Wayne County Schools

Wayne County Schools’ vision for an affinity group was to grow their own teachers by actively recruiting students as early as their freshman year, and mentoring them throughout high school and beyond.

Yvette Mason, co-chair of the EOC Network Steering Committee and assistant superintendent of Human Resources & Professional Development at Wayne County Schools led the initiative along with BT Coordinator Beyanka Lewis and a team of passionate educators from the district. Over the course of a year, the team held over 15 recruitment meetings at high schools during lunch time, with additional meetings held to encourage substitute teachers, instructional assistants and staff to consider pursuing a teaching degree and a teaching career.

“The award from the EOC Network allowed for opportunities to implement creative recruitment strategies at the school level and create a Wayne County Future Educators group,” Dr. Mason said. “It took some time to get off the ground, because we needed a full year to execute the plan successfully with strategic planning and district buy-in, but we are very excited to now have 147 interested future teachers, including 97 high school students and 50 TAs, substitutes and staff.”

Mason said keys to their success were having a strong team and a clear mission, being visible in the schools, and purposeful with identifying groups of district employees to attend recruitment meetings.

Early on, the group devised a plan with four key components: Campaign (spread awareness of different pathways to becoming an educator); Recruit (actively engage students, instructional assistants, substitutes and staff); Support (introduce and promote programs such as NC Teaching Fellows, an Apprenticeship program in partnership with Wayne Community College, a New Teacher Support Program and “Teach Wayne” a new initiative designed to encourage participants to give back to their community); and Sustain (efforts focused on attracting funding and support needed to continue the program).

“We are very pleased with the high level of interest in this new initiative,” Mason said. “We surpassed our goal and are committed to creating pathways to develop locally grown teachers for classrooms.”

Mason said she’s thrilled that the EOC Network will continue to provide support for local school initiatives, and she hopes that the success of programs recently launched in Wayne, Carteret and Jones Counties will encourage other districts to pursue similar initiatives.

“The EOC Network Affinity Group Support Initiative provided an incentive for our team to re-focus our efforts on recruiting teachers from within our own community,” she said. “Many times even a small amount of funding may be enough to spark interest in developing a new vision and pursing a dream. I am excited that the EOC Network recently provided 2024 Affinity Group awards to Columbus County and Whiteville City Schools in addition to Wayne, Carteret and Jones Counties. I can’t wait to see what they accomplish!”

Other members of the Future Educators of Wayne County Planning and Implementation Team are: Felicia Brown, Director of Human Resources; Laura Taylor, District Instructional Coach; Krysti Flow, Exceptional Children, Spring Creek High School; Cassandra Dunn, SSELC Lead Teacher; Gregory Darden, EC – Brogden Primary School;  and Rhea Tam, ESL -Spring Creek Elementary School.