Hello everyone, my name is Alanna, and I am trying to finish my English Education degree this fall by completing my student teaching in the State of Colorado. Here is an important thing for all of you to know: due to recent changes at the Department of Education, there is no longer funding for student teachers to be able to focus solely on teaching without having to work. The reason this matters is that student teaching is a full-time job; we work the contract hours of our mentor teachers and will still have assignments to complete ourselves in order to finish our degree track. We are also unable to hold a job that will in anyway interfere with our student teaching - we cannot leave early to make it to a shift on time, we cannot arrive late to the school, etc. which means we will only be able to work on weekends or in the evenings, which means we either have 0 days off for the semester which is almost 5 months long, or our sleep will be negatively impacted. This lack of funding is a major deterrent for many of my peers, including myself, and the last thing we need is to discourage or delay the graduation of educators when we are in an educator shortage.

If tattoo apprentices and beauty school students get paid for their work, why don’t student teachers? It is one of the last unpaid apprenticeships in the State. And this is true around the country due to the defunding of the Department of Education.

I have calculated the amount that I am asking for based on what I would be making if student teachers got paid. For almost half a year of work, it would be about $15,000. Any amount you can give helps, and if this was shared to you or you happened to find this and you are unable to donate, no worries - you can click this link to sign a petition I can take to the CO State legislature to convince them to pay student teachers instead of forcing us to rely on unsable forms of funding like grants, loans, and scholarships.

Thank you all for helping in any way that you can; it is greatly appreciated. I hope that I can be in the last cohort of student teachers who need to start a GoFundMe in order to complete their degree.