Deep in the Heart of Education: Addressing Texas Teacher Shortage with Grow Your Own Initiatives

Abstract

This paper explores how Grow Your Own (GYO) educator initiatives can mitigate the pressing teacher shortage by unpacking the nature of the shortage and key factors of recruitment and retention. GYO proposes a solution by specifically targeting districts that often report the most frequent shortages: urban and rural schools. Our approach to recruitment expands the teacher pipeline and strives for retention by offering a strategy that capitalizes on asset-based community development and notions of heart work to assist in removing barriers that historically have kept Black, Latinx, Asian and other communities from pursuing teaching careers. Recommendations outline several current grant funding opportunities that can be utilized to establish a GYO, and encourage the exploration of partnerships with community-based organizations.