Skip to main content
Residency Program » Program Overview

Program Overview

Become a CA certified teacher in one year with PUC Teacher Residency Program. 

In the one year residency credentialing program, Resident Teachers:

  • Are hired and paid as classified school employees
  • Observe, collaborate, co-teach, and practice with a matched Mentor Teacher for the entire year
  • Attend Loyola Marymount University School of Education’s online Teacher Credential Program as a full-time online student
  • Work at a PUC school site four days a week and attend Seminar one day a week to bridge coursework and clinical classroom practice
  • Observe, collaborate, co-teach, and practice with a matched Mentor Teacher, logging nearly 1,000 hours of classroom experience.
  • Receive coaching and support from Mentor Teacher, TRP Coordinator, and LMU Fieldwork Instructor
  • Participate in school site-based professional development
  • Build collaborative connections with resident cohort members
  • Earn a combined salary PLUS a  living stipend totaling between $47,000 and $58,000 a year, depending on prior experience
  • Receive a tuition scholarship from LMU of approximately 35% off the cost of the educator credentialing program

Building Educators, Uplifting Communities

PUC Schools was founded on the belief that quality schools build strong communities. This belief lives through PUC Commitment #3, which declares that students will commit to uplift our communities now and forever. One way PUC brings this vision to life is by encouraging alumni and community members to become educators within our schools.

 

In 2013, this vision led to the creation of the Alumni Teach Project (ATP), now known as the PUC Teacher Residency Program (PUC TRP). The Teacher Residency Program offers schools and residents a sustainable and supportive pathway to credentialing in order to address historical and persistent teacher shortages in our communities.  

 

Now in our fourteenth year, PUC TRP continues to expand our partnerships to build a consortium residency program for area charter schools, providing our neighboring friends with the same effective residency experience proven year over year to graduate highly qualified educators. We continue to seek sustainable pathways for schools with interested applicants to join the proud ranks of California educators giving back to their communities.

🧭 Our Mission

The PUC Teacher Residency Program is a culturally responsive residency program designed to cultivate and foster strong instructional leadership skills in new educators. Our mission at the PUC Teacher Residency Program (PUC TRP) is to recruit, train, and retain highly qualified educators from the communities we serve and to build a deep educational and cultural knowledge base that develops Teacher Residents and Mentors into self-directed reflective decision-makers. 

 

Through this approach, we facilitate the development of educators whose service with students helps transform our communities. Our collaborative and supportive program provides new teachers the competence and confidence they need to step into any classroom setting and build a safe learning environment wherein students feel a sense of belonging and agency.

🔍 A Framework of Relationships, Power, and Change

Our exploration of great teaching is further grounded in three core tenets:

 

Relationships: We emphasize the importance of culturally responsive pedagogy and relational care, recognizing that meaningful relationships are the cornerstone of effective teaching. Residents study and practice strategies for developing trusting relationships and safe learning environments in which all students feel a sense of belonging. 

 

Power: Residents reflect on the role of power in the classroom and in education, and learn how to adapt power structures appropriately to better uplift and engage all students through powerful teaching practices that develop student agency and foster growth.

 

Change: Developing a growth mindset is central to the teaching profession. Residents are expected to observe and reflect on their own transformation as well as on the academic and personal growth of their students. This intentional process of noting, uplifting, and advocating for change connects power and relationships in service of building a more just and equitable society.

🏫 Program Design

The PUC TRP provides a year-long, intensive course of study that fully prepares aspiring teachers for success in today’s diverse educational settings. At the heart of the PUC Teacher Residency Program is the essential question:

 

“How do we become good teachers?”

 

This question guides the integrated learning experiences of our Teacher Residents, connecting seminars, Loyola Marymount University coursework, and coaching into a cohesive, purpose-driven journey.

Program Elements

Gradual Release: From observing to teaching

Residents explore the essential question of “How do I become a good teacher?” through the lenses of pedagogy, skill-building practice, the California Teaching Performance Expectations, LMU coursework, mentor observations, one-on-one coaching, and reflection. 

 

At the beginning of the year, Residents purposefully observe their Mentor and other teachers, noting how lessons and units are constructed, how classroom culture is established, how positive and respectful relationships are co-created, how to effectively respond to student behaviors and learning, and how to check for understanding and give valuable feedback. Gradually,  Residents begin to co-teach with their Mentor teacher, which may include working with small groups, leading a section of class, parallel teaching, station teaching, differentiated teaching, and team teaching. 

 

By their first Fall Gateway, General Education Residents prepare to lead class on their own for three days, co-creating lesson plans with their Mentor for the Resident to solo teach. During Gateways, Mentor teachers exit the classroom and return periodically to observe the Resident in a unique role-reversal. Similarly, for Residents who are Inclusion Specialists/Special Educators, the Fall Gateway also consists of Mentor observations of the Resident fulfilling service minutes in classrooms independently and taking collaboration and IEP development meetings as a valued member of the team. 

 

Residents continue to gradually develop skills in planning, classroom culture, instruction,  and professionalism, and integrate strategies from LMU coursework into their daily practices. For the Winter Gateway, Gen Ed Residents plan and teach five full days, having developed and implemented two of the five lesson plans that week. Inclusion Residents continue to develop their skills in collaborating with gen ed teachers, providing cognitively engaging and needs-based services to students, and participating in team meetings, as well as developing and presenting a student’s PLPs and Goals during an IEP meeting. 

 

By the second semester, all Residents are continuing to learn alongside their Mentor, engaging in more co-planning and co-teaching in preparation for the Spring Gateway, which is also when Residents video record themselves for their edTPA submission.  The edTPA, led by LMU professors, is a credentialing requirement that all pre-service teachers in California must successfully complete. It is a portfolio project that requires Residents to plan, implement, and assess a series of learning segments– and it is a demonstration of the knowledge and skills they’ve been developing all throughout their residency experience.

 

The Resident’s culminating project comes in the late spring, and it is the Summative Gateway, lasting three full weeks for Gen Ed Residents and longer for Inclusion Residents.  For Gen Ed Residents, their task is to backwards design, plan, and implement a discrete 3-week unit and solo teach for its entirety. For Inclusion Residents, their task is to develop, write, and present a complete and comprehensive IEP for a selected student, including curation of multiple assessments, feedback from a variety of voices, and IEP meeting facilitation.  The Summative Gateway is where all Residents put into practice all the skills and knowledge they have learned from LMU coursework, TRP seminars, and school Professional Development, so that by the end of the school year they know: They have the competence and confidence to teach in their chosen content area!