Cave Creek Unified School District (CCUSD) has identified a win-win situation for the teacher shortage in its K-12th grade World Language and Language Immersion classrooms. By tapping into the Embassy of Spain, the Chinese Ministry of Education and more recently, the French Embassy, CCUSD has employed or offered volunteer placements to 18 educators from Spain, France, Canada, Taiwan and China.
These ministries of education and embassies have their teachers go through an extensive interview process before being placed into the international pool for other countries to choose from. The international teachers all have full teaching degrees, be it from their home countries or from a U.S. university. CCUSD World Language Program Coordinator, Cristina
Ladas, oversees all aspects related to this project and comments, “the authenticity that these international teachers bring benefits both them and their CCUSD students. Students learn another language from someone native to that language and culture. On the flip side, the international teachers learn new strategies for how to best teach American students.” For now, this is one solution to help world language and immersion programs continue to grow in CCUSD and in AZ.
The Cave Creek Unified School District is the number 1 school district in Maricopa County for student achievement. For more information regarding CCUSD’s PreK-12 World Language programs contact Cristina Ladas, World Language Programs Coordinator, at [email protected] or by calling 4800-575-2019
