Denver Public Schools continues push to hire international teachers

Denver Public Schools students may be seeing a lot of new teachers in their classrooms as they head back to school in a week.

Denver7 first told you about the push to bring more international teachers to DPS classrooms in the spring through the International Educators Institute, which provides wraparound services and support for teachers as they settle into the United States.

Education

Denver Public Schools begins push to hire more international educators

Adria Iraheta

Dozens of teachers expressed interest in coming to work at DPS to learn more about the district’s biliteracy efforts in hopes of replicating it in their home country, DPS Superintendent Alex Marrero told Denver7.

The latest cohort is made up of 74 international teachers.

“We have folks from Cameroon. We have folks from Colombia, from we have folks from the Philippines, from Mexico, Costa Rica, all over the place," program director Leticia Levi said.

Anna Victoria Alpizar just arrived from Costa Rica.

“I saw, like, all the information about the multicultural setting, about how you embrace process, quality of education. So I said, like, this is the one, right? I want to be there,” she recalled.

Through the International Educators Institute, she’s gotten all the help she needs to make it a smooth transition.

“It's been a long process, you know, since January… the organization has these people, HR and other [individuals]… you get all the information that you need in order to be ready for the flight, for the arrival,” Alpizar said.

DPS said its goal was to have at least 200 international teachers in classrooms by this fall.

They’ve surpassed that. With this summer’s cohort, they have about 300 international teachers starting the year.

“DPS has a culture of belonging,” Alpizar said, “so I'm looking forward to exploring the city to being the best professional possible.”