Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
For the past several years, West Virginia has suffered a teacher shortage leading to many school districts searching for certified educators to teach on all grade levels. In an effort to fill vacancies and help high school students find a career, the West Virginia Department of Education founded the Grow Your Own initiative.
Grow Your Own is a program in which high school students, who want to become teachers, start their college courses in high school which, in turn, leads to them graduating college with a Bachelor’s Degree in two to two-and-a-half years.
High schools partner with universities to offer the college courses. For Pocahontas County, that is Glenville State University. Students are enrolled at GSU and take classes online along with their high school courses.
PCHS has four seniors who have been enrolled in the Grow Your Own program.
Taylor Arnold and Miranda Gum knew from a young age they wanted to be teachers, while Alex Harrah and Bailey Zickefoose entered the program because they were told it would be a good fit for them.
Arnold has always wanted to be an art teacher and when she learned about the free program, she was excited to get started in high school.
“It’s a great program that basically pays for half of your college years,” she said, “and you get the experience that you need in the classroom for free. I’ve always wanted to be a teacher and with this program, I actually get to see what it’s like.”
Gum, who wants to be in the PreK through third grades, said she also appreciates that the program requires observation hours, so she gets to see at an early stage in her education what it’s like to be in the classroom with students.
“It gives you a lot of experience and it really helps you get a feel for what the classroom is like,” she said. “We get to do observation hours where we go sit in the classroom and watch the teacher and help her out with everything she needs.”
Harrah learned about the program from Arnold and Gum, who told her how it was helping them get ready to become teachers.
Like Harrah, Zickefoose was recruited, in a way, but it was a teacher who sparked his interest in the career.
“I never really had a plan to go into teaching, but about midway through my junior year, I was talking to Aaron Pugh – one of the history teachers up here – and he’s like, ‘you’d be a really good history teacher,’ and that kind of sparked my interest,” he said.
While the students are all on different paths – Arnold and Zickefoose looking at high school and Gum and Harrah looking at primary grades – they are all in classes together and working on their college hours.
They are also learning first-hand what it takes to work in all grade levels with their observation hours. Although they have a set grade level in mind, they observe in all grade levels to get a well-rounded look at primary and secondary education styles.
“That’s the best thing, just getting to know what grade level fits with you best because I’ve worked with kindergarten through eighth grade,” Arnold said. “I’ve been up here [at the high school] and I already know what it looks like. But middle school, that is definitely a place for strong people.”
The students have learned it takes a thick skin to work with certain grade levels and had to weigh whether the strife of working with difficult children is worth becoming a teacher.
“My junior year, when I first got into the program, I had to do observation hours and I realized that kids are kind of mean sometimes,” Zickefoose said, laughing. “So, there’s the fact that there’s really mean kids, but there’s also the fact that I really like history and like to teach history. That I’m very passionate about it kind of pushes away [dealing with mean kids].”
Part of the agreement with going through the Grow Your Own program is that once they receive their degree, they must stay in West Virginia to teach for five years before trying to pursue a job in another state.
When it first began, the program required students to return to their home county, but now the parameters have changed. It has also changed that students are no longer required to attend their partner university and can instead attend a university that is part of the Grow Your Own initiative.
“I’m doing art education, so I can’t go through Glenville because they don’t have that program, but everything will transfer over as long as they’re connected with the Grow Your Own program,” Arnold said.
“It has expanded,” Grow Your Own advisor Courtney Curran said. “The majority of the universities [in the state] are now pretty much involved. It’s become so big now; it’s broadened out to where you can work anywhere in the state. We want to keep them here in the state of West Virginia.”
Along with finishing their degrees in record time, the students will also be able to sign up as substitute teachers their first semester in college. Usually, a substitute teacher has to be at least 21-years-old, but those in the Grow Your Own program will have an exemption to substitute while in school.
Taking college courses in high school is not a new concept, but for the Grow Your Own students, there have been some courses that are more difficult than they anticipated.
The education specific courses have tripped them up a little, but having Curran there to light a fire under them has helped.
“Last year, I was trying to get through this class, and I just couldn’t do it,” Zickefoose said. “The work was just strange to me. It was my first online class. The education classes are very strange if you’re not very, very into what it’s talking about.”
Zickefoose added that having Curran there to make sure he stays focused has helped him. He’s learned that college professors aren’t as on top of students as high school teachers are.
Pocahontas County High School was one of the pilot schools when Grow Your Own was founded in 2023.
The program has grown to be offered in 38 counties in West Virginia. There is an annual conference held where students from those counties can meet and learn about each other’s experiences in the program.
“The people you get to meet and the experiences you get to share just kind of open you up to a whole new world,” Harrah said. “You get to learn about everybody’s own experiences.”
Larger counties have more students enrolled and Curran explained that some counties are able to offer the program as a CTE pathway which means all the courses are taught locally by a high school teacher instead of online.
Although Pocahontas County’s program is smaller, Curran said she is proud to be a part of it and glad that students have the opportunity to start their college education early.
“For a small county, I’m just glad so see we offer it,” she said. “I probably won’t have over four [students] ever, but having four is amazing.”