Strengthening Pathways to Teaching for Immigrants and Refugees: How States Can Support Inclusive Strategies to Strengthen the Educator Workforce

Join us to learn how states around the U.S. are working to help internationally trained teachers re-enter the educator workforce and bring diverse voices and experience to the classroom. This is the second in a webinar series sponsored by WES Global Talent Bridge’s Teacher Bridge initiative, a collaboration of state and local partners focused on strengthening career pathways into teaching for internationally trained immigrants and refugees. As states and school districts face growing teacher shortages and look to build more inclusive teacher workforces, internationally trained educators represent an untapped resource to meet the needs of increasingly diverse student bodies in an ever more globalized world.

The first webinar in this series, “Pathways to Teaching for Immigrants and Refugees: How Internationally Trained Educators Can Help Meet Teacher Shortages and Grow Teacher Diversity,” available here, focused on programmatic initiatives in Lincoln, Neb. and Portland, Maine to support immigrant educators in entering the classroom. This second webinar will look at system-wide efforts in Michigan and Virginia—working through inter-agency collaborations, partnerships with school districts, and stakeholder coalition building—to reduce barriers to teacher certification and strengthen supports for internationally trained educators and other professionals who want to become teachers in the U.S.

Through this webinar you will gain insights into:

• The rich talent pool of internationally trained teachers and other professionals in the U.S.
• The statutory, regulatory and institutional barriers facing internationally trained professionals in becoming licensed teachers and re-starting their careers here
• System-wide strategies that state governments, school districts, higher education institutions and other stakeholders can pursue to reduce these barriers and strengthen opportunities for immigrant educators to enter the teacher workforce