Our 2+2 teacher training program in elementary education, which is offered at participating community colleges, has added up to so much success that a new section is being added this fall at the Tullahoma campus of Motlow State.

That addition brings the total number of sections offered by the program to eight at six community college campuses. In addition to the new Tullahoma section, they include the McMinnville campus of Motlow State, and the Oak Ridge and Crossville campuses of Roane State, Pellissippi State and Chattanooga State.

A total of 96 new students are enrolled in the program this fall, including nine in the new Tullahoma section. The number of participants in all eight sections is 207.

“If our 2+2 program continues to grow as quickly as it has in the recent past, its number of graduates could be competitive with the number of our on-campus elementary education graduates in only a few years,” says Darrell Garber, dean of the College of Education.

Described as a "grow-your-own" approach to teacher shortages in rural elementary schools, the program originally began in the mid-1990s, but it wasn’t until fall 2002 and fall 2003 that it became entirely self-contained at the Crossville and Oak Ridge campuses respectively.

“Our first graduates from a self-contained 2+2 program earned their degrees just this past spring, and they brought so many positive testimonies,” Garber says.

“One of the graduates even said she wished all of the 2+2 graduates could teach together in the same school, because she knew they were all teachers who could make a difference. Her comment about how complete her level of confidence was in the program’s ability to prepare quality teacher candidates still gives me chills.”