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Starting this fall, Maxfield Elementary will welcome several education majors from the University of St. Thomas for an immersive, yearlong student-teaching experience.
St. Thomas and St. Paul Public Schools leaders announced the new partnership on Friday, saying it will better prepare the teaching candidates while providing additional, research-based support for struggling students.
Superintendent Joe Gothard said the program, which they’re calling the Maxfield Elementary Collaborative Learning School, also could inspire more students, especially students of color, to consider teaching as a career.
“It’s showing our young scholars that this is who you can become,” he said, “and you can see this happening in a school in our district every day.”
For five weeks this spring, St. Thomas will implement an after-school math tutoring program for all Maxfield students. Then, starting on the first day of school in the fall, between six and eight education majors will be embedded in Maxfield classrooms, where they’ll focus on literacy instruction for K-2 students who are behind grade level.
At Maxfield, where 85 percent of students qualify for free school meals, just 15 percent passed the state’s math test last year and 20 percent tested proficient in reading.
“It allows our students to be in the field for far more hours than required for state licensure,” said Amy Smith, interim education dean at St. Thomas.
That extra time, she said, “prepares our teachers to be in the world right away, day one ready.”
Maxfield also will set aside a classroom for use by St. Thomas faculty. They’ll use that space to teach and organize field-based research involving more St. Thomas students.
For a teacher preparation program, Smith said, such a close partnership “is the dream. This is the gold standard.”
The school district and St. Thomas already work together on the SPPS Urban Teacher Residency, or SUTR, which seeks to prepare more teachers of color through a paid, 15-month program where candidates help out in the classroom while earning a master’s degree and teaching license.
There’s precedent in the district for a close relationship with higher education. Hamline Elementary is Hamline University’s lab school, receiving tutors and research-based teaching methods.
Maxfield is calling its relationship with St. Thomas a collaboration, not a lab school.
“This is a dream come true for many of our students and faculty here and our families,” Principal Leslie Hitchens said.
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