This one is out of order, and I wasn’t initially going to blog about this experience. It was definitely a new experience, though most of the component experiences are activities I have done in other contexts. However, one of my collaborators on the Teacher Recruitment grant asked me to write a blog for their web page, so I decided I could also write a “wrap-around” blog for my own page and then it will officially be a “new experience.”
Many of you know that my still-newish “day job” here in Pueblo involves coordinating a grant to improve the recruitment of teachers to rural south-central Colorado. The grant has three components: rural immersion experiences for prospective teachers, branding for the school districts and Board of Cooperative Education Services (BOCES), and widening pipelines to rural teaching through partnerships (still defining that one…). So far we have focused primarily on the Immersion Experiences, because we wanted to get one completed before school was out here in Colorado, which is generally before Memorial Day.

You can read my “professional” blog here (scroll down to Recruiting for Rural!). As grant coordinator, I was responsible for recruiting and selecting participants, setting the schedule in cooperation with the district administrators, arranging for lodging and meals, serving as primary point of contact for everyone, co-planning the activities with my grant partners, and co-leading the professional development. Whew! No wonder I was exhausted when I got home!