Online teaching certification, iTeach, expands in Northern Virginia

FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. — Inside a portable classroom on the Bryant High School campus in Fairfax County, Hannah Wiley has found her calling: teaching.

Wiley looks over a rock of quartzite with a student and explains how the metamorphic rock came to be. She is instructing and smiling.

“My mom was a teacher so I was thinking about a different route during college,” she said.

She didn’t go to college to be an educator. But after college, she kept finding herself in teaching roles. One day she found herself working with a struggling math student.

“I was trying different ways of explaining it and he had this moment where he was like, ‘Oh, ok! I get it,’” She remembered. “That was a moment that was like, this is it. I love doing this.”

That moment changed her course. The problem was the courses she would need to take to become a Virginia teacher.

“If you go to a university, they have a lot of extra fees, so not only is tuition expensive at any university but the extra fees,” she explained. “So that was a big hurdle I was looking at.”

Instead, Wiley went to the Fairfax County Public Schools website and found iTeach.

“We have the same standard and rigor that you would expect for a traditional teacher prep program,” said Laura Estes, Virginia’s program director for iTeach.

The online certification program was approved by Virginia last year to help deal with the teacher shortage.

“It was approaching 4,000 at the time for shortages across the state,” Estes explained.

iTeach started in 12 districts last year, including Fairfax and Arlington counties. This school year it has expanded to nearly 80, now adding Loudoun County and Alexandria City in Northern Virginia.

“It's designed for them to teach for one full year, complete their courses in one full year, then be done and fully licensed so they can launch their careers,” Estes said.

According to Estes, this year there are around 600 teachers across the state in the program. That includes around 50 in Fairfax County.

Hannah Wiley, eight months after she started her course, has already graduated to a certified teacher.

“It's definitely not something I just clock in and do because they pay me to do it, right?” she said.  “I love working with the students.”

A spokesperson for Fairfax County Public Schools said the district sees the program as a way to bring people already invested in the community into the classroom and make it easier to switch careers. It’s just one of the ways the county is working to fill its shortages.