Helix Charter students step onto the pathway to education and teaching

In San Diego County, there were roughly 1,859 vacant or new teaching and specialist positions that needed to be filled in the 2022-23 school year, according to the California Department of Education.

With numbers like these across several counties, the term “teacher shortage” has become prevalent in discussions regarding public school education.

Amid the teacher shortage, Helix Charter High School seems to be rising to the challenge by encouraging students to explore teaching and become a credentialed professional.

For Helix alum Katherine Rabasco, teaching became her career calling at an early age. When she attended Helix, she joined the education pathway.

“I used to watch my mom set up her classroom and interact with her students, and I always wanted to be just like her,” Rabasco said via email. “I want to be a teacher because I want to make a positive difference in my future students’ lives, the way a lot of my teachers have done for me. The teaching pathway really helped me hone in on my purpose and why I want to teach.”

In the fall of 2019, two Helix teachers, Eric Ginsburg and Amanda Dolphin, started up the education pathway. The education pathway is part of Helix’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) program. It’s funded through a specialized secondary program grant from the state of California, according to Ginsburg.

Ginsburg said they usually work with 50 to 75 students per school year.

The pathway entails two courses (a 1-2 beginning course and a 3-4 course), guest lectures from San Diego State University school of education/credential program professors, field trips to local colleges like CSU San Marcos, interview practice and opportunities to get involved with La Mesa Spring Valley School District’s (LMSVSD) Extended School Service (ESS) program. 

Patricia Stall, previous director of CSUSM’s School of Education, has interacted with Helix students in tours at CSUSM.

“We hope to encourage students early,” Stall said. “A lot of freshmen in college don’t know what they want to do. Sometimes kids don’t even consider education as a career. So we hope to plant that seed and hopefully not only encourage more young people to consider a career in teaching.”

Separate from the education pathway but congruent with its goals, there’s also a school club at Helix called Educators Rising.

Alexa Lawrence, a Helix alum and the first president of the Educators Rising club, said her experiences working with Ginsburg and in the club were foundational in preparing her for her college career. Although the education pathway was created after Lawrence graduated from Helix, Lawrence said learning from Ginsburg was pivotal.

“Mr. Ginsburg was really helpful to me when I started at SDSU,” Lawrence said. “He introduced me to this new pathway called ITEP [Integrated Teacher Education Program]. I was able to get out [in] four years with my bachelors degree and credential. That was an amazing opportunity for me, and I wouldn’t have known about that if it wasn’t for the educators rising club.”

Lawrence has since graduated and is in her first year teaching at an elementary school.

“What we do in our program is we build community around notions in education because we want them to consider and explore what it means to be an education professional,” Ginsburg said. “We also want them to be more savvy and critical around what good education is.”

In the fall, the education pathway had two sections of the beginning class, totaling 52 students, and they have 34 students finishing the pathway in the 3-4 course this spring, according to Ginsburg.

The two courses students can take through the program prepare them to step into higher education classes because these courses are eligible for credit from Grossmont Community College.

Getting ahead of the game for college

For Rabasco, these classes put her ahead of the game for college.

“The education pathway was an amazing opportunity to dream about my future and gain teaching experience,” Rabasco said. “I took a class called ‘Teaching as a Profession’ I believe, the year I joined the education pathway… towards the end of my time in the class, it actually got approved to be a dual enrollment class so it allowed me to receive college credit.”

However, Ginsburg said he and Dolphin wanted to find opportunities for students to apply teaching outside of the Helix classroom. And they didn’t have to look far to find the answers: ESS, LMAAC and La Mesa Dale Elementary School.

In the upper division class, students get to complete internship placements at local LMSVSD schools near the high school. Current students in the pathway are completing their internships at LMAAC and La Mesa Dale Elementary School, where they read with students, help with classwork and encourage students as they’re navigating new social settings.

“It helps give them an idea if they would actually like to pursue a career in education or not,” said Tammie Babbitt, La Mesa Dale Elementary School principal. “I think it helps open peoples’ eyes to the possibilities as early as possible and that also gives students a purpose in their studies. [They’re] working towards a goal.”

And these interactions between elementary school students and Helix students helps ensure elementary students getting the classroom engagement needed.

“Always in the classroom, it’s one teacher to 35 kids,” Babbitt said. “Anytime that we can reduce that ratio and put other people in there to support students with their reading, writing, and listening to their ideas, it helps all of them engage with school.”

In addition to the internship placements, students have the opportunity to complete a mock interview with personnel at LMSVSD and ESS.

Ginsburg said one of the reasons the education pathway connected with ESS was the opportunities for high school students to gain learning experience while also being employed. High school students can apply for ESS positions if they meet the requirements of being a junior in standing and 16 years old.

“At the heart of our program, our partnership with the ESS program has been fundamental to our success so far,” Ginsberg said.

This year Ginsburg pulled information regarding Helix’s connection to local elementary and middle schools and found that 45 of ESS employees are students/alum from Helix. Eleven of the 45 employees are current Helix students, according to Ginsburg.

Jennifer Montez, manager of the La Mesa-Spring Valley ESS program, has participated in the mock interviews with students in the education pathway and interacted with Helix alum/students who work for ESS.

“They come in with a passion to work with kids. They get in there with the students and I think that you can see that passion shines through in their interactions with the students,” Montez said. “Or, if it doesn’t, they’ll find out, ‘This isn’t for me.’ And, they’ll change course. I think it’s a really good tool for them to determine, ‘Is this what I want to do?’”

April Arechiga, ESS supervisor, said seeing the two LMSVSD schools collaborate with Helix has been a great community building experience.

“That collaboration between learning institutes, it’s nice to come together. Helix High School is right down the street from two of our schools. Being able to allow high school students to give back to the community, that’s another reason to do this,” Arechiga said.

Creating a diverse teacher pipeline

Another goal the education pathway is working to achieve is creating a diverse teacher pipeline, according to Ginsburg.

“We’ve known at Helix increasingly that student diversity and identities of our students are not in line with the identity and diversity of our teachers,” Ginsburg said. “A majority of our students do not identify as white/caucasian, but the majority of our teachers historically have been white/caucasian. This is an issue not just for Helix but nationwide and in areas where the teacher does not reflect the experiences and identities of the students. We want to prepare future educators from the students who are already here. We want them to come back.”

ESS supports this goal, according to Montez.

“We just want to support the continued development of a skilled and educated workforce,” Montez said. “These high school students are hopefully going to be our future educators.”

Rabasco said she might return to La Mesa to be a teacher after she graduates.

“I am definitely considering returning to La Mesa to teach in the local schools. Of course, anything can happen and I will end up wherever I’m supposed to, but I hope to return to La Mesa or a nearby city for teaching,” Rabasco said.

While not every student who participates in the pathway is guaranteed to become a teacher or professional in the education field, Ginsburg said he hopes students leave the pathway well-rounded and aware of the importance of education.

“We want them to have a better sense of what it means to be a future educator because some of the students in the pathway will not go on to be educators, but they may be parents of children in K12 schools, they could be community members, board members or business entrepreneurs in areas that are affected by those schools,” Ginsburg said. “We’re hoping some of them will come back and teach at Helix or in local schools. But we also want them to be more thoughtful and critical. In California, a huge part of the state budget every year is dedicated to public schooling and universities. We are fiscally putting out a great deal of money. And if they are taxpayers, they should have a sense of what’s going on in schools. Education, even after high school, will affect every aspect of their adult lives.”

To learn more about Helix’s CTE program, visit: helixcharter.net/domain/24.