The Partners
The Southern Illinois Future Teachers Coalition (SIFTC) is a partnership between John A. Logan College, Shawnee Community College, Southern Illinois University, the Illinois State Board of Education, and 25 Illinois school districts.

The Mission/Purpose
SIFTC is working to address the teacher shortage that is being experienced with targeted programming at the local level. For a comprehensive overview of the efforts please review the current grant application at this link: SIFTC CTE Educator Career Pathway Grant.pdf.

Coordinators-Education
SIFTC is led by coordinators Brooke May (brookemmay@viennahs.com) and Leslie Bradley (lesliembradley@viennahs.com). Both Mrs. May and Mrs. Bradley are highly motivated and passionate people who are leading the work and fulfilling the mission and purpose of creating an effective and diverse educator pipeline in Southern Illinois by addressing the teacher shortage with long-term aligned solutions.

EdWell Teacher Apprenticeship Partnership
SIFTC has a K-12 Teacher Registered Apprenticeship partnership with WGU (https://www.wgu.edu/lp/teach/lead/general.html), Edwell (https://edwell.org/)., and Craft Education (https://crafteducation.com/), the ERA (https://www.educatorapprenticeships.com/), which is a national pilot to expand teacher registered apprenticeships.

Participating districts are able to give access to a $2,500 per year maximum tuition cost for anyone in their district to complete at least their bachelor's degree and get their PEL. In many situations, it could be less than $2,500 per year, depending on the individual's current college credit hours, which will dictate completion, but likely no more than 3.5 years, and many could be far less. It allows people to work while finishing their degree and getting their PEL (fully online, flexible student teaching options, and students can student teach at the district where they work).

ISBE Education Career Pathway Grant
Illinois State Board of Education informational page on the Education Career Pathway Grant. Follow the below link and then scroll the dark blue bars near the bottom and select CTE Education Career Pathway Grant.
ISBE Career and Technical Education Grants

Press Releases
- ISBE Awards Grants for Teacher Shortage in Southern Illinois

Media Coverage
- Coalition of southern Illinois schools gets $1M grant to address teacher shortage
- SIU is spearheading project to propel high school students into teaching careers
- $1M ISBE grant to teacher coalition aims to create pipeline for homegrown educators
- Hundreds of high school, jr. college students attend SIU Education Day
- The Teacher Shortage Has Been Devastating, But Some Programs are Looking To Change This

Additional Resources
- IARSS Educator Shortage Dashboard
- NIU Education Systems Center Scaling Education Pathways in Illinois (SEPI)
- Golden Apple
- ISBE College and Career Pathway Endorsements

-The Geography of the New Teacher Pipeline

-The State of Our Educator Pipeline 2023

Job Description
Coordinators-Education SIFTC Education Career Pathway Job Description.pdf.

History
How we started...
SIU is spearheading project to propel high school students into teaching careers.

Photo Package
The photo package below captures Vienna students in dual credit education courses fulfilling the observation requirements. The students in these courses are meeting the requirements for Human Development and Learning (EDUC214) and Diversity in Education (EDUC211) at Southern Illinois University.