Organization description
The Teach Rural Oregon (TRO) Project is a partnership between the Eastern Oregon University College of Education and the Wallowa Region 18 ESD with grant support from the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) based on grant initiative and funding recommendation from the Educator Advancement Council. The Teach Rural Oregon (TRO) project aims at recruiting diverse student teachers (including first generation) to complete their student teaching in rural and isolated rural districts across Oregon. Additionally, TRO seeks to provide teachers in rural parts of Oregon with place based professional development.
Project description
In the past five years the Oregon Legislature has mandated several measures that serve to require that Oregon districts implement historically accurate, culturally embedded, placed-based, contemporary, and developmentally appropriate curriculum. This includes SB 13 Tribal History/Shared History, SB664 Holocaust & Genocide, and HB2845 Ethnic Studies. Often this curriculum is lacking or difficult to obtain for teachers in small, rural, and isolated communities. Many times small districts do not have the manpower or resources to provide the necessary professional development in order to meet these new mandates. Most educational and historical organizations are located in the western part of the state away from the rural parts of Eastern Oregon. Often professional development requires teachers in Eastern Oregon to drive to the west side of the state which can involve travel of over 250 miles.
Project Goals
● Provide teachers from rural districts the opportunity to participate in a full-day professional. development seminar that focuses on the utilization of primary sources in order to meet the new mandated social studies standards/curriculum.
● Provide teachers in rural districts with money to travel to this professional development.
● Bring together national and statewide organizations that can provide necessary primary source materials to address these new social studies standards/curriculum.
● To provide quality in-person professional development that does not require teachers to travel to metropolitan areas in the western part of the state.
Project Objectives
● Bring in partners from across Oregon to present primary source materials available to educators.
● Share with teachers the primary source materials available to them through the Library of Congress.
● Share with teachers the specific primary source materials in order to develop appropriate curriculum materials in order to address the new state standards and mandates.
● Provide teachers with stipend in order to assist in the cost of travel to the seminar.
● Provide teachers with opportunities to work with the primary source materials from each partner organization.
● Provide teachers with information on accessing materials.
● Provide teachers with further professional development opportunities through each partner organization.
