By Amy D. Fienen
Learn more and apply at Teacher Residency Programs & Partnerships | Fresno Pacific University
Dexter Yang always knew he was meant for a career in which he could help people, and for years he thought he was going to become a doctor. What he later realized is that he was meant to be a teacher, and he sees his new career as so much more than a job. “Teaching is a calling, it’s a passion; it’s not a job,” Yang says.
The Teacher Residency Program, one of FPU’s Academic Pathways, provided Yang with his teaching credential and Master of Arts in Teaching, and placed him in a job within Fresno Unified School District. He recently began his second year as a 10th grade chemistry teacher at the brand-new Farber High School, and credits the Teacher Residency Program with setting him up for success.
A productive partnership
A partnership between FPU and local school districts, the Teacher Residency, or “grow your own teacher” program, recruits, prepares and retains teachers who want to live and work in the Central Valley. Like Yang, many of the participants were born and raised in the area, and plan to remain close to home for the long-term. Funded by grants from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, the Teacher Residency Program allows participants who have earned their bachelor’s degree to pursue their teaching credential during a year-long residency. For schools to qualify for the grant program, they must have a proven teacher shortage within their district in hard-to-fill areas like math, science, English and performing arts.
FPU currently works with Fresno Unified School District, Golden Charter Academy and Sanger and Visalia Unified School Districts. It also has a partnership with the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools covering the Caruthers, Fowler, Laton, Kings Canyon and Selma Unified School Districts. Depending on the district, students can earn their multiple or single credential, as well as early childhood or mild/moderate support needs special education credential, all with the financial support of a stipend of up to $35,000. Upon completion of the credential program, students have the option to pursue their Master of Arts in Teaching from FPU by enrolling in 12 additional units over one year, which they can do anytime within five years of completing their credential.
Program Director Robin Perry, Ed.D., explained that while the year-long program is an accelerated way for candidates to earn a credential, quicker does not mean easier. “It’s a very rigorous and time-intensive program,” she says. Those selected must pass a stringent interviewing and vetting process. The program begins in the summer with a semester of classes, which prepares students for the fall semester of part-time student teaching in their assigned classroom under the instruction of a mentor teacher. Their spring semester is spent full-time at their school site in a student-teacher role.
Perry says the Teacher Residency Program helps candidates build strong connections to their sponsoring school district, provides them with financial support and builds strong connections with their cohort of fellow student teachers. And because the school districts select their most experienced mentor teachers and involved school sites to participate, candidates are learning from the best.
Traci Taylor, director of teacher development for Fresno Unified School District, says that 80% of her district’s new hires last year came through one of the pipeline programs like the one with FPU. A majority of the candidates are Valley residents—many of them graduates of FUSD schools—who want to teach in the district that raised them. “One of the greatest advantages of the Teacher Residency Program is that candidates gain real-world experience working hands-on for their future employer,” Taylor says. “They’re learning Fresno Unified’s culture and the expectations of the district they’re going to work in.”
Fresno Unified currently employs 114 Teacher Residency Program graduates in classrooms as teachers of record, and 30 members of the current 55-member cohort are placed within that district. Fresno Unified guarantees job placement for residency program graduates, while other districts offer preferred job placement. According to Perry, all the students who successfully completed last year’s residency were placed in jobs. She says their retention rate is huge, and credits the program for producing students who are committed and prepared.
A hometown career
Dexter Yang, the son of Hmong immigrants, is one of the program’s many graduates who grew up in Fresno Unified. After graduating from McClain High School, he went on to attend Fresno State as a pre-med major. It was the time he spent helping and tutoring his fellow students, along with prompting from his mom, that led him to change course. He says his mom knew he was meant to be a teacher. Following his graduation from Fresno State with a degree in natural science and chemistry in 2021, he applied to FPU’s Teacher Residency Program.
The prerequisite individual and group interviews were challenging for Yang because he didn’t have any prior teaching experience, but once accepted, he says the program fully prepared him to teach high school. “I really enjoyed the professors at FPU,” he says. “They helped break down the goals of the program and the pipelines we had to be a part of. They prepared me to struggle and make mistakes.”
Yang completed his residency at Hoover High, which he says felt like going home, as he spent his first two years of high school there. He went on to complete his master’s in teaching upon completion of the residency program. “Getting my master’s set the foundation for my professional career,” he says. “It’s really pushed me to go to the next level.”
Now at the start of his second year teaching chemistry, Yang is implementing what he learned at FPU to make absorbing a difficult subject easier for his 10th graders. “I take simple concepts and try to break them down so they’re understandable. I bring things that are relative after learning about my students and their interests,” he says. “My favorite thing is growing as a teacher and learning new things about people and myself.”
Graduates of the Teacher Residency Program commit to teaching in the school district where they received their training for four years. Yang says that won’t be a problem for him, as he plans to stay in the Valley. “Fresno’s home to me,” he says. “I want to stay in the home that raised me.”