Published Sep-23-2005

On the last day of September, the Alaska Partnership for Teacher Enhancement will close its doors for good. APTE was funded by a six million dollar federal Teacher Quality Enhancement grant and by matching funds from the University of Alaska. First funded in 1999, APTE has worked on several fronts to improve teacher education for both pre and in-service professionals as well as paraprofessionals and administrators. The partnership involves over a dozen entities, including four school districts (three rural and one urban), NEA-Alaska, GCI Inc., the UAA College of Arts and Sciences, UA President’s office and the UAA College of Education, where we have been housed all these years.


Starting with the premise that through partnership we could successfully collaborate to improve education in Alaska, APTE guided several initiatives. Our first task was to help redesign the teacher education program at UAA basing it on sound research and standards-based principles. We also created highly successful summer content, mentoring and leadership institutes for teachers and paraprofessionals. We started Professional Development Schools (PDS) in Anchorage at Bartlett, Central, Chinook, East, Taku and Williwaw and our rural sites in Akiachak, Chevak and Toksook Bay.


Those PDS sites provided our teacher interns with mentors who themselves were trained by APTE staff. The sites also were provided professional development funds from the grant to do things like study groups, develop culturally appropriate learning materials, reading initiatives and other projects aimed at creating a stronger learning community. We held university classes for paraprofessionals in our rural sites in order to help them with their knowledge and to meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind. We sponsored several Education Roundtables where education leaders from around the state could meet and discuss policy.


Our experiences have been various and wonderful. Our work has helped make the new COE grant, the Alaska Education Innovations Network, possible. All our best to them and to you, and our thanks for your friendship and support through the years.


Don Shackelford
Director, Alaska Partnership for Teacher Enhancement


Letitia Fickel
Principal Investigator