New Philadelphia City Schools received a Ohio Department of Education Federal grant to provide its teachers with the opportunity to take coursework to get their TESOL endorsement. TESOL, or Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, allows teachers the ability to work with students that are English learners. “This is a wonderful opportunity for our teachers,” said New Philadelphia City Schools EL Director Laurie Hall. 

The University of Cincinnati wrote this TESOL grant before looking at districts across the state with a higher population of English learners to determine where they thought a large number of teachers would be interested in getting their TESOL endorsement. 

The coursework consists of five classes, or 15 hours of total coursework. After the completion of the courses, teachers can add the TESOL endorsement to their existing teaching license. The grant allows teachers to take the coursework at no cost to themselves. Without the grant, the cost for the courses is $11,500 per teacher. “It is beneficial to our district because out of a student population of 3,300, there are now approximately 400 English learners,” said Hall. “This will give teachers strategies to work with students that are learning the English language that they might not have had the opportunity to learn when taking coursework in college.”

The TESOL endorsement is open to any teacher within the district, pre-k through 12. Hall said at this point, there are 40 teachers within the district that have expressed an interest. While there are a limited number of available spots, the district has not determined how teachers will be selected to take the coursework. “We have pockets of students that are English learners across the state and this endorsement is something that is sought after because of the change of demographics across Ohio,” said Hall. 

Cincinnati Public Schools and Painesville City Local Schools currently have teachers going through the coursework. Hall said that within the next year, New Philadelphia School District teachers should begin the TESOL coursework.