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George Lee, a third grade teacher at Camino Nuevo Charter Academy, speaks with the confident enthusiasm of someone who is where he belongs. 

鈥淚鈥檓 teaching in a neighborhood that I grew up in,鈥� said Lee. 鈥淚鈥檓 really a part of this community, like, I have more of an obligation as an educator to really serve the individuals that I鈥檓 working with. I think that鈥檚 what connected me with families more so it helped me be more involved with other curriculums around the school.鈥� 

This matches the campus mission. Camino Nuevo 鈥� 鈥淣ew Way鈥� in English 鈥� is a school tailored to its diverse, polyglot community鈥檚 needs, but it鈥檚 probably better understood with the operational arrow inverted: This is a school that exemplifies and expresses that community and its aspirations.

Its Burlington campus, in Central Los Angeles, is just west of downtown in a vibrant, plural area bursting with linguistic and cultural assets. Lee, a child of , grew up nearby speaking Spanish, English, and (some) Cantonese. The large majority of Camino Nuevo students identify as Latino and come from families where Spanish and/other non-English languages are spoken. 

Perhaps it鈥檚 no surprise, then, that Burlington 鈥� the flagship campus of Camino Nuevo鈥檚 LA charter schools network 鈥� would host a pioneering response to California鈥檚 persistent shortage of bilingual teachers. After all, Camino Nuevo-Burlington served as a  during California鈥檚 18 years of mandating English-only instruction. Only a small number of schools were able to secure waivers from the policy and keep bilingual education鈥檚 fire burning in the state. 

When that mandate was lifted in 2016, schools across the state began the arduous task of returning non-English languages to their campuses. Or, put better, they started working on bringing those languages to the front of classrooms 鈥� the linguistic diversity of California鈥檚 students had persisted through its decades as an English-only state. In 2023,  spoke a non-English language at home, and the number is much higher . 

At Burlington,  are currently classified as English learners 鈥� and that number does not include former English learners who have reached proficiency in English but also speak other, non-English languages. 

Despite this abundant multilingualism, California schools and districts have struggled to regrow their bilingual programs in the past eight years. Asked why they鈥檙e struggling to overhaul their English-only classrooms, school leaders here almost universally raise the same challenge : they can鈥檛 find enough bilingual teachers. 

Compared to California鈥檚 students, . Just 27 percent of California teachers speak a non-English language at home. Over 60 percent of California teachers are white, compared to just 22 percent of California students. 

鈥淧ost-pandemic, we realized that we had to do something about this because we had teachers leaving and there were no new teachers coming in,鈥� says Camino Nuevo leader Adriana Abich. 

How can this be? , of all places, to build a bilingual teaching force that reflects the burgeoning linguistic diversity of its student population? 

Above all, it鈥檚 because teacher training pipelines and state credentials 鈥� in  and in most states 鈥� are inflexible, expensive, and largely designed for monolingual teacher candidates. 

鈥淚n California, there鈥檚 so many layers to becoming a teacher, [particularly] a lot of testing鈥� says Camino Nuevo principal Juliana Santos. 鈥淲e鈥檝e lost some wonderful, high-quality teachers because they couldn鈥檛 pass those tests.鈥�

To get , young adults first need to complete a bachelor鈥檚 degree, in a state where  at four-year public colleges and universities, and room and board charges add thousands more. Most candidates then need to enroll in  to get their preliminary teaching license 鈥� which often adds tens of thousands of dollars more in cost. 

Teacher candidates must also complete  of student teaching and pass a battery of tests (in English) covering everything from knowledge of the U.S. Constitution to subject matter expertise and pedagogical methods. Further, to be eligible to teach in bilingual classrooms, candidates also need a , which requires extra coursework and successful passage of additional language exams. 

These various requirements often serve as diversity filters, blocking bilingual teacher candidates who cannot easily pay for years of coursework, multiple testing fees, and many months of unpaid student teaching. Even those bilingual candidates who are able to clear these financial obstacles may be filtered out by the necessity of passing multiple teacher credentialing assessments in English 鈥� even though there is overwhelming demand for their abilities to work and teach in Spanish or another non-English language. 

Perhaps worst of all, there is little research suggesting that these credential requirements reliably produce higher quality instruction 鈥� in English-only or bilingual classrooms 鈥� let alone better academic outcomes for students.

Since it couldn鈥檛 find the teachers it wanted post-pandemic, Camino Nuevo decided to train its own. Last fall, it partnered with a handful of local schools and Loyola Marymount University鈥檚 (LMU) School of Education to launch , with three dedicated residency pathways: bilingual, English-only, and special education.  

鈥淏asically, it鈥檚 a program to disrupt the typical approach [to teacher preparation], where you don鈥檛 get paid for work. You sit side by side with a master teacher and you learn as a student teacher,鈥� Abich says. 鈥淢y main thought was, 鈥楬ow do we make it work for people of color? How do we make it so that, number one, people are getting a living wage when they come and do a residency with us?鈥欌�� 

To that end, AVANCE residents鈥� daily work counts towards their required student teaching hours. Unlike most student teachers, they receive a salary 鈥� along with tuition stipends and payments to cover testing fees  鈥� for a   of nearly $50,000. In return, residents work with students alongside  at one of the participating schools鈥� campuses (their mentors also receive a stipend for their participation). 

While , the University provides scholarships that reduce costs by roughly half 鈥� and AVANCE provides an additional scholarship that brings the total cost down to $8,000 (or $10,000, if they are seeking a special education credential). State-sponsored scholarship programs for teachers can further reduce costs, provided that residents go on to spend at least four years in the classroom once they earn their teaching credential. 

During their residency year, AVANCE participants take coursework both online and in person as a cohort, studying trauma-informed pedagogy and weekly coaching sessions to give them practical guidance for their specific roles 鈥� in bilingual education and/or special education. 鈥淭hese are our way of saying, 鈥榯his is the reality of the theory you鈥檙e hearing about in your classes,鈥� Abich says. 鈥淭his is the real stuff.鈥� 

To ensure that candidates can get over the state鈥檚 testing hurdles for teacher credentials, AVANCE residents also receive free test preparation materials through a partnership with . 

As it launches its second year, it appears that the program鈥檚 blend of support and flexibility is meeting its goals. Across the first two cohorts, 97 percent of AVANCE residents identified as BIPOC. Nearly 70 percent of the first cohort are already leveraging their language abilities to launch careers as lead teachers in Camino Nuevo鈥檚 bilingual classrooms, and another 24 percent are on track to take on lead roles once they complete their final credential requirements.

In a state starving for bilingual teachers, high-support, low-cost residencies like AVANCE could be a policy camino worth exploring. The key, Abich thinks, is to design these programs with teacher candidates鈥� specific strengths and challenges in mind. 

In Camino Nuevo鈥檚 case, she says, 鈥淲e were focused on our community. We wanted people from the community to be in those teacher roles.鈥�

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