The Urban Academies
The School Board of Broward County, Florida (SBBC), through its Urban Academies, prepares and supports high quality teachers for success in hard-to-staff schools. The Broward Education Consortium, a formal partnership between SBBC and four institutions of higher education formed the Urban Academies in 2000. Members are Nova Southeastern University, Florida Atlantic University, Broward College, and Barry University. School Districts and Colleges of Education are faced with enormous challenges. Nationally 20% of teachers leave classrooms in urban school districts every year, and 46% of first year teachers will not remain in classrooms for a sixth year (Commission on Teaching and America’s Future). The statistics are much starker in urban schools, especially in critical needs areas like science, mathematics, and reading.
The Urban Academies of Broward County (UABC) has been preparing and supporting high quality teachers for almost a decade. UABC achieves its mission through the 1) Urban Teacher Academy Program (UTAP) which identifies students in eighth or ninth grades for careers as educators and educational leaders, and 2) Urban Academies of Professional Development, which places student teachers in urban schools and gives them added support from master teachers trained as clinical educators.
Building on its success of preparing and supporting high quality teachers, the nationally recognized Urban Academies seeks to apply its successful model in meeting the general teacher recruitment and professional development needs of urban secondary schools to recruit and develop teachers in the critical shortage areas of mathematics, science, and reading
For information on the various opportunities, support and resources available, please click on the links below.