Eastern Oregon Teacher Academy

The College of Education at Eastern Oregon University (EOU), in partnership with the Region 18 Wallowa ESD is pleased to announce the inaugural Eastern Oregon Teacher Academy (EOTA).

EOTA will be held on the EOU campus in La Grande, June 26th - June 29th, 2021.

EOTA will be an intense three-day program. Participants will share in a variety of activities that will help them to better understand what teachers do and to determine whether or not they have the potential for meeting this professional challenge. The Academy is open to high school students (incoming sophomore, junior, senior for the 2021-22 academic year) considering a career in education, para-professionals considering becoming a teacher, and college graduates considering a graduate degree in education.

EOTA is part of the Teach Rural Oregon (TRO) project at EOU. The TRO project aims at recruiting diverse student teachers (including first generation) to complete their student teaching in rural and isolated rural districts across Oregon. TRO is part of the Grow Your Own grant program provided by the Oregon Department of Education. The EOTA is the first step towards providing an emerging sustainable diverse teacher pathway and academy to serve rural and underserved populations in Oregon.

EOTA will showcase excellence in diverse teacher preparation in pedagogy/andragogy/heutagogy strategies on becoming an exceptional K-12 practitioner. EOTA participants will be trained in the nine steps for working with culturally best practices curriculum, explore anti-racism academy developed courses, evaluate leadership activities while engaging in professional learning on race and equity. Academy participants will learn from diversity experts, the recruited diverse pre-service teacher candidates from other institutions, Trauma, and Social-Emotional Learning experts to gain more knowledge about the challenges and rewards of teaching in Oregon.

The Academy is free, however space is extremely limited due to current pandemic gathering restrictions. Participants will be lodged on-campus and have meals provided for them during the Academy. Currently EOU is requiring, as per state regulations, to test each participant for Covid-19. EOU will send out kits prior to the Academy and will take care of the testing costs.

You have been provided with an FAQ on the Academy as well as a downloadable application for EOTA. You can download and save the pdf and attach it to emails for sharing with potential Academy participants. Once the application has been downloaded and saved it should open as a PDF fillable document for applicants to fill out. After the application has filled out it will need to be saved again. The saved version of the completed application can then be sent directly to the EOTA email, eota@eou.edu. The deadline for applications is May 14th, 2021. Applicants will be notified the following week. Participants not selected will be placed on a waiting list and will be able to apply for the 2022 Academy.

We are very excited about the EOTA and we hope that this will provide participants with an opportunity to learn more about and explore the field of teaching and consider the possibility of working in rural and underserved communities in Oregon.