Kent ISD — Adrianna Lynn is headed overseas in January to study ways to recruit and retain a diverse education workforce.
The Kent ISD Teacher Academy instructor will take part in a Fulbright Teacher Exchange, part of the Fulbright program, funded by Congress and overseen by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The exchange provides opportunities for elementary and secondary educators around the world to share education practices and bring global skills and perspectives to their schools.
Lynn’s award is in the teaching research program, where she will spend three months in the United Kingdom. While there, she will focus on the research topic “Pathways to Teaching: A Case Study on Establishing Sustainable Partnerships that Recruit and Retain a Diverse Educator Workforce.”
She explained the study’s purpose “to examine how K-12 teacher preparation programming, universities and policy interact to support the recruitment and retention of a diverse educator workforce.”
Lynn said the project has three goals: to identify the characteristics of effective teacher preparation, to explore university and district partnership dynamics and how they develop support for the recruitment and retention among teachers of color, and to outline potential policy recommendations to sustain a district to university employment pipeline.
The project is a direct link to The Teacher Academy, which works to close the gap of the teacher shortage and connect teachers who are effective and representative of the communities they serve.
“Leading this research will only strengthen our ability to understand what’s required of programs like ours to become a viable pathway for future teachers who’ve previously been marginalized from the profession and partner with our communities to help solve a complex problem,” Lynn said.
“We are very excited that Adrianna has earned this outstanding opportunity to participate in the Fulbright Program,” Kent Career Tech Center Principal Joe Lienesch said. “As an exemplary educator, she will definitely be able to maximize this experience to positively impact any educational institution she engages with through this experience.”
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