FLAGSTAFF — When it became clear last spring Ruben Rosthenhausler would lose his job as manager of the Berger Performing Arts Center, he told himself to remain open to all possibilities.
There was lots to be grateful for even after he learned the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind would move campuses and the Berger Center would change hands. His daughter had just graduated from Marana High School and earned a college scholarship.
A Ritz-Carlton luncheon for scholarship recipients, turned out to be a benefit for Rosthenhausler, 58, too. An encounter with an old friend at the luncheon led to questions: Was he interested in teaching? Could he put together an application and packet in a few days?
Rosthenhausler had spent decades as a performer and a short stint as a substitute teacher. Most recently, he wrote a self-published book.
The universe put an opportunity in front him. And Rosthenhausler listened.
He was accepted into the Arizona Teacher Residency program — where he can earn a master’s degree in two years, with a stipend to support his family and a job when he finishes.
“The universe just works,” said Rosthenhausler earlier this summer, before one of his final shifts at the Berger. “I’m in this program because my daughter, who works her butt off, got this scholarship and we happen to be there at the Ritz-Carlton. Is that amazing the way the universe works? And now I’m in this program. Unbelievable.”
He is one of 18 students selected statewide and three from Southern Arizona, participating in the Arizona Teacher Residency program at Northern Arizona University. Student teaching is the core of the program, which puts students in the classroom with a mentor almost immediately, giving them two years of classroom instruction and preparation as part of a master’s degree program in K-8 education with a stipend. In exchange, teachers agree to spend at least three years teaching in a Title I school — those with at least 40% low-income students.
In a state that ranks nearly last in teacher retention rates and pay, the AZTR program is a shining star. After the first four years of the program, 95% of its teachers are in classrooms. The state retention rate is 14%.
“That’s one of our major metrics. They feel prepared. They’re staying. They are kind of reshaping communities,” says Victoria Theisen-Homer, AZTR director. “In some of our smaller districts you can really see their presence known over the last four years. So it’s really great to see that.”
Theisen-Homer, an Arizona native who started the program during the pandemic, said her goal in the first few years was proof of concept.
“If we fund them, we provide them support, we provide them coursework that is in line with best practices and research — we can really help them to sustain themselves in the profession,” she said. “There’s a lot of challenges that schools are facing today. So even amidst this, we’re still seeing this really, really high retention rate of our graduates.”
“Doing the human work of teaching”
A former teacher who benefitted from a strong teacher preparation program herself, Theisen-Homer studied teacher residencies for her doctoral work. She then wrote a book, surveyed undergraduates at Arizona universities and interviewed local educators, administrators and business leaders on their perceptions of local education needs. She translated the work into a newspaper opinion piece, received an emergency COVID-19 relief grant from former Arizona Superintendent Kathy Hoffman, and the residency program became a reality in 2022.
Residency programs have been around for about 20 years, with about 440 in the United States. Twenty-two states and Washington D.C., have teaching residency programs.
“I was really passionate about the importance of this model, specifically as it relates to connecting with human beings and teaching our teachers to connect to human beings — to do the human work of teaching, as well as to be better instructionally,” Theisen-Homer said.
Creating those connections began on Day 1 of the residency program at NAU’s School of Education.
About the series
The teacher retention series is a partnership between Arizona Luminaria education reporter Shannon Conner and 13 News education reporter Isabela Lisco. The project includes 13 newsrooms from around the state, collaborating with the Arizona Local News Foundation. The collection of stories explores Arizona’s teacher retention crises through the voices of Tucson-area educators and how they navigate it with classroom preparation, professional development, and supplementing their careers with second jobs. Watch and read the complete series to hear from teachers, administrators, advocates and experts.
In late June, students began the day at tables and learned about the different houses (teams) they are part of. They laughed their way through some games, like keeping a balloon afloat in a circle — without hands.
Middle school teacher Hector Campos led the discussion.
An AZTR graduate from the first cohort, Campos now also teaches the prospective teachers. He is also in his second year teaching English Language Arts to seventh graders in the Roosevelt School District in Phoenix.
But standing in front of the classroom was not where Campos saw himself initially. He was a psychology and advertising double major at NAU. But after taking an elective education course, his path became more clear and he applied to the residency program.
“It really just kind of pulled the curtain of like what it is to be a teacher compared to other programs where you’re just student teaching for maybe a semester and that’s it,” he said.
Classroom experience is the hallmark of the residency. Students are paired with a district that needs them and a mentor teacher. Then, they enter the class in the first semester — observing the students, the mentor and themselves — and lesson planning.
Getting that background before taking on a classroom as a solo teacher, makes the difference, Campos said.
Teachers often leave their schools in the first three to five years because of lack of support or burnout and student misbehavior, data shows. In Arizona, 24% of teachers leave by year four. Knowing what they can handle and how to handle it, is everything.
“You can be amazing at creating a lesson. That’s awesome. But you don’t know what it is to be in a classroom year-round when the holidays come around, when state testing is around, when it’s the first
first day of school,” Campos, 26, said. “Those very essential moments for not only the kid but for the teacher — how to run a classroom, the classroom management, the lessons, the planning behind it, the meetings behind it,” he said.
“This residency really does everything in that aspect where you are basically another teacher in that class for the whole year and not just sitting in the classroom doing lessons, lessons, lessons,” Campos said.
“And I think that’s really what changed within me, this is a much more applicable type of thing instead of just doing an online course.”
Homegrown teacher
Recent University of Arizona graduate Jo Mikronis wanted to be in the classroom right away. She thought substitute teaching was her immediate path after she shifted from the possibility of culinary school.
As an undergrad studying environmental science, Mikronis was a teaching assistant and doing preceptor work. She “developed a passion for educating and being a mentor to students.”
Without the residency program, Mikronis says she would not have been able to afford graduate school and the more than $30,000 this master’s program would cost. The stipend is $25,000 a year.
The program provides healthcare for everyone who needs it (about $3,000 a year), rainy day funds up to $1,000 are available along with the tuition and fees (almost $30,000 over two years and covered by the Arizona Teachers Academy for all eligible candidates), books are covered at about $800. Travel and equipment stipends are available through the Registered Teacher Apprenticeship program.
“It amounts to quite a lot of money! And residents pay almost nothing for this,” Theisen-Homer said. “I think some people think this is too good to be true, but they do have to commit to the four years of working in schools (one year of residency plus three years as teacher of record) or their tuition becomes a loan they have to repay. Our first cohort has just finished this four-year teaching commitment and most would say the time went by so fast. Most of us had to pay a lot for our teacher preparation — our residents do not — so this is a really good deal.”
Mikronis, who grew up in the Marana Unified School District, will remain close to home and teach at Picture Rocks Elementary, where she hopes to work with kindergarten or first-grade students.
The contrast of teaching in college and now at the elementary level has at least one powerful commonality, Mikronis, 22, said.
“Seeing just the students around me understand the material as I was talking about it, was such a beautiful moment and a beautiful example of human connection that I just really loved,” she said. “Education is such a foundation to who we are as people. And that was just a very enriching experience to see that light bulb light up.”
Channeling that enthusiasm is foundational to the residency program.
About 60% of students in the program identify as people of color. They range in age from 22 to 60. Some are trying second careers. Others are returning to schools in a new way.
In the NAU classroom, the prospective teachers are quiet. It’s before 10 a.m. on a summer morning and the nerves are visible with bouncing legs under tables and phone scrolling. Some guzzle coffee, others sip from water bottles.
“I think for years we have been undermining the teaching profession,” Theisen-Homer told Arizona Luminaria. “We’re reducing it to something that it’s not. And what it is, is a really incredibly powerful profession where we are literally building the future of our state, right?”
Complicated profession, big responsibility
Teaching jobs are available here in Arizona, where the shortage is one of the worst in the country, according to the Learning Policy Institute.
We have about 4,000 openings here. And of course, earning more than the state average of $64,291 could keep some teachers in the classroom.
But teachers and students who aim to become educators say respect, student behavior and how to handle it, are also key factors.
“We are creating the future doctors, future lawyers, the future voters, and so it’s really important that they get a good, solid well-rounded education,” Theisen-Homer said. “But in order to do that, you need someone who’s really competent at the helm of this classroom. And so we have taken that idea and said, doctors or even skilled tradesmen need a yearlong residency or apprenticeship before you step foot in the classroom.
“You need to learn the skills of the trade, to practice, to have coursework that is aligned with this experience so that you can understand the complexities of the work before you because teaching is an incredibly complicated profession,” she said.
For Rosthenhausler, the intricacies of teaching align with his life experience. He does not want to “live a life full of stress,” he said.
Instead, he will take the lived experience of being in a band, earning a degree in Spanish literature, his time as a father, of working with artists of all kinds at the Berger and being an author, and fuse them, putting that energy into his students.
He summarized this in one of his first residency assignments, in an “I am” poem. The end reads:
“I am from literature.
I am from drumming in a new rock band.
I am from losing a job because of greed and mismanagement.
I am from embracing a new adventure.
And I am from planting a seed of hope and excitement for life to young creators.”
Isabela Lisco is a Report for America corpsmember covering education solutions for 13 News. Her position is made possible through funding from Report for America and the Arizona Local News Foundation’s Arizona Community Collaborative Fund.
Shannon Conner is the education solutions reporter for Arizona Luminaria supported by a grant from the Arizona Local News Foundation.
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