It began as many great ideas do — on the back of a cocktail napkin.
In the summer of 2018, Colleen O’Neil, then the Associate Commissioner of Educator Talent at the Colorado Department of Education (CDE), was catching up with Sue Sava, President of PEBC at a convening in Washington D.C. Their conversation turned to one of their favorite topics — and a question of great importance: What could be done to address Colorado’s educator shortage?
The state had just released a report demonstrating, for the first time, the breadth and depth of the educator shortage. While Colleen and Sue knew this wasn’t a problem that could be solved overnight, they agreed on a few core principles:
- Colorado needed an updated, improved system to find, support, mentor, and engage highly talented potential educators;
- This new system would require support from all sectors of the state — not just P–12 and higher education, but also political leadership and the business community; and
- They needed more partners to support the heavy lift — and fresh ideas for recruitment.
This conversation sparked the idea to bring TEACH — a national nonprofit founded by the U.S. Department of Education and corporate partners, including Microsoft, in 2015 – to Colorado. TEACH works with states and metropolitan areas to develop sustainable teacher talent pipelines and ensure that their P-12 students have the high-quality teachers they deserve. Far more individuals are open to the idea of teaching than those who ultimately pursue it. TEACH’s surveys, for example, have found that as many as 40% of college students would consider teaching. Consequently, there is a large pool of “swayable” job seekers. But Colleen and Sue knew that we needed to identify those candidates, cultivate their interest by showing what a teaching career can offer – including dispelling misperceptions and answering questions – and support them as they navigate through the process of getting trained and licensed.
After a year of planning with a diverse group of founding partners — including CDE, the Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE), the Colorado Education Initiative (CEI), the Rose Community Foundation, and PEBC — TEACH Colorado formally launched in the 2019–2020 school year. Collaborating with this advisory group of founders, PEBC took a lead role in helping to identify the right candidate to serve as TEACH’s first Colorado-based employee, and served as the “host” organization and incubator for the initiative. This structure provided critical support to the program at launch, allowing TEACH to quickly begin building partnerships with school districts, educator preparation programs, and others in the P–12 ecosystem.
Since its launch in 2019, TEACH Colorado has become the state’s central initiative to attract new talent to the teaching profession. A critical component of the initiative is TEACHColorado.org, a statewide hub that offers free resources to aspiring educators across the state. This online resource has become the main place that anyone in Colorado considering teaching can go for support. Here is a snapshot of TEACH Colorado’s results during its initial five years:
- Over 513,000 unique visits to the TEACH Colorado website
- 50,000+ sign-ups from prospective educators on the TEACH Colorado platform
- 5,000+ individuals used TEACH Colorado supports to apply to an educator preparation program
- 29% of TEACH Colorado-supported applicants identified as BIPOC
TEACH’s national model also benefits from economies of scale across markets and accumulated research and development worth over $3 million. TEACH regions are therefore achieving these results at a lower cost and at a faster pace than they could accomplish on their own. TEACH’s average cost-per-applicant is less than $900, making it an incredibly cost-effective model for bringing talent into teaching.
“It has been a great privilege to work with the leadership team at PEBC over the past five years. PEBC has been vital to TEACH’s launch and ongoing success in Colorado. We are so grateful for the warm welcome and continued partnership!”
— Kate Hudnut, Senior Partnerships Manager, TEACH Colorado
After five years of stable growth and increasing impact — and with TEACH Colorado on solid footing — we are excited to enter a new phase of this work. Beginning in the 2025–2026 school year, PEBC will step back from its incubation role, confident that the TEACH Colorado team and platform are ready to continue expanding their reach and strengthening Colorado’s teacher pipeline. In the future, TEACH Colorado plans to continue growing and optimizing to reach and support as many prospective educators across Colorado as possible, including those interested in pursuing shortage-area subjects, e.g., early childhood education, special education, and STEM.
Today, TEACH Colorado partners with 100% of educator preparation programs in the state, as well as numerous school districts, to support current and future educators.
To learn more about TEACH Colorado, check out their website (here), or email Kate Hudnut, Senior Partnership Manager.
