Recruiting Washington Teachers (RWT) is an opportunity to support students holistically in their academic, emotional, social, professional, and cultural identity development while guiding their exploration of careers in education. This grow-your-own approach is one way of working to align the diversity of educators and students. Research on the RWT program from 2007 to 2019 shows program participants consistently have higher than both local and state averages for high school graduation and acceptance to college rates. Details can be found on our RWT reports page.
Curriculum pillars
The RWT curriculum features six themed pillars. It will be important for you to weave in parts of various pillars in order to meet the needs of your students and be successful in creating a learning community based on their unique identities and experiences.
Students’ lives and their educational experiences are at the center of the RWT curriculum. The teacher’s role is to be a knowledgeable and skilled facilitator–designing the learning experiences to actively connect students’ prior knowledge to the academic and professional content, skills of equity pedagogy, and culturally relevant practice. The curriculum also requires you to learn from and with your students in a shared dialogue of what it means to be a culturally responsive teacher.
Click the curriculum graphics below to learn more about each pillar.
Curriculum resources
- District information packet (PDF) – To help districts and teachers interested in starting their own program.
- Program design overview – While there are many ways to design and deliver a teacher academy course, the following are common elements of how programs have been designed.
- CTE Careers in Education resources – Resources for meeting OSPI’s CTE requirements (only necessary for courses using the CTE course designation).
- Crosswalk of curriculum competencies and related standards – How the RWT curriculum aligns with previous CTE/CIE competencies and related standards including Educators Rising, Common Core, State, and 21st Century Learning Skills.
- Recruitment – Establish a plan to recruit diverse students into your teacher academy program.
- Snapshot of the Renton Teacher Academy – What a teacher academy looks like in practice.
- High school teacher academies: realities and myths (Slideshow)
- Professional development for RWT teachers
- Pillar resources
Contact us
If you have comments, questions, or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at pathways@k12.wa.us.
