Assistant Principal Calhan School District / Executive Director TASCC LLC
Calhan School District / TASCC LLC
Stephanie Curtis has worked in the field of education for 21 years. She is the Assistant Principal for Calhan Middle and High School. The majority of her experience has been in Special Education. When she left that field to pursue educational leadership, she began work at Calhan Middle School where she was hired as an Instructional Coach due to the school being placed in turnaround. Through her hard work and the amazing middle school team’s efforts, the middle school received the level of distinction over three years, even with one of those years being the start of the Covid 19 Pandemic.
The Covid 19 Pandemic brought a teacher shortage to Calhan School District. David Slothower, the Superintendent, asked Stephanie to start a training program for paraprofessionals and long-term substitute teachers who were fulfilling the responsibilities of classroom teachers. Stephanie worked with Sahvanna Mease (Calhan HS FCS teacher) and Dr. Ritu Chopra from the University of Colorado Denver to bring one-credit courses for paraprofessional training to the district. Stephanie began researching how these courses transferred into teaching credits, and how she could help the individuals in the courses pursue a teaching license. She was connected to Dr. Katie Anderson Pence, the Associate Dean at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Dr. Katie had heard about teacher apprenticeship programs happening in Tennessee. She shared this information with Stephanie, and the two of them along with the help of Carrie Sigmon who was the Statewide Registered Apprenticeship Consultant with the Colorado Urban Workforce Alliance got started on creating an apprenticeship program for Calhan School District. The Calhan K-12 Teacher Apprentice Sponsorship was approved on July 11, 2022.
Stephanie wanted to be able to support even more rural districts through teacher apprenticeships. During her evenings and weekends, she began work on the Teacher Apprentice Sponsor Coaching and Consulting Sponsorship (TASCC LLC). She has secured an Opportunity Now Planning Grant from the Federal Government that she is using to develop this apprenticeship even further, again in partnership with the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Stephanie intends for the TASCC apprenticeship to be able to serve all of the rural school districts in Colorado that have individuals with experience in education that want to achieve the goal of becoming teachers.
Devils and Details, Lessons and Logistics: Making District HR / EPP Collaborations Work
Sunday, February 18, 2024
10:45 AM – 11:15 AM MST