Having just completed its fifth year, Project KNOTtT (Kansas, Nevada, Ohio and Texas Transition to Teaching) began its transition to Project mNET (Mobilizing National Educator Talent) at its annual training in Cambridge, Mass., August 3–5, 2012. mNET continues the work of KNOTtT and adds a school leader component to the package. mNET is committed to recruit, train, support and retain 1,111 teachers over the remaining four years of the grant.

KNOTtT and mNET meet concurrently with the Association of Teacher Educators (ATE), one of their national partners. Members reviewed project procedures and the Learning Management System (LMS) created to support its goals.

Project KNOTtT was a federally funded Transition to Teaching (TtT) partnership designed to support recruitment, selection, training, coaching and mentoring to retain teachers in high need, hard-to-staff school districts.  As a national initiative, Project KNOTtT addressed the teacher shortages in the subject areas of math, science, English/language arts, foreign languages, English as a second language and special education (K-12).  This five year project exceeded its goal of 547 by serving 573 new teachers pursuing nontraditional routes to certification in four states:  Kansas, Nevada, Ohio and Texas.

Led by The Ohio State University (staff members housed with the Center on Education and Training for Employment), the four KNOTtT states collaborated with national partners to knot together three strategic strands of support for alternative certification programs: an online learning community, mentoring and quality indicators.

National partners include the National Association of Alternative Certification, ATE, Youth Policy Institute, and The Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

mNET is defined as an innovative, nontraditional national teacher preparation support structure designed to help individuals attain full state certification as core academic teachers in high need, hard-to-staff school districts.

mNET teachers serve for at least three years in either a P-12 public school district or an independent or charter school in one of 14 partner locations: Kansas, Nevada, Ohio, Texas, Colorado, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Virginia, Puerto Rico or the District of Columbia. National partners include ATE and the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity (NAPE).

Contributor: Lorie Owens