Isaac Abrams is brand new to teaching.

“This is my first experience in a classroom really at all. So, I don’t think I can fully call myself a teacher yet,” he said with a laugh.

But you might not know that just by watching him.

Abrams sat at a small table with three students first thing Thursday morning at Metzger Elementary School in Tigard.

The room had four other tables with small groups at them as well. Chatter as students sounded out words and teachers guided them through the lessons quickly filled the room.

Abrams gave each student a sheet of paper.

“We’ll start with the title. So, let’s read this together,” he said, using techniques backed by the latest research in literacy. “When I tap, I want everyone to say the words, OK?”

“Cave… in… the… maze,” the students read slowly in unison.

“That’s right. What is the title of the story?” Abrams recapped. “Read all together. That’s right: Cave in the Maze.”

Abrams is one of 20 teaching candidates taking part in a summer program put on through a partnership between Portland State University and the Tigard-Tualatin School District.

The two-week intensive, going on now, helps young students who need a little extra help with reading and math, while also giving aspiring teachers valuable hands-on experience in the classroom.

“Being put in front of kids and it’s like, you’re the cause of their learning now, which is like a big responsibility,” Abrams said, three days into the program. “But it’s been super awesome so far.

“It’s a lot more fun than sitting in a classroom and learning about teaching… actually doing the teaching.”

Helping students over the summer

The PSU and Tigard-Tualatin summer start program began last year and has quickly grown.

What started last summer with 38 elementary students enrolled for math and reading tutoring has ballooned to 94 students this year.

Add to that the kindergarten jump start students in the building at the same time — whom the teaching candidates observe as part of the program — the overall summer cohort has almost doubled over the last year.

It’s part of an effort at the Tigard elementary school to address a statewide problem.

Oregon’s reading and math levels have continued to decline in recent years, despite record investments in public schools. This is a decades-old problem, made significantly worse by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Summer is an especially hard time for students, particularly if they were already behind. Without continued learning and social interactions, the “summer slide” that can set students even further back is all too normal, forcing schools to catch kids up as quickly as possible, every fall.

At the same time, state and local school officials are dealing with federal changes that have cut, threatened or suspended money that was previously thought to be dependable. Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek has made early literacy and summer learning a funding and policy priority. Some education advocates argue the state’s changes and investments are still not enough.

The summer start program in Tigard is showing promise.

Students in last year’s program grew an average of seven letter sounds over two weeks. Program leaders said that’s well above the two sounds per week that researchers typically expect for this core literacy skill.

Metzger Principal Jessica Swindle said it took about three years of working and dreaming to make the summer program a reality, but they’ve had to do a lot of “scrapping” to get this far.

In the first year, the program used federal Title 1A money from the district to fully fund the tutoring program. But as the federal government reduced those funds, and districts across the region faced budget shortfalls, Tigard-Tualatin included, school leaders had to find another way.

This year, they turned to the Oregon Department of Education and used extended summer learning funds and the Oregon Early Literacy grant funds.

Administrators like Swindle have to budget for things like staff pay and the cost to bus students from across the district to the elementary school. She said the total cost to the school district for the two-week summer program is about $30,000.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way, but there was a much greater will within that group in this building,” she said. “We doubled the number of kids served without increasing costs, which we’re pretty proud of.”

Metzger teachers and administrators, as well as PSU staff, are in each of the classrooms with the clusters of tutoring groups. They’re there to provide real-time feedback and support when the teaching candidates need it.

“It’s a very intensive experience for them,” Swindle said. “You’re learning a program on Thursday; you’re going to be teaching it on Monday. Like, it’s a very fast turnaround. It’s a lot to ask, but public practice is how we get better.”

Swindle said when they practice teaching in actual classrooms with real students, the quality of their instruction “improves like crazy.”

“Be vulnerable,” Swindle tells the teaching candidates. “You’re going to make mistakes. You are surrounded by positive support, and this is your moment to learn everything.”

Becoming a teacher in a challenging time

Shaheen Munir-McHill is an associate professor in Portland State’s special education department and the coordinator of the university’s special ed licensure program. All the teaching candidates in the summer program have a focus in special education, although not all the students they teach have disabilities or learning accommodations.

Munir-McHill said this particular program is currently only in one school district and in one school building. But PSU has long-term goals to grow the program and partner with more districts around the metro area.

“The summer startup is our opportunity to bring our candidates together and to give them a chance to collaborate with their colleagues, with their classmates, and develop some really strong application skills before they go out into those independent classrooms,” she said.

Becoming a teacher in Oregon requires the completion of a teacher preparation program approved by the state licensing agency.

Munir-McHill said it requires several clinical field experiences, such as student teaching, where they apply what they’ve learned with real kids under the mentorship of a licensed teacher. That’s followed by a series of exams and other assignments.

“Our students are about halfway through that process,” she said.

This classroom experience is especially valuable for them to learn the less test-friendly skills it takes to be an effective educator. Things like: how do you set up expectations for kids? What does good instruction look like?

And this is important as the workforce of public schools is perpetually understaffed due to regional and national teacher shortages. There are especially high needs for special education teachers.

Munir-McHill said the candidates have a wide range of backgrounds. Some, like Abrams, are brand new to the classroom.

Others have worked in schools for years, such as Alicia Villa.

Villa remembered desperately not wanting to be a teacher when she first graduated from high school. But after teaching English to adults in Ecuador and returning to the U.S. to work in schools as a paraeducator, she changed her mind.

She realized she liked working with kids, and she decided she could create more change in her school and for her kids if she got her teaching license. She especially wants to work at the intersection of multilingual and special education.

“It’s a really needed area,” she said, “and so, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to go into the field and fill that role, fill that need.”

Villa serves an important role in the summer start program in particular as the only tutor who can teach in Spanish. She works with the students who’ve been in Spanish-English immersion programs throughout the school year.

It’s been a good way for her to improve her own Spanish skills, but she said it’s really helpful and useful for the students, too.

“We really need people who are going into the field,” she said, “and I’m excited to be one of those.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/08/10/summer-program-tigard-tualatin-students-teacher-training/