Rethinking the Teacher Pipeline HOW AN HBCU-BORN CENTER IS REIMAGINING TEACHER PREPARATION
BY BRANDI KELLAM
In schools across the country, she says, many potential teachers are already there. “They’re in the buildings. They’re instructional assistants. They’re paraprofessionals,” Mitchell said. “They’re in the library. They’re in the front office. They’re bus drivers who always want to teach.” The challenge, she argues, is creating pathways that allow those people to become credentialed, effective classroom teachers — and supporting them throughout their careers. When Dr. Damara Hightower Mitchell talks about the nation’s teacher shortage, she challenges a common assumption — that fewer people want to become teachers.
That philosophy drives the Center of Excellence for Educator Preparation and Innovation, or EPI Center, a national nonprofit founded in 2020 that grew out of Voorhees University, an HBCU in Denmark, South Carolina. Initially developed through funded projects aimed at teacher shortages and vacancies in rural schools, the EPI Center has evolved into what Mitchell, its founder and CEO, calls an “end-to- end teacher workforce solution.” The organization works across K-12 schools, districts and higher education, supporting aspiring, practicing and veteran educators. Its services range from helping prospective teachers navigate certification requirements to instructional coaching, professional development and advanced credentials. The EPI Center also works with colleges and universities interested in redesigning how they prepare educators. Mitchell says the center was built to address gaps she saw in traditional teacher preparation — certification requirements that can keep experienced, capable people from becoming teachers, and programs
that focus on meeting standards and passing exams without always preparing educators for the realities of the students and classrooms they will encounter. Those gaps, Mitchell says, helped shape the center’s approach. Its staff brings experience from K-12 schools, higher education, teacher preparation and the nonprofit sector, allowing the organization to work across different parts of the education system. She believes improving the teacher pipeline will require those parts of the system to work together rather than trying to address pipeline challenges in isolation. “There are educators who are doing phenomenal work both in K through 12 schools and in ed prep programs and institutions across this country,” Mitchell said. “There are opportunities for us to work together and learn from each other.” Mitchell’s own career has given her a view of the teacher pipeline from several sides. She began as a high school English
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