Missouri Tackles Teacher Shortage With Apprenticeship

Across the country, state agencies and local school districts are navigating a deepening educator shortage that not only directly impacts students but also amplifies equity concerns because it has a disproportionate effect on low-income and rural school districts—and special education programs. That’s the case in Missouri. The U.S. Department of Education has designated the state an area of “critical shortage,” and in May 2024 10.8% of special education positions in Missouri were vacant.¹  

In 2022, Missouri State University (MSU) took a step to address these challenges by creating Pathways for Paraprofessionals (Pathways for Paras), a Registered Apprenticeship program that offers paraeducators a tuition-free opportunity to work toward becoming certified special education teachers while remaining in their current jobs at their current schools. 

This initiative is especially important because 15 of the counties Pathways for Paras recruits from are considered what the Congressional Research Service defines as “persistent poverty counties”—locales where at least 20% of the population has been at or below the poverty level for 30 years or more.² The program is more than an opportunity to get a new job; it’s an accessible path to career and economic advancement.  

Like all Registered Apprenticeships, Pathways for Paras offers participants a combination of paid on-the-job training and academic instruction. This approach allows participants to immediately apply their academic learning in real-world classroom settings, enhancing both their practical skills and their understanding of special education. It also creates new economic advancement opportunities for rural workers and learners and enables rural school districts to build reliable local pipelines of certified and highly qualified special educators. 

Pathways for Paras advances workforce equity by creating career pathways for workers who might otherwise face barriers limiting their ability to access or complete traditional education and training programs. All instruction and learning activities are delivered remotely, allowing paraeducators to pursue certification while remaining in their current jobs and enabling rural districts to address teacher shortages with homegrown talent and ensure that their K-12 students will have long-term access to quality education. 

Currently, more than 350 paraeducators are enrolled in the program, representing more than one-third of the state’s 558 school districts. 

At Jobs for the Future (JFF), we see Pathways for Paras as an example of the type of creative, regionally rooted approach to talent development that’s needed across the country to address the special education teacher shortage and similar challenges at scale. 

We interviewed Pathways for Paras program staff members, partners, and apprentices to understand how the program’s approach to strategic partnerships, program design, and funding models could be replicated by other state and local agencies, training providers, and educational institutions,  

Practical Benefits: Apprentices’ Perspectives 

Apprentices in the Pathways for Paras program identified three key benefits of the program’s design that have contributed to their success:  

• Practical Learning: Apprentices said that they value being able to immediately apply the lessons of their coursework into the classroom. They say the hands-on experience allows them to connect theory with practice, making them more prepared for the demands of teaching special education. “Student teaching is a short window into what it’s really like,” said one apprentice. “This program opens people’s eyes to the realities of teaching and prepares them in ways traditional university classrooms can’t.” 

• Social Capital: The program is built on a cohort model that fosters a strong sense of community among participants and provides opportunities to begin building professional networks. The apprentices forge relationships with peers, current special education teachers, and university faculty, creating a support system that helps them navigate the immediate challenges of balancing work, school, and family and could also serve as a source of connections and guidance when they’re seeking new professional opportunities in the future. 
• Economic Advancement Without Sacrifice: The paraeducators we interviewed said they appreciate the fact that they can earn their degrees and certifications without leaving their current jobs. Missouri’s policy of granting provisional teaching licenses allows apprentices to transition into full-time teaching positions sooner, helping fill urgent vacancies in school districts. “This program allowed me to earn a full-time teaching salary while completing my student teaching, giving me financial stability while advancing my career,” said one apprentice. 

Meeting Local Needs: A District-Level Perspective 

The program’s impact is particularly profound in rural districts, where teacher shortages are most acute. Many rural districts struggle to recruit teachers, and in the past, paraeducators had to leave their communities to pursue higher education. Now, districts can upskill existing staffers, many of whom are already deeply embedded in their communities.  

Kristina Smith, director of special services for the Hollister R-V School District, said the program has benefited her district, which serves the small town of Hollister in southwestern Missouri. She said that, in 2024, Hollister was able to fill all of its special education vacancies before the school year started for the first time in 13 years because Pathways for Paras apprentices with provisional licenses were able to step into the roles while completing their student teaching. Asked what advice she would give other districts that are considering implementing similar programs, Smith emphatically said, “Do it and stop trying to fix the problem with the same strategies we have tried without effect for years.”  

Building on this success, MSU’s College of Education is expanding its apprenticeship initiatives in several innovative ways. The college is developing a Registered Youth Apprenticeship program that prepares participants for full Registered Apprenticeships and creates a seamless pathway from high school through college. The College of Education is partnering with local school districts, community colleges, and other four-year institutions to ensure the program’s success. This early pipeline development is further supported by the integration of jobs in before- and after-school special education programs as the work-based learning components of Registered Apprenticeships. 

The college is also taking steps to ensure the sustainability of Pathways for Paras through a collaboration with the Missouri Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development to implement strategic approaches for utilizing funding available through Missouri’s Fast Track Workforce Incentive Grant program to ensure that the program remains tuition-free for participants. 

Recognizing the need for comprehensive educational leadership development, the College of Education is expanding its apprenticeship model to include training for other positions besides classroom teachers. It’s creating three new Registered Apprenticeships for administrative occupations to expand professional development opportunities for K-12 principals, directors of special education programs, and superintendents, ensuring strong leadership pipelines across the education system. 

To help districts share their success stories and attract more participants, the MSU College of Education has developed a media package that provides local school districts with carefully crafted language, images, and hashtags to promote their apprenticeship programs and celebrate their apprentices’ achievements. This resource helps districts effectively communicate the value and impact of these programs to their communities. 

Key Takeaways for Other States 

Apprenticeship may not be the right solution for teacher shortages in every community across the country, but the MSU Pathways for Paras Registered Apprenticeship program is built on a model that other states can follow, with a number of features that can be incorporated into other approaches to teacher training and development. Here are a few key recommendations based on MSU’s experience thus far:  

1. Advocate for state policies that allow paraeducators to teach under provisional licenses while completing their certification, accelerating teacher placement in areas with critical staffing shortages.

The U.S. Department of Labor, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and the Missouri Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development have been critical partners for MSU in establishing program standards and in changing state policy to allow paraeducators to receive provisional teaching licenses as special education teachers. 

2. Adapt existing educator preparation programs to ensure that participants get credit for prior learning and on-the-job training, reducing the amount of time and money paraeducators must spend to become certified.

MSU’s program acknowledges the professional experience that paraeducators bring by offering credit for prior learning. This not only reduces the time and financial burden of obtaining a degree but also integrates their existing skills into the academic curriculum. Many participants can complete the program within two years, depending on prior credits. 

3. Leverage a variety of funding streams to cover program costs and ensure that apprentices can pursue their educations without incurring debt. 

MSU strategically leverages a mix of federal, state, university, and community-based funding to cover the $10,000 annual tuition cost for each apprentice. The FAST Track Workforce Incentive Grant, a unique state program, serves as a “last dollar” funding source, covering any remaining costs after other grants and scholarships are applied. Regional workforce boards, including the Springfield, Missouri, Office of Workforce and Economic Vitality, support the program through federal programs—such as the Good Jobs Challenge, which is run by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration—that provide funding that can cover both tuition and case management services. And local organizations have partnered with the university to provide students with services such as mental health counseling and digital literacy training.  

4. Increase awareness of the benefits of educator apprenticeships to encourage districts to adopt similar models.

Cohort-based apprenticeship models provide comprehensive support to help apprentices succeed. In programs where they’re members of cohorts alongside other workers and learners, apprentices experience the benefits of a mutually supportive environment. They work closely with an experienced, certified special education teacher who provides ongoing support and guidance. This mentor-apprentice relationship offers apprentices opportunities to receive continuous feedback and get support that enables them to navigate classroom challenges in real time. This level of practical engagement ensures that apprentices receive a more thorough preparation for the demands of teaching. The cohort model also lets participants talk through challenges and approaches with their peers and enables them to build and expand professional networks that extend beyond their current schools. 

The Importance of Options 

The most important lesson from the Pathways to Paras program to date may be that it’s essential to offer learners more than one way to embark on and advance in their careers. MSU still offers a more traditional route to teacher credentialing, but by expanding its offerings to include Registered Apprenticeship options, it’s meeting the needs of people for whom pursuing education and training while working full time—in their local communities—is their best route to becoming a certified teacher.  

The program also demonstrates both the value and necessity of forging strategic partnerships with institutions and organizations with a shared vision for supporting individual participants while also laying the groundwork for a sustainable pipeline of highly qualified community-rooted educators. In this way, Missouri is positioned to address immediate workforce needs and create long-term opportunities for career and economic advancement—a strategy that can be readily replicated across the country.  

Endnotes

1 Even with roughly 530,000 individuals currently working as special educators. there are an average of 44,060 job openings for this role posted annually across the country. Lightcast, “Occupation Table Special Education Teachers in United States,” 2024 https://analyst.lightcast.io/analyst/?t=4hpz1#h=472PSK9JfDYriqBpx7B_OrksJyN&page=occupation_table&vertical=edo&nation=us (log-in required); In a federal survey, 80% of states reported shortages of special education teachers during the 2023-24 school year: U.S. Department of Education, “Teacher Shortage Areas,” 2023-2024 school year, https://tsa.ed.gov/#/reports; Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, “Educator Vacancy Report 2024,” May 2024, https://dese.mo.gov/media/pdf/educator-vacancy-report-2024-1.

2 Congressional Research Service, The 10-20-30 Provision: Defining Persistent Poverty Counties, updated February 27, 2023, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45100.