Sergio De La Rosa remembers the moment he knew he wanted to be a teacher.
He was running a Boys & Girls Club in Fort Morgan, providing after-school, summer, and fifth-day care to students in the four-day school district. Although Fort Morgan is diverse, De La Rosa said he saw how some Spanish-speaking families felt left out — and how the club’s programming was making a difference.
“I’d have kids and families come up to me and say, ‘Mr. Sergio, we miss you,’” said De La Rosa, who grew up in Colorado speaking Spanish at home. “That was the pivotal moment for me where I realized I’d like to be working with kids more directly.”
A new program is helping him realize his dream of teaching sooner than he thought possible. De La Rosa, who previously worked as a community organizer and youth corrections officer, is one of about 100 apprentices enrolled in the state’s new Teacher Degree Apprenticeship Program.
Created by a 2023 state law, the program combines college classes with on-the-job training to provide adults without a bachelor’s degree a pathway to becoming a licensed teacher. The program is officially launching this fall after being piloted last year.
It’s a creative solution to a perennial problem. Colorado had about 2,800 vacant teaching positions at the start of the last school year, according to data from the Colorado Department of Education.
While many positions were filled by long-term substitutes, retired educators, and teachers with alternative licenses, who already have a bachelor’s degree in something other than education, nearly 600 positions went unfilled all year long.
More states are adopting apprenticeship programs to help fill the gap, and some local school districts, including Cherry Creek, have started apprenticeship programs of their own. In addition to minting more teachers, apprenticeships tend to attract more candidates of color, more bilingual candidates, and more candidates who live in the community, offering solutions to some of the profession’s biggest hiring challenges.
Liz Qualman, the director of teacher education at Colorado Mountain College, which provides college courses for the state’s apprenticeship program, said there are more men in the cohort working toward becoming elementary school teachers than she’s ever seen in the college’s traditional teacher preparation program.
“These kids need it,” Qualman said of the elementary school students. “They need to see Sergio in front of them everyday and be like, ‘I want to be a teacher just like Mr. De La Rosa.’”
Shortly after his pivotal moment, De La Rosa said the principal of Fort Morgan’s Baker Elementary School, where the Boys & Girls Club was housed, approached him about an open teaching position for students learning English as a second language.
But De La Rosa had to say no. He didn’t qualify for an alternative teacher license because he hadn’t finished college, a milestone he figured would have to wait until his three young children were older and he had more money saved up. A few days later, when the principal told De La Rosa that Colorado was starting an apprenticeship program, the 32-year-old said it was life-changing.
“It’s never too late to find out where you truly belong,” De La Rosa said.
