveyed members using a
Google Form (https://www.google.com/forms/ further impact the profession—
about/) in the spring of 2023 to generate a list especially in the areas of teacher
of best practices—programs, projects, and
partnerships—that could address the teacher retention and teacher recruitment.
shortage. (See Appendix for Google Form
survey questions). The survey, available from
March to June 2023, was hosted on the DKG.

Promoting Professional and Personal Growth of Educators and Excellence in Education 9