Standard 4 Aspect B

The program is committed to and invests in strengthening and improving the education profession and the P-20 education system. Each program’s context (or multiple contexts) provides particular opportunities to engage the field’s shared challenges and to foster and support innovation. Engagement with critical issues is essential and must be contextualized. Sharing results of contextualized engagement and innovation supports the field’s collective effort to address education’s most pressing challenges through improvement and innovation.

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Recruitment Efforts:
The California Department of Education (CDE)’s Global California 2030 report indicates that one of the state goals is to increase the number of bilingual authorizations programs and bilingual/dual immersion teachers. In 2016, there were 30 state-approved programs and 700 teachers with bilingual authorization. The goal is to have 100 programs and 2,000 teachers with bilingual authorization by 2030. These goals have been set based on state and community interest to expand bilingual/dual immersion programs exponentially across the state. Fresno State serves the California Central Valley which has districts like our district partners that are expanding their program and thus are in dire need of credentialed bilingual teachers. 

The Fresno State BAP firmly believes that the California Central Valley has talented and culturally and linguistically diverse people that will make phenomenal bilingual/dual immersion teachers for the area’s primarily Spanish and Hmong programs. Therefore, the program operates from a “grow your own” model that seeks to establish a strong pipeline that recruits high school students and guides them through their undergraduate degree(s) and into the Fresno State multiple subject credential program. 

Partnering with the Fresno State Enseñamos en el Valle Central Initiative--a title V developing HSI program--the BAP coordinator is working closely with the Enseñamos staff on several programs aimed to increase the number of bilingual teachers. For example, supporting local high school teacher academies. Starting during the 2021-2022 academic year, the BAP coordinator will advertise and recruit students to the BAP by informing them of their pathways to becoming future bilingual teachers. Additionally, the Enseñamos Initiative subawards to two (2) local community colleges--Fresno City and Reedley College--which have established Enseñamos cohorts at each of their campuses with the goal of students completing the Associates Degree to Transfer (ADT) in Education and transferring to Fresno State’s Liberal Studies program. Upon completion of their bachelor’s degree, the goal is for students to continue their education in the Multiple Subject Credential Program. The BAP coordinator works closely with the academic counselors at the community colleges and Fresno State to ensure recruitment during orientation, information sessions, and other efforts aimed at providing clear guidance to the teaching profession for these students. While at Fresno State, the BAP coordinator also recruits in Liberal Studies undergraduate courses, Dog Days, and credential recruitment events. 

Support Efforts:
The candidates in the BAP are overwhelmingly Latinx and a handful identify as Asian. The characteristics of program candidates includes being born and raised in the California Central Valley, being children of Latinx and Hmong immigrant parents, being native speakers of Spanish or Hmong, having had attended and graduated from local schools, being first generation college students, and many attain their bachelors and/or teaching credential from Fresno State, thus embodying the “grow your own” model of the BAP. 

Given these characteristics, the BAP supports diverse candidates with support structures such as regular academic advising, faculty support and mentorship, and professional development via programmatic events. These practices ensure that the college experience and pathway to the teaching profession are demystified for first generation students such as our BAP candidates.

Demographic Data of Recent Graduates:

2020-2021 Regional K-12 Enrollment Data by County (source: CDE DataQuest): 

Aspect C →