Conclusion

This fall, Sergio De La Rosa begins the third year of his apprenticeship. He now leads a classroom of multilingual learners at Baker Elementary School in Fort Morgan. The days can be long—he stays at school late for his college classes some evenings—but the structure suits him. In his college courses, he learns “new ways to approach or to tackle different situations” in the classroom. “And then I get to implement [them] literally the very next day,” he said. 

“It’s not for the faint of heart,” De La Rosa said. But degree apprenticeship made a teaching career possible for him in a way that no other teacher preparation program would have. He doesn’t have to give up a paycheck, take out student loans, or drive hours to a college campus. The program works with his life and his family. “Having all of that wrapped up into the community that I live in and love is amazing,” he said.

The degree apprenticeship has also benefited the school district. When he completes in 2028 with a degree from Colorado Mountain College, he’ll stay on at Baker Elementary. His mentor, Shelly Ocanas, describes him as “phenomenal.” She said, “His hunger for knowledge and his enthusiasm towards [teaching] seem to be on another level.” And his perspective is one the district needs. More than a quarter of the students in Morgan County schools are multilingual learners⁵⁵ and two-thirds are Hispanic or Latino.⁵⁶ Ocanas said that De La Rosa’s personal experience—immigrating as a child and being an English learner himself—has made him good at designing lessons for a multilingual, multicultural classroom and understanding his students’ needs. 

Teacher degree apprenticeship is young, so it’s too soon to say if it will deliver on some of its longer-term promises. But the early results are encouraging. Degree apprenticeships have offered affordable, accessible avenues into the teaching field for individuals like De La Rosa, who previously had none. It has helped districts like Morgan County address shortages by recruiting teachers who are from the community, who look like their students, and who have a passion for education. And as they’ve evolved from a traditional model of teacher preparation, institutions of higher education (IHEs) like Colorado Mountain College have begun to reach new populations of students and learned how to align their coursework with district partners’ needs. 

As new teacher degree apprenticeship programs emerge across the country, we hope this report can help leaders at school districts, IHEs, state education agencies, and apprenticeship agencies to make sense of a promising model. Understanding different strategies for sponsorship, affordability, and accessibility will enable program leaders to develop strong programs that address the needs of apprentices, districts, and higher education partners now and in the long term.