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Project trains teachers for special ed classrooms BOWLING GREEN, O.—David Manley had a degree, and a job, in human resources, but two years ago, the 33-year-old was ready for
something different.
“I’d always wanted to become a teacher, and during that time, I just felt it was time for a change,” the Toledo resident said.
Change came in the form of Project CYCLE (Changing Your Career Line to Education), a program that trained Manley to become
a special education teacher—his current job at Scott High School in Toledo.
He is one of 26 working adults, each with a bachelor’s degree in other fields, who have completed training through the program.
In August, all 26 received master’s degrees in education from Bowling Green State University.
Selected from among roughly 300 prospective participants who attended preliminary informational meetings, they came to BGSU
from business, factory and social work, even the ministry and the mortuary. They have emerged as licensed teachers in Wood
County and Sandusky City schools, as well as in Toledo Public Schools.
Of the 26, 23 are now full-time teachers in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade—most of them in Toledo—while others are substitutes.
The Ohio Department of Education funded the two-year project with $190,000 in grant money aimed both at addressing the shortage
of special education teachers in the state and at diversifying the teaching force. Receiving the grant—one of nine of its
kind statewide—were Drs. Lessie Cochran, Cindy Hendricks and Ellen Williams, faculty members in BGSU’s College of Education
and Human Development.
The program’s success has led to a $200,000 grant that enabled the University to embark on a second, two-year CYCLE project,
which began last spring semester. The second Project CYCLE is among five continuations of the program that have been funded
by the state. The others are based at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio University, Ohio Dominican University in Columbus
and Notre Dame College in suburban Cleveland.
In addition to training more teachers, the first round of the project at BGSU has met the diversity goal “using a broad definition,”
said Cochran, an associate professor in the School of Intervention Services. Not only are 21 of the first 26 graduates either
African-American, Hispanic or Asian-American, but six are men and the group members’ ages range from the 20s to the 60s.
They entered the project in summer 2002 with a common desire to change careers to education, a field with which some were
already affiliated as substitute teachers or coaches. They had also met requirements for having an undergraduate degree—with
a grade point average of at least 2.5—demonstrated writing skills, and an acknowledgement by the partnering schools that they
would hire the participants and provide a mentoring program for them as beginning teachers.
“The first summer we started, we hit them pretty intensively with five courses,” Cochran said. Classes were held four evenings
per week so the students could keep their day jobs.
During the 2002-03 academic year, the students took two classes two nights a week in Toledo. At the same time, under a conditional
teaching permit, they were placed in classrooms during the day to begin teaching with the help of mentors. Manley, for instance,
taught special education classes at Libbey High School and Spring Elementary School in Toledo during his two years in the
project.
“All through the schoolwork, the majority of them were teaching full time,” said Hendricks, a professor in BGSU’s School of
Teaching and Learning.
After teaching with conditional permits the first year, the nontraditional students worked with alternative education licenses
last fall. All graduated with a reading endorsement—requirements included attendance at a Summer Literacy Institute in 2003—and
most have now qualified for the next step in licensure, as provisional “intervention specialists.”
The hope is that the voluntary midcareer change will help enhance their commitment to teaching at a time of increasing enrollment
in special education in Ohio. Between 2000 and 2003, the number of special education students statewide rose by 6.8 percent,
from 237,643 to 253,878, according to the Ohio Department of Education.
Some of the new teachers have given up higher-paying jobs to pursue careers in education and because the change is their personal
decision, it is expected to contribute to their higher rate of retention, noted Williams, a professor in the School of Intervention
Services. Because they’re older, added Cochran, many also have established roots in their community.
Since most have families of their own, they also haven’t had as much concern with classroom discipline as their younger colleagues
typically do, said Hendricks. The older teachers’ concerns have centered more on things like classroom supplies and equipment,
she said.
For his part, Manley said he went into the classroom without any particular worries. “I guess I was just excited to be teaching,”
he said. “Once we started, it just fell into place.”
Also an assistant football coach at Libbey, he is one of three members of the first CYCLE group who are taking further graduate
coursework at BGSU. “I would just like to go on and finish up the last rung of the ladder,” he said, referring to a Ph.D.
and expressing interest in getting into school administration eventually.
Manley is also among the first graduates who are helping support the second group of project participants. Of its 19 members,
13 are from Hancock County and six are men, although only one is not Caucasian. Ages range from the 20s to the 50s. Findlay
and Lima city schools are partners for the second CYCLE.
“It was demanding, but it was probably the best experience I ever could have had,” Manley said.
(Posted December 03, 2004 )
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