School District Partnership Opportunities

The NIU College of Education – one of the state’s largest producer of teachers – is committed to leading efforts that build and strengthen the educator workforce, and we are doing so in innovative and impactful ways that include intentional recruitment, excellent preparation and constructive partnerships.

Opportunities for collaboration are growing.

Addressing the Teacher Shortage

According to the 2024 Illinois Educator Shortage Survey conducted by the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools, 87% of school districts surveyed reported a teacher shortage problem.

• Our PLEDGE (Partnering to Lead and Empower District-Grown Educators) initiative is going strong with several active cohorts developing new teachers and administrators in their local communities. They know the schools where they work, and they understand their students. They're rooted – and they're likely to stay. We currently partner with districts to:
  • Prepare principals for future leadership positions.
  • Prepare elementary education teachers with ESL/Bilingual endorsements.
  • Prepare early childhood teachers.
  • Upskill paraprofessionals to special education teachers.
  • Identify funding opportunities to pay for PLEDGE cohorts.
  • Identify partnership opportunities to combine with other local districts to cost-share and fill a PLEDGE cohort.
• NIU is a member institution of the state's Early Childhood Access Consortium for Equity Scholarship (ECACE) program, designed to address the shortage of qualified early childhood professionals in Illinois.

Upskilling and Professional Development

We can partner with you to get the most out of your state and federal funding – and we're already engaged in several exciting projects. For example, we’ve delivered programming to 185 P.E. teachers to promote social and emotional learning through sport and other physical activities, and we’ve partnered with a district to deliver our ESL endorsement courses to their teachers (170 trained to date!) You can use designated funds not only to provide additional training to your current team members, but also to help you develop the teachers you need moving forward.

School District Contract Cohorts

• We can coordinate in-house, district-designed and grant-funded degree programs and/or endorsement, credential and/or approval cohorts with your school district.
• If your school district does not have enough teachers to fill a cohort, we will work with your neighboring districts to recruit more teachers to make the cohort viable.
• Beyond a traditional tuition approach, NIU can contract with your school district, which is more economical. To fund professional development contract cohorts, school districts often use grants (Title I Grants for Reading, Title II Grants for Teacher Professional Development, Title III Grants for English Language Learners, IDEA Grants for Special Education). We can work with you to identify funding options.

Recruitment into the Teaching Profession

• We invite you to partner with us to bring your middle school and high school students to our campus to envision their future as educators – or let us bring our academic advisors and current licensure candidates to your building.
• You can connect your Educator Rising or Future Teachers Club with ours for team-building and collaboration.
• You can send your upperclassmen with leadership abilities to our campus for hands-on demonstrations and practice of how they can enhance those skills through activity and sport.
• We can work with you to define your Career Pathway Endorsement in education to provide seamless entry into teacher education at NIU for your students.

And, beyond these experiences, we can work with you to create innovative programming within your district so that your students interested in teaching have a reason to come back to your district when they graduate.

Contact Alex Owens, our assistant director for Student Success, at aowens3@niu.edu for more information.

Dream Big: We'll Dream with You

Do any of these ideas appeal to you? What ideas do you have? Are you up for a little brainstorming with us? We want to match our resources with your needs, and we're eager to explore what's possible.

Please let us know how we can team with you to improve the outcomes for your students, teachers and staff.

Together, we can accomplish so much.