This week, the world celebrates World Teachers’ Day, an annual opportunity to recognize educators everywhere. This year’s theme, “Standing with teachers,” marks the 60th anniversary of the international recommendation that first defined teachers’ professional status, and it’s a fitting backdrop for what’s happening in New Mexico.

Rural and Native American middle schools face real challenges when it comes to teacher retention and access to professional development. Geographic isolation and limited access to culturally responsive training can make it harder to keep great teachers in the classroom, especially in the communities that need them most.

With continued, multi-year support from All Points North Foundation, TeachUNITED is expanding its work in New Mexico to help close this gap. Over the next three years, TeachUNITED will train and coach 135 middle school teachers and administrators, reaching an estimated 3,600 rural students with a focus on Native American schools and communities.

TeachUNITED trains experienced teachers to become certified instructional coaches and mentors, working in close partnership with the New Mexico Public Education Department’s own Mentor Teacher program. Those mentors then provide the day-to-day coaching and support that early-career teachers need most, exactly when most new teachers are deciding whether to stay in the classroom.

This partnership is already paying off. TeachUNITED’s New Mexico program is fully enrolled at 100 teachers, and a waitlist has already started to form. The early numbers from the previous cohort justify this demand: 

• More than 90% of the first cohort finished the full year of programming this spring,
• Every one of those teacher mentors plans to stay in education, and 
• 88% said the program was significantly better than other professional development they’ve done. 

Middle school is when many students start to disengage, and it’s also when good teaching matters most. By investing in the educators who serve New Mexico’s rural and Native American students, this partnership is building toward real, lasting gains, not just for teachers, but for the students in their classrooms.

Read more about the program here. Thank you to All Points North Foundation for its continued, generous support of TeachUNITED and rural middle school educators.