Craig Daily Press

Craig — By state mandate, the Quality Teacher Commission convened earlier this month.

The commission’s purpose: close the teacher gap.

The group, which was established by Colorado Senate Bill 07-140, is expected to help develop a new system to identify highly qualified teachers.

To develop the system, the commission will collect recommendations from Colorado school districts, including Moffat County — a region where the teacher gap isn’t an issue, local school administrators and staff said.

“The term ‘teacher gap’ refers to the phenomenon that poor and minority students are more likely to be instructed by less-qualified or less-experienced teachers than their more affluent and white peers,” according to a Colorado Department of Education press release.

By this definition, Moffat County doesn’t have a teacher gap, said Joel Sheridan, Moffat County School District assistant superintendent.

Moffat County students from lower socio-economic groups and minority backgrounds get “the same teachers and programs as everyone else,” he said.

In Moffat County, 28 percent of students are eligible for free and reduced lunch, executive assistant Vicki Duncan said. Hispanic students make up six percent of the district’s enrollment.

With the exception of English acquisition classes, the district doesn’t provide special programs to accommodate these students.

Moffat County High School offers basic reading and language classes that are predominately comprised of Hispanic students, said Carroll Moore, MCHS counselor.

In her opinion, the high school isn’t experiencing a teacher gap.

“Our basic reading and language classes are taught by some of our most qualified teachers,” Moore said.

Still, many of the school’s most experienced teachers choose to teach advanced courses, she added.

The teacher gap is associated more with urban schools, Sheridan said.

“I think that might happen in a metro area … where we have different (groups) of people,” Sheridan said. “I assume it’s a targeted metro area” issue.

Kim Conci, a second-grade teacher at Ridgeview Elementary, agrees.

“I think it’s more in places like Denver,” she said. “You really don’t see the really affluent and the really poor” in Moffat County.

Is the teacher gap endemic of urban areas only?

That question remains unanswered, said Jacqueline Paone, Alliance for Quality teaching executive director and one of the commission’s 13 members.

“There’s not enough data to look at rural schools to see if the gap exists or not and if so, to what extent and in what areas,” she said. “It’s definitely something we want to look at more.”

However, attrition rates in rural Colorado schools indicate the teacher gap could be an issue.

“When we talk to superintendents in rural schools, there is a difficulty in retaining teachers,” Paone said.

Higher teacher turnover means more new teachers. And new teachers usually have “less success” than their more experienced peers, Paone said.

Bridget Manley can be reached at 824-7031, ext. 207 or bmanley@craigdailypress.com