Building a Bilingual Teacher Pipeline

The strategies employed during this one-minute interaction, such as the visual demonstration, represent best practices in helping EL students learn new vocabulary.3 It is hard to believe that Davis is not a teacher, given the skill and fluidity of her instruction. Luckily, she will soon be a certified teacher, thanks to her participation in an innovative alternative certification program being implemented at Highline Public Schools in partnership with Woodring College of Education at Western Washington University. The Woodring Highline Future Bilingual Teacher Fellow Program is designed to prepare a small group of paraprofessionals to earn their teaching certification with the goal of easing the district’s current shortage of bilingual teachers. Davis is one of 16 fellows participating in the inaugural cohort of the two-year program, which offers a bachelor’s degree and K–8 teaching credential with the option of also earning a reading endorsement, English learner endorsement, or bilingual endorsement.