By Graham Williams, Union County News
South Carolina has a teacher shortage.
According to the Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention and Advancement, school districts in South Carolina started the 2023-24 school year with 1,600 teacher vacancies.
The Fast-Track to Teaching initiative aims to reduce that shortage.
“We’re always glad to hear from our high school graduates who continue their education to become a teacher say some of the most rewarding words, ‘I want to teach at home.’” Superintendent Joey Haney said Thursday during a press conference announcing the initiative. ”We hear that a lot here in Union and we’re very proud of that.”
USC Union, USC Upstate and the Union County School District established the Fast Track to Teaching or 2+2 program to provide an educational pathway for local students to obtain a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education, elementary education or middle level education. Students can pursue an associate’s degree through USC Union via dual enrollment while in high school and then transition into a bachelor’s degree program at USC Upstate, where they can earn a bachelor’s degree within two years.
Tuition for the dual enrollment coursework with USC Union would be covered by Lottery Tuition Assistance Program funds from the state. If students have any associate degree coursework remaining after high school and have at least a 3.0 GPA, the Union County Scholarship will cover whatever LIFE Scholarship and other grants or scholarships don’t cover for tuition or fees.
Once at USC Spartanburg qualified students can use LIFE Scholarship and the SC Teacher Loan program to cover the cost of tuition.
“This is a great program overall,” USC Union Dean Randy Lowell said. “We are extremely excited at USC Union to be able to work directly with our partners at the Union County School District and at USC Upstate to create these new pathways for our students to pursue careers in teaching, and to do so in a way that is efficient and at little to no cost to them. Being able to earn their associate degree from USC Union alongside their high school diploma, and then complete all of their upper division education coursework and student teaching through USC Upstate within those next two years out of high school, is an amazing opportunity for them. Critically, being able to do most, if not all, of this right here in Union County on the USC Union campus and in Union County schools will be a great help to the schools in this area in their efforts to meet the large demand for teachers in their classrooms that they, like many schools around the country, continue to face.”
Fast Track to Teaching will provide more teachers while also helping students and their families cut the cost of education in half and the time to get a degree in half, said Dr, Susan Elkins, chancellor of USC’s Palmetto College.
“Students are going to start their associate’s degree while in high school, finish it in high school and probably walk across the stage with us before they walk across the stage with you with that associate’s degree, completely free,” she said. “In two more years they’ll be walking across the stage with Chancellor (Bennie) Harris at USC Upstate, cutting the time and the cost of a degree in half to fulfill one of the greatest shortage areas we have in the workforce in this state and around the entire country.”
Harris compared the effect of the Fast Track to Teaching initiative to boiling water.
“At 211 degrees water is hot,” he said. “At 212 degrees it boils. From boiling water comes steam and with steam you can power a train. Applying an extra degree of temperature to water means the difference something that’s very hot and something that generates enough force to power a machine. All we had to do as educators was to put our creative minds together and give that one little extra effort that’s the difference between something being hot and something being extraordinary.”
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