On Wednesday, Jan. 30, Rachel Oppenheim, Director of the School of Education, participated in a “Day on the Hill” event along with other members of the Washington Association for Colleges of Teacher Education (WACTE). Oppenheim spent the day in Olympia meeting with legislators to advocate on behalf of public schools and teacher education. She focused her message on legislation that would contribute to diversifying the educator workforce in WA State. She advocated for increased funding for Teacher Shortage Grants, conditional scholarships for teacher candidates who commit to working in public schools, and she argued that the state should work to remove testing barriers for incoming teacher candidates.
Oppenheim had appointments with Rep Pettigrew, Rep Frame, and Sen Hasegawa, who is a proud graduate of Antioch University Seattle’s BA Program. She joined forces for some of those appointments with members of the School of Education at City University, which is in the same legislative district as AUS.
The Day on the Hill represented an important collaboration of the colleges of teacher education across Washington state. Altogether, WACTE members met with dozens of lawmakers and presented a clear, unified voice on behalf of eliminating barriers for teachers and diversifying the educator workforce in Washington State.
