Signing day celebration for future CCSD educators

The Cherry Creek School District held their first Future Educators Signing Day Ceremony on May 1 at Cherry Creek Innovation Campus, celebrating nineteen students. These students are committed to studying education in college, and plan to come back to Cherry Creek for an interview following college graduation. With a nationwide teacher shortage, the Career & Technical Education (CTE) team applauded these students’ commitment to the future.

“I think this is ideal, that you grow your own, that your future educators localize your district,” Future Educator Pathway Instructor Kara Billings said. “They have the same buy-in as the district and their families are from the district. I think it takes on a whole new meaning when they go away for college and they come back and they give back to the place that helped raise them.”

Billings, who has been an educator since 1993, says the apprenticeship program can be up to three years and those who were in their first, second, and third years were also celebrated at the signing ceremony. Many who were honored at the ceremony counted down the days until the special day.

“It made me feel appreciated and you could feel how happy everyone was for us,” Eaglecrest senior Andrew Perez added. “It was such a great feeling. Our hard work was recognized, and we can’t wait to come back to work for CCSD.”

Perez plans to become a Special Education teacher. Perez is one of two recipients of the CCIC of the Nicolas LeClaire Memorial Scholarship by the Cherry Creek Schools Foundation, an award of $5,000 toward the expenses of his continuing education. This past year, he did an apprenticeship at Timberline Elementary School in the Integrated Learning Center (ILC). Next year, he hopes to do his second apprenticeship at a middle school in the district.

“It was the best experience and I truly learned so much on the job,” Perez explained. “There are some experiences that you just don’t learn from a textbook and having this hands-on experience is the best.”

He would like to work for CCSD after college graduation. In his family, there are three generations of students and teachers in the district.

“I want to give back to kids and work for the district I have been in for my whole life,” he said. “I want to be an educator because I love working with special needs students. I enjoy helping kids and watching them learn and grow.”

The future educator program is trying to retain these students. In the future, organizers would like to open the signing day ceremony to students in the Teacher Recruitment Education and Preparation (TREP) program and anyone in the district who plans to go into education after high school graduation.

A parent at the ceremony said, “Teachers sometimes get a bad rap, so it was great seeing kids who want to be teachers finally getting the recognition they deserve. This career is admirable and is something that should be looked up to.”

Billings had some final advice for any students who want to get into education: If you don’t find your pathway right away as a teacher or a counselor, stick with it.

“If you are good at something and you like doing something, then you should embrace that. A field like education has a wide variety of positions that you could do within that. You could be a school psychologist, a counselor, you could be a speech therapist. There are a million things that you could do within the education system,” she said. “You’re going to get a huge amount out of it, and the people that you work with will also get a huge amount out of it.”

The full list of honorees:

Posted 5/17/2023.