A new internship requirement at ASU’s teachers college has some students considering transferring.
The iTeachAZ program at the Mary Lou Fulton Teacher’s College would require some education majors to take unpaid internships at a school for one full school year, where they would work all day for five days a week.
The program is set to begin next fall and is mandatory for education majors in early childhood education, elementary education, special education and those seeking Diversity in Language and Learning degrees.
Some students say the program will prevent them from being able to hold other jobs.
“We know that the program will be beneficial to us,” education junior Natalya Wipprecht said. “[But] a lot of our classmates are also parents who have to rely on a steady income, and if they’re in classrooms constantly Monday through Friday, they won’t be able to work.”
All current first-semester juniors are the first group required to participate in iTeachAZ, said Nancy Perry, the assistant dean of clinical services at the education school.
ASU professors would go to internship locations to teach interns their other coursework, including capstone classes.
Perry said the school is working to find ways to help students who might have difficulties participating in the program.
“We’ve had two out of three informational meetings so far,” Perry said. “We’re giving them a year to prepare and answer a questionnaire about what areas they will need help in.”
Questionnaires filled out by students during the informational meeting last Friday show the number of students who require assistance will be low, she said.
“It’s going to be individualized and depend on what students need,” Perry said. “We will provide resources for students who have children.”
Perry said increasing the amount of time students spend in the classroom will produce better teachers and improve retention in the education workforce.
“We’re working together to raise the achievement of students while at the same time preparing the students for a competitive work place,” she said.
Education junior Holly Schramm helped recruit people for a Facebook group called “Stop iTeach AZ at ASU,” which had 40 members Thursday.
Schramm said many of the students were worried about how this will affect their families.
“I’m a single mother of two children, I go to school and I have two jobs already,” Schramm said.
During a mandatory meeting, students with children were given information on how to find childcare resources in their neighborhoods, but Schramm said that was not enough.
Students will not be able to work as much, she said, and they’d have the added expense of childcare.
“I’ve worked really hard,” she said. “I returned to school at 41, I have a learning disability, I’ve worked so hard to get where I am. And now I’m going to be forced to leave.”
Schramm said she’s looking into other Arizona schools.
Tamara Wattenbarger, a junior studying special education, said she might also transfer.
“This is not the program that we all signed up for,” she said.
Perry said the school is trying to resolve these issues.
“While we are asking students to do this, we are making every effort a year in advance to work with them to make it doable,” she said.
Reach the reporter at ymgonzal@asu.edu
