Heavy oak doors adorned with wrought iron hinges make the entryway to this historic structure look more like a gothic cathedral than a public high school.
Miami Senior High School, one of the oldest in Miami-Dade County, was built here in Little Havana in 1928. At lunchtime on a recent spring day, students are sitting together on the steps of the school and on benches placed along tree-lined sidewalks. Others kick a soccer ball back and forth or stroll around the campus, chatting with each other in Spanish. About 95% of students here are Hispanic or Latino.
The school’s rich history is evident not only in its architectural details — the schoolhouse lights, the Dade County Pine floors, the clay tiles — but also along the lobby’s wall, where a mural commissioned in the 1940s features images of artists, scholars, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee.
“My mom actually went to this school. My aunt went to this school. My uncle went to this school. My brother went to this school,” Cynthia Garza gushed. She, too, graduated from Miami Senior High, in 2019. And now, she's back — but this time, as a teacher.
She follows in her family's footsteps, not only by attending this school but also by choosing education as her profession. She's a third-generation teacher — her grandmother taught back in Cuba — and she recalls playing "school" with her brother and cousins during childhood. She was always the one giving the quizzes.
At the time of this visit, Garza was interning at the high school, teaching Algebra 1 to freshmen, as she prepared to graduate from Florida International University. She's not getting a standard education degree, though. She's earning a bachelor’s in mathematics, with a focus in math education, as part of FIUTeach — a program aimed at getting students with STEM degrees to teach in local middle and high schools.
Garza has already been offered a full-time teaching position here starting in August. Qualified STEM teachers are in high demand.
According to the Florida Department of Education, math ranks fifth for the subject area with the highest number of teacher vacancies. Nearly 11% of math classes at Florida public schools are taught by teachers not certified in math.
FIUTeach is based on a model from the UTeach Institute — a national program developed at the University of Texas at Austin. FIU is one of 55 universities across the country that has programs like these, which aim to inspire STEM majors to pursue a career in education.
One of the ways FIUTeach recruits prospective teachers is by going into lecture classes and pitching students who are majoring in subjects like math, science and engineering on taking an introductory teaching course.
This partnership with FIU and both the Miami-Dade and Broward County school districts is one of several similar programs around the state that aims to mitigate the ongoing and pervasive teacher shortage. WLRN is examining the success of these programs in our monthslong statewide reporting project, Role Call.
READ MORE: More time in the classroom, plus a paycheck: How USF prepares elementary teachers
According to FIU, 101 students have graduated from the program since its launch in 2013, and the majority now teach science and math to high school students. Nearly half are teaching in South Florida.
"I like the way FIU focuses on the subject itself," Garza said. "It’s a lot more math classes than you would take if you were to just get a math education degree … I do think this program helps teachers a lot."
Getting STEM majors into the classroom
During her time as an intern here, Garza has worked with a mentor teacher, Jose Pavon, who is also a graduate of FIUTeach.
Pavon has been teaching here for four years. He brings a lot of energy and enthusiasm to the classroom. But he didn’t know he wanted to be a teacher until after earning a bachelor's degree in biology.
“I realized I wanted a job that was more social, a lot more communication, and I wanted to be around people. And while I love labs and experiments, it was very lonely,” he said.
When Pavon decided to go back to school to earn a degree in chemistry, he took a free FIUTeach introductory class and loved it.
“It really is supposed to get your feet wet. You’re just trying it out, and if it's not for you, it's not for you. But you can’t say you didn’t try, you can’t say you didn’t go into the classroom and give it your best shot," he said.
Pavon earned a bachelor’s in chemistry as part of the FIUTeach program and interned at Miami Senior High. He has been working here ever since.
Pavon said he has met people who think “because they understand the content, they can teach it — and I think there’s a big disconnect there.” FIUTeach bridges that gap, he said, helping subject matter experts also learn how to teach their knowledge to students effectively.
From interns to full-time teachers
In addition to a final internship, FIUTeach students must attend a weekly workshop on campus. They share different teaching methods and lesson plans and get feedback from the instructors.
Nicole Diaz, a biology major, attended a recent workshop this spring. During her freshman year, FIUTeach staff went to one of her biology classes and pitched the introductory course.
She started teaching during the early days of the pandemic.
“That experience was amazing," she said. "Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong, because it was through Zoom. It was COVID. But it was just awesome seeing how interested the students were in our lesson."
This spring, Diaz interned at Terra Environmental Research Institute, a magnet high school in Miami that focuses on environmental and biomedical research, as well as engineering and robotics. She was recently offered a job there.
"They were hoping that the person who was coming for the internship would be interested. And I was! So I will be starting in the fall as their new marine science teacher," she said.
"It’s actually my alma mater, so it’s been an interesting, fun experience going back as a teacher, and seeing all of my teachers and now being more at a colleague level. … I’m very excited to start in the fall."
Juan Sanchez is graduating with a math degree and has been teaching Algebra at his alma mater, Cypress Bay High School in Weston. He laughed while explaining that his sister is a senior this year. It was awkward at first when he told her friends they had to call him “Mr. Sanchez.”
The internship has been a rewarding experience.
“When you see students that hate math or they just don’t want to come to school, they don’t want to wake up early," he said, "but they come and put in the work, they understand, they learn and they have fun in the classroom, it’s just wonderful.”
This story is part of Role Call, a WLRN project produced with support from the Education Writers Association.
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