UTPB’s College of Education approved for TEA Principal Residency Program

ODESSA, Texas (KOSA) -The University of Texas Permian Basin’s College of Education has been selected by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to participate in the TEA’s Principal Residency Grant initiative for 2023-24.

This will be through UTPB’s Master of Arts (M.A.) in Educational Leadership online graduate degree program with Texas Principal as Instructional Leader certification preparation.

As a vetted Principal Residency Program, UTPB’s College of Education will partner with public school districts and charter schools to provide principal residency opportunities for eligible candidates. In partnership with those districts, UTPB’s program will support candidates through a full-time, yearlong residency in which they will be consistently engaged in authentic experiences focused on best practices in campus leadership.

Faculty will partner with current campus and district-level leadership in grantee districts to ensure each resident possesses and applies requisite knowledge, skills, dispositions, and diversity proficiencies throughout their clinical experience. They will accomplish this through our structured courses, embedded learning experiences, a collaboration between program and district leadership, and supportive supervision for residents during the year-long residency.

“The College of Education was previously selected to be on the TEA’s Vetted Teacher Residency Programs list, and this has opened the door for us to begin working with a number of our rural ISDs in offering teacher residencies,” said Dr. Larry Daniel, Dean of the College of Education. “Getting accepted to the Vetted Principal Residency Programs list will likely have a similar result, and we are very excited about it!  The opportunity to provide our principal candidates with a year-long residency experience means that they will be effectively prepared for the full range of responsibilities encountered by a building-level administrator.  This recognition fits with the College of Education’s larger effort to continually improve the work we do in preparing professionals.”

This opportunity is well-supported as grantee districts are eligible for TEA grant funds of up to $70,000 per resident intern to help pay for their salaries, tuition, and principal certification exams. The next round of grants will be awarded for the 2023-24 academic year, and districts must complete and submit a grant proposal to be eligible.

Applications will open this fall. Kevin Badgett, Associate Professor and Department for Chair Educational Leadership will be a district’s initial point of contact at UTPB and will be assisted by Dr. Ethel Arzu, Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership.