Ball State To Increase Student Teaching At Muncie Schools
Ball State’s teacher program will increase its student teachers at Muncie Community Schools. Rather than putting student teachers at a few schools, they will now be at all Muncie schools. (photo credit: Alex McCall/WFIU)
Ball State University is reaching out to the financially distressed Muncie Community Schools, but not to offer financial help. The two will instead partner to increase teaching education in the city of Muncie.
“We desire to better fully invest with MCS,” said a representative with Ball State University’s Teachers College at a May Muncie Community Schools Board of Trustees meeting. “We’ve had a strong presence here as what we call a professional development school in 1998 and we want to continue to strengthen that.”
The Ball State program is making MCS into a “professional development district.” As discussed, the plan is to expand student teaching to all schools in the district rather than a select few. It’s something MCS Superintendent Steve Baule says is simply continuing what has already been happening.
“Ball State’s a great partner for us,” he says. “We work with Ball State at a bunch of different levels from the president and the CFO all the way down to professors and students.”
Baule and the representatives from the Teachers College say this partnership has been in the works for the past few months. But not everyone is thrilled with the planning process. Muncie Teachers Association President Pat Kennedy says while she liked what she heard at the meeting, it was her very first time hearing about the plan.
“We have not been asked about it,” Kennedy says. “It has not been brought to the discussion table, which is mandatory. We’re certainly not against it, and some of the things outlined this evening make sense, but we also need to be a partner. If this is really a partnership and it’s about teachers having professional development, then the teachers association needs to be apart of developing how that partnership looks.”
The partnership will begin with a pilot program in the fall and will then be adapted for future semesters.