School of Education Partnerships Serve Waco and Surrounding Communities

The Professional Development School (PDS) campuses and Partnership Network provide junior and senior education majors professional preparation through real-world teaching experience in a Waco classroom. Undergraduate teacher-education students spend a cumulative 87,000 hours teaching in local schools each year and are mentored by more than 150 trained teachers. Together, these programs give Baylor teacher candidates close to two years of experience in the classroom.

The School of Education is currently partnered with a total of nine campuses, three in Midway ISD and six in Waco ISD, at the elementary, middle school and secondary levels. Baylor juniors are assigned a campus and assist in the classroom as “Teaching Associates” to teach and co-teach small groups of students. Senior teacher- education candidates either teach in one of 14 other campuses in the Partnership Network or at a PDS campus as an intern. Both teacher candidates and mentor teachers alike bene t from these programs. Mentors learn new and innovative teaching techniques, and candidates gain a variety of experiences in multiple grade levels as well as preparation needed for their careers after graduation.

Dr. Krystal Goree, director of the of office of professional practice, which oversees the placement of candidates in classrooms, said the matching process is highly detailed and uses information and feedback from Baylor faculty who have previously worked with the candidates.

“We want to make sure that when we place teacher education candidates in the classroom, they’re having a positive effect on the students’ learning and achievement,” Dr. Goree said.

Teacher candidates work in small group settings in the classroom where the districts’ students receive more individualized and differentiated instruction.

“It’s exciting to walk into a classroom where our candidates are placed and see the impact we’re having in our community,” Dr. Goree said.

The Campus-Based Family Services Project is a new initiative from the School of Education aiming to support teachers in implementing positive behavior management strategies in Waco Independent School District. The Baylor Center for Developmental Disabilities proposed the Campus-Based Family Services-School of Education Grant which was awarded at the end of July. Four graduate students from the department of educational psychology, along with five Baylor University faculty to assist with supervision, will work with students, faculty and staff at a Waco ISD campus to consult and provide direct intervention services in the classroom.

“We want to ensure that they have a strong overall behavior support system within a multi-tiered framework, and we will help structure one of their classrooms they utilize for students that are struggling and have the most intensive behavior needs,” said Kristen Padilla-Mainor, director of the Baylor center for developmental disabilities.

The project will provide the support students need in order for them to focus on learning and improve academic performance. As teachers and faculty are trained and problematic behavior begins to diminish in the classroom, the goal is to see resulting reductions in office referral rates, suspension rates and the number of students placed in alternative education programs.

Bonny Cain, superintendent of Waco ISD, said the main bene t of this collaboration is helping students and their families. A large portion of the school district’s students are in poverty, and the project seeks to serve Waco and its students by helping and encouraging families without criticism or judgment.

“We want to be a model for school districts across the state and nationally,” Cain said.

Baylor faculty are excited about this new partnership between Baylor, the School of Education and Waco ISD, and continuing to increase their involvement in serving the community.

“We really hope that the program will be very successful and that this collaboration will continue to grow,” Padilla-Mainor said.

Other School of Education partnerships and programs touch a wide range of needs including:

The Math for Early Learners Academy (MELA), a four- week summer camp developed to increase math readiness in pre-kindergarten children. This year, the camp served about 15 students from Waco ISD’s Brook Avenue Elementary with classes at the Mayborn Museum.

The Baylor Center for Developmental Disabilities (BCDD), a collaboration with McLane Children’s Scott & White to provide assessment and therapy services for children with developmental disabilities in Central Texas. The Center includes two School of Education clinics that focus on autism and applied behavior analysis.

iEngage Summer Civics Institute through iCivics, allows fifth- through ninth-graders an opportunity to learn about civic action, political action and the structure of government through a week-long summer camp hosted by the School of Education.

University for Young People’s (UYP) Project Promise, is a collaboration with the City of Waco in a four-week day camp on Baylor’s campus for fourth-through 12th-graders who are identified as gifted and talented and meet the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) federal low-income eligibility requirements. Its goals are to develop students’ aspirations to higher education and identify their strengths.

The Greater Waco Area’s Superintendent’s (GWAS) Collaboration, unites ten local school districts with the School of Education. GWAS provides a network and united presence for Greater Waco school district superintendents that serves as an advisory council for Baylor’s School of Education and leverages joint resources for the betterment of K-12 public education and stronger community support for public schools.

EnAbled for College, provides one-on-one mentoring to disabled and at-risk high school students, many with learning disabilities, to encourage and enable them to pursue post-secondary education.