It is a truism that in urban schools, hiring and retaining quality teachers for the students who need them most is increasingly difficult. Nationally, less than 60 percent of new teachers remain in urban schools for more than three years. Responding to the need for highly effective and qualified teachers in urban schools, the Broward County Educational Consortium, initiated by Dr. Robert Parks, creates a partnership between the Broward County School District and the local higher education institutions that provide a majority of our educators. This consortium has become a national model for preservice training and inservice support at some of Broward County's hardest to staff schools. The model is divided into two programs: the Professional Development Schools and the High School Urban Teacher Academy Program.

With more than 275,000 students, Broward County Public Schools is the nation's sixth largest school system and has a projected need of 13,000 teachers over the next ten years. The national teacher shortage, coupled with an extremely diverse student population, has serious implications for this district. The Urban Academies of Broward County (UABC) addresses this need by providing authentic classroom and educational environments for college level preservice teachers and high school future educators to acquire field experience.

Over the past five years, the UABC has prepared over 360 interns who have accepted positions in Broward schools. Indicative of success is a greater than 90 percent retention rate of those college level preservice teachers who have entered and successfully completed this program. Additionally more than 90 percent of the associated school administrators, university supervisors, and program participants expressed a high degree of satisfaction with the program on feedback instruments. The most telling statistic is that none of the program completers' employment have been terminated under the 97-day probationary period. The efforts of UABC have been recognized locally as well as globally, through local and national news organizations, public television, Teacher Magazine, The London Times and The Christian Science Monitor.

The UABC is a model that works for the students of Broward County because it relies on locally trained teachers who have a desire to teach and reteach students in our community's urban schools. Because this model embraces, identifies and supports teachers from prospective to novice to veteran, UABC addresses the most significant social issue of our time.

Program Description Goals Partners Staff and Contact Information Urban Teacher Academy Program (UTAP)