STERLING, Va. — To help with staffing shortages, Loudoun County Public Schools started a new program this year to recruit teachers from other countries.
LCPS has hired 40 so-called ambassador teachers from all over the globe, many hailing from the Philippines and Jamaica. They’re teaching primarily in elementary school classrooms this year.
Through a partnership with North Carolina-based Participate Learning, 15 schools in the county are receiving a boost of support. LCPS has filled 98.5% of its positions, a better place to start compared to this time in 2023.
Division Director of Recruiting Bob Phillips said the district needed to find an alternative option to finding qualified teachers.
“Trying to get people into jobs in education has become more challenging since COVID,” Phillips told WUSA9. “The old way of getting kids into college to become teachers, those numbers have decreased. We’re looking for creative ways to fill those pools and get certified teachers into our classrooms.”
The process to hire the teachers took about a year.
Participate Learning helps take care of their visas, find a home, start a bank account and provide peer support.
Among the teachers hired is Mark John Valencia of the Philippines, who has 12 years of teaching experience.
“I applied because I wanted to be not just a better educator, but also a better individual,” Valencia told WUSA9. “The lessons and values that I can learn here I can also share it to the Philippines.”
Valencia said aside from the teaching opportunity at Sterling Elementary School, he’s excited to experience winter for the first time. It’s his first time being in the U.S.
“I already have plans for winter,” he added. “We’ll be lying in the snow.”
In his classroom, Valencia also has a "cultural corner" where he can highlight aspects of his country to his fifth-grade students.
“In a way we can show how we celebrate things,” Valencia said. “Filipinos are also very resilient. We want to show that.”
Sharing the culture is the same hope for Grace Nzuma of Kenya. She’s teaching kindergarteners at Sterling Elementary.
On top of learning new experiences, she is entering this role with pride.
“I’ve always asked myself what I can do for my country and when I learned I could be an ambassador teacher and change lives in another country, I took up the challenge,” Nzuma said. “I’ve always wanted to do something amazing for my country.”
Nzuma has also brought in items from her country that exemplifies the culture in her corner. She wants to teach her kids about “Hakuna matata,” a phrase in Swahili that means no trouble or no worries, famously mentioned in the Disney move Lion King.
“I want my students to emulate to not be worried or anxious about anything and go with the flow of life,” she said.
Their visas allow them to work for three years and extend for two more.
The school system plans to partner with the company again next year. The participating schools have community advisors to help the teachers with the transition living and working in a whole new country. Next year, these teachers could be advisors themselves.