For the past eight years, the Public Education Foundation of Chattanooga has been offering professional people with an undergraduate degree in Math, Science or Engineering an opportunity to teach in a Secondary School classroom while at the same time earning a graduate degree in education in fourteen months. The object of the program is to recruit dedicated teachers to work in disadvantaged schools in Chattanooga.
This year they offered graduating college students with an undergraduate degree the same opportunity, but in an elementary school classroom. Catherine Castleman graduated from Covenant College in May of 2016. After spending the summer helping to build a school in New Orleans she decided she wanted to be a teacher. She enrolled in the program and she’s now teaching at Eastside Elementary School in Chattanooga. She talked to Richard Winham about her experience.