supporting
educators
CREEED supports efforts to train, recruit, and retain the best and brightest educators in El Paso schools so that all students in our region are paired with educators that can help them succeed and be prepared for college.
Programs
Educator Externships
Through our Educator Externship Program, CREEED partners with regional businesses and local school districts to provide current educators with a one week paid externship at a regional Borderplex business. Externships take place during the Summer months.
Educator externships offer a unique professional development opportunity that helps connect the classroom to the workplace.
Participating educators are immersed in the daily work environment of a partner business in order to gain a better understanding of what is currently happening in the workforce and observe first-hand the 21st century skills students will need in these fields. Educators can then bring this knowledge back to the classrooms and schools to help create connections, enrich teaching, and provide relevance to student learning through real world examples.
Externship opportunities not only help educators gain fresh perspectives, but they also increase an educator’s ability to explain the value of the content and process standards students learn as soon as they enter school.
If you are an educator wanting to apply for a Educator Externship, or a Borderplex business wanting to participate as a Educator Externship host, contact us to learn more.
Scholarships for Teachers
Dual-credit courses let high school students earn college credits for free before they even graduate. But not every teacher can teach dual-credit courses.
CREEED established a $1 million Accelerated Certification of Teachers (ACT) scholarship fund to increase the number of educators certified to teach dual credit and early college high school courses.
Annually, CREEED works with regional school districts to identify and support a new group of teachers. Through this effort, we are continually increasing the number of dual credit classes that can be offered to students.
All scholarship funding requests must be received from our partner ISDs. If you are a teacher and would like to request a scholarship to help pay for your certification classes, please contact your ISD and ask to be included in the next request for support.
Miner Teacher Mentorship Program
Expanding our partnership efforts, the Miner Teacher Mentorship Program was created to place new teachers, within their first three years of teaching, directly with a highly-trained, experienced educator or coach to provide hands-on guidance and support in the classroom.
Canutillo, Fabens, and Tornillo school districts serve as pilot sites for the new teacher mentorship program. Since 2021, 170 teachers have participated in the mentorship program.
UTEP Miner Teacher Residency Program
Students need to learn from day one, and when a new teacher enters the classroom for the first time, they need to be confident and understand what is needed to be successful.
With over $3.16 million in support from the Prentice Farrar Brown & Alline Ford Brown Foundation, CREEED and the El Paso Community Foundation created an innovative teacher residency program for teacher candidates in the University of Texas College of Education. Before graduation, they spend an entire year learning from experienced teachers in the classroom.
With support from CREEED and our partners, UTEP developed the Miner Teacher Residency Program. Since 2019, 192 teacher candidates have graduated from placements within schools throughout seven school districts in El Paso. As of 2022, all elementary and middle school teacher candidates at UTEP go through the program and receive stipends to support them throughout their year-long residency.
El Paso Counseling and College Advising Initiative
In 2022, we supported the launch of the El Paso Counseling and College Advising Initiative. This regional effort will identify gaps and implement efforts that address the shortage of school counselors serving El Paso students across the region. The goal is to identify solutions that will bring the counselor-to-student ratio closer to the recommended national average of 250 students to 1 counselor.
Currently, the counselor-to-student ratio in Texas is 1,000-to-1, leaving too many students and families without the adequate support and resources they need to prepare for college, apply for financial aid, and pursue a postsecondary education.
Did You Know?
impact
As of 2022, CREEED has provided
Since 2019, CREEED and our partners have supported over
teacher candidates graduating from UTEP’s College of Education as part of new teacher preparation through the UTEP Miner Teacher Residency Program.
Since 2019, CREEED and our partners have supported over
teachers in three El Paso County ISDs as part of the Miner Teacher Mentorship Program.
Community of Practice Regional Task Force
CREEED has partnered with the El Paso Community Foundation and the University of Texas at El Paso to form a Community of Practice with educational stakeholders from all nine school districts, Region 19, and the El Paso Community College. This regional task force is dedicated to finding innovative ways to improve the recruitment, preparation, and retention of highly effective educators in the region.
Newsletter Sign Up
You can learn more about our efforts by visiting our blog. To stay informed on CREEED’s efforts, sign up for our updates.
Contact Us
Our goal is to ensure every student is being taught by a
high-quality teacher and is being prepared to be college ready after graduating high school. Questions? Send us a message to learn more!