MPUSD Receives Half a Million Dollars to Support Teacher Residency Program

The Monterey Peninsula Unified School District is pleased to announce that it received $575,000 from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing to support its MPUSD Alder Teacher Residency Program to expand, strengthen, and improve access to the program in the 2022-2023 school year. MPUSD is one of 17 school districts in the state to receive this teacher residency expansion grant.

“Our residency program is critical as it not only creates a larger pool of effective, high-quality educators that learn the MPUSD way, but it allows us to recruit teachers that closely mirror the racial, ethnic and linguistic makeup of our student population,” said PK Diffenbaugh, Superintendent, Monterey Peninsula Unified School District. 

Like many school districts across the state, MPUSD has seen the need to address the acute teacher shortage, in particular finding and keeping diverse, qualified and effective teachers in its high-need schools and in critical subject areas. In 2018, the district partnered with the Alder Graduate School of Education to launch its own teacher residency program and develop a pool of qualified and diverse teachers to fill gaps in its teacher shortage. The program has been extremely successful and has contributed significantly to increasing the diversity of the district’s teaching staff. The fourth cohort begins this upcoming school year.

On average, MPUSD hires 100 new teachers every year. Due to the ongoing nationwide teacher shortage, MPUSD confidently places all of its teacher residents upon graduation each year. One of the challenges has been recruiting a full cohort of residents for the subsequent year, and specifically because of the high cost of living on the Central Coast. In a recent survey of current cohort applicants, many indicated withdrawing their program application due to financial reasons, such as rent, supporting a family or making ends meet during the residency year.

This grant is significant in that it will contribute to the living stipend that will help support teachers in their year of residency. This grant will allow the district to increase its living stipend from $15,000 to $37,000 during their year of residency.

“This increase will support MPUSD in recruiting more diverse teacher residents, as well help us recruit diverse mentor teachers. The mentor stipend will also increase from $2,000 to $5,000 in the 2022-2023 school year,” said Sarah Hudson, Director of Teacher Development, Monterey Peninsula Unified School District.

“We have been close to meeting our recruitment and graduation targets each year of graduating residents thanks to the residency program,” continued Hudson. “Of our 55 residents over three years, we have retained 50 of them as teachers in MPUSD in the school year following their residency year.”