New efforts are being made to attract new teachers to rural areas of Colorado.
Education officials are finalizing a list of recommendations to address challenges to Colorado’s teacher workforce, and as The Denver Post reports, state officials are considering asking lawmakers to take the bold step of establishing a minimum teacher salary requirement tied to the cost of living.
That is just one of about a dozen recommendations included in a draft report - assembled at the request of the legislature - that also proposes a marketing campaign and scholarships to attract new teachers to rural areas.
The impending report — based on thousands of responses from educators, students and other Colorado residents - is a sort of first step for the state legislature to tackle the state’s teacher shortage.
Since 2010, there has been a 24 percent drop in the number of students graduating from the state’s traditional teacher colleges and a 23 percent drop in enrollment in those programs.
