ESU’s Professional Development School Helps Grads Land Teaching Jobs

Rick Amato ’02 graduated from East Stroudsburg University on a Saturday, and the following Monday he started teaching sixth grade at East Hills Middle School in the Bethlehem Area School District.

For Ilene Austin ’90,’04, the ink on her new teacher certification from ESU was barely dry when she received a job offer from Stroudsburg High School to teach English.

Jessica Rokosz ’14 graduated last May and was hired in July to teach fourth grade in Newbern, N.C.

Amato, Austin and Rokosz give all the credit for their quick hires to their experience through the Professional Development School (PDS) at East Stroudsburg University’s College of Education, which provided much more hands-on teaching experience than most teacher training programs.
“My principal and the other teachers who interviewed me were blown away by how much experience we received compared to the teachers here in North Carolina who only spend one semester with a class,” said Rokosz.

“I would highly recommend Professional Development School to anyone who is contemplating going into teaching,” Austin added.

At any given time, ESU has more than 200 students doing PDS field work at schools in seven school districts. Students majoring in elementary education, secondary education, special education and health and physical education construct lesson plans, teach, organize projects and perform other teaching tasks up to two days a week in schools while continuing to take university courses. The PDS work starts for education majors as freshmen with classroom observation. In their junior year, students are working with mentor teachers in schools one day a week and add a second day in their senior year. By the time ESU students are student teaching full time, they have had hundreds of hours in the classroom.

ESU’s Professional Development School turns 15 this year and is marking the anniversary with a celebration and symposium on March 28, from 8:30 to 3 p.m. at the Innovation Center on campus. Speakers will share cutting-edge work going on in schools, and the program will include roundtable discussions with legislators, education faculty, teachers and others in the field.

Patricia Pinciotti, Ed.D., ESU professor of elementary and early childhood education and special assistant to the dean for the elementary PDS, said she has seen how students are transformed into teachers by the Professional Development School.

“When they go to interview for a job, they talk about real experiences they had in real classrooms,” Pinciotti said. “They’re involved in doing all kinds of things that teachers would do. They are integrated in the school community. By the time they are seniors, they are looking and talking like teachers.”

At some universities’ education departments, only the top echelon of students get into the PDS program. But ESU has the greatest reach, placing more students into more school districts than any other university in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE).

“We really believe that all of our students need to have this experience to become teachers,” Pinciotti said.

Experience shows that PDS gives ESU graduates a leg up in the education job market. Terry Barry, Ed.D., dean of the ESU college of education, took 10 senior education majors to a job fair at Bloomsburg University last spring, and nine of them were offered jobs on the spot.

Some states, such as New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia and Florida require new teachers to have completed PDS, which makes ESU grads especially desirable as new hires.

Amato, assistant principal at Broughal Middle School in Bethlehem, recalls his PDS experience as intense preparation for his teaching career. He did his field work at Arlington Elementary School in Stroudsburg Area School District, where he was mentored by a terrific teacher. Because he was taking ESU classes on the other days, he was able to turn to his education professors for guidance as well. Amato went on to do part of his student teaching stint in East Hills Middle School in Bethlehem.

“I wasn’t struggling with what new student teachers are struggling with because I was in school twice a week as an undergraduate,” Amato said.

There were other student teachers without PDS experience at East Hills at the time, and he was the only one who was offered a job straight out of college.

Rokosz, who earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education with a dual certification in special education, said PDS gave students experience in all aspects of being a teacher before student teaching.

“We already knew how to work with other professionals,” Rokosz said.

For Austin, teaching is her second career. After graduating from ESU with a bachelor’s degree in communication studies, she worked in corporate communications for years before deciding to become a teacher. She took ESU courses to get her teacher certification while doing field work in the Professional Development School.

“I had wonderful professors who had prepared me for what I would experience in the classroom,” Austin said. “It’s not just a lot of theory.”

As soon as she finished student teaching in May 2004 at Stroudsburg Area High School, the principal who had observed her offered her a job.

Now she has the opportunity to pass along her own teaching expertise: Austin comes full circle this month as she begins mentoring an ESU student who is part of the ESU Professional Development School.

2 Responses to “ESU’s Professional Development School Helps Grads Land Teaching Jobs”

---

Search

Recent Posts