Alhambra Elementary School District

Scott Wade was a lawyer but fell in love with teaching four years ago and is in the classroom under an emergency certification. Lisa Baird has taught off and on for 20 years, also without being certified. They are among the first 14 teacher candidates who graduated recently from the Canyon L.E.A.P. to Teach program, which offers an alternative pathway to licensure during a time of severe teacher shortage. “The ultimate goal is to get more certified teachers into Arizona classrooms,” said Carol Lippert, Executive Director of K12 Outreach and Education Program Development.

Jazmine Cordon and her high school team engineered a plant-watering robot to help educate middle schoolers who have seen their share of food insecurity. Fiona Tran’s middle school team wanted to help wheelchair users by designing a wheelchair light to make it safer to navigate pathways at night. The two teams, whose projects’ roots are at Sevilla Elementary School West, just a half-mile from GCU, presented their projects at the virtual MESA USA National Engineering Design Competition on Monday. It was the first time students from the school competed at nationals, something that might not have happened, said Sevilla West STEM educator Mia DeLaRosa, if not for help from GCU’s K12 STEM Outreach team.

College of Education students from Grand Canyon University are taking advantage of an innovative pre-service resident teaching program that enables them to create and implement lesson plans and work directly with students on an accelerated basis. These benefits are evident at Westwood Elementary, where GCU students are putting educational theory into practice.

What makes a great teacher? It starts with a great education, and Aimee Frank, Victoria Monk and Jessica Gajewski all spoke highly of their experience at Grand Canyon University. They were three of the College of Education graduates Friday in winter commencement.