Dutch Fork High's Teacher Cadet Program to be Featured on ETV

How do today’s best and brightest students become tomorrow’s teachers? This is the question that a group of Lexington-Richland School District Five educators and students aimed to answer in a recently taped SCETV segment, scheduled to be aired statewide later this month. 

Dutch Fork High School’s Teacher Cadet Program was selected to represent the state’s premiere pre-collegiate teacher recruitment initiative. The South Carolina Teacher Cadet Program is one of three finalists for the Dick and Tunky Riley WhatWorksSC award, and SCETV films a video of each of the finalists to air at the awards ceremony and then later on SCETV. Piloted in South Carolina in the mid-80s, the Teacher Cadet Program has grown to include 170 high schools in the state and numerous sites in 33 additional states. More than 50,000 South Carolina students have participated in the program since its creation. District Five has Teacher Cadet Programs at three of its high schools. 

Marcella Wine-Snyder is the Pre-Collegiate Program Director for the Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention, & Advancement (CERRA), the nonprofit organization that operates the state’s Teacher Cadet Program. She says Dutch Fork High School has one of the most exemplary Teacher Cadet Programs in the Midlands.

“We chose the Dutch Fork High School program to feature for a number of reasons,” Wine-Snyder said. “It has a large cohort of cadets going through the program with two sections of the program being offered at the high school. The teacher (Carol Jackson) is also a phenomenal Teacher Cadet instructor, and she is also a curriculum trainer for CERRA as well. Dutch Fork High School was also the first school in the state to offer a coaches section of Teacher Cadet, aimed at attracting students who want to be teacher-coaches into the program. That class has helped to recruit males and minorities, two under-represented groups in the teaching profession. So for those reasons and more, we chose to feature this school.”

During the Oct. 1 taping at Dutch Fork High, SCETV crews filmed a Teacher Cadet lesson on disabilities and interviewed students and educators on the impact of the program. 

“There is absolutely nothing more important to the future of South Carolina than the quality of what happens in a classroom,” said Jackson, who has been teaching Teacher Cadet for nearly a decade. “…We can put money in medical programs but then those doctors have to come through classrooms and be taught. We can put money in social programs, and that’s wonderful, but then those social workers ultimately have to come through schools and be taught. So, it really all does come back down to a classroom and a teacher. If we can invest in that, then we have done the very best thing we can do for our state.”

Dutch Fork Principal Dr. Greg Owings added, “I think it’s real important to keep our brightest and best students in South Carolina, especially the ones in the teaching profession. I have been very fortunate to have coached and taught some former students who became teachers for me. So, I’ve seen the value of keeping good teachers here … and I just think the Teacher Cadet Program is a very valuable tool.” 

Many of the Teacher Cadets said the program has helped them become better students and people. In early October, the class completed a “try on a disability” exercise; using vision-impairing goggles, wheelchairs and other hands-on activities in an effort to empathize with people who have disabilities.

For Dutch Fork Teacher Cadet Danielle McCaw, the program has helped in several ways. “Being a part of the Teacher Cadet Program has been one of the best decisions I’ve made since I’ve been in high school,” she said during her SCETV interview. “I’ve been so honored to be in the program because it’s grown what Ms. Jackson likes to call our ‘teacher hearts.’ I have a new outlook on life, not just in school but also outside of school. It’s made me realize that children with special needs are people too … you feel a new passion for people around you. It’s just the best decision I’ve made.”