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What's better than hiring a good young teacher? How about finding a good, young, homegrown teacher?

That's the goal of a new affiliation between the University of Central Florida and the Lake Wales Charter Schools aimed at creating a steady pipeline of local teaching talent available for hire at any of the system's seven schools.

"It's a win-win situation for our students who are interested in pursing a career in education, and the charter system to have a readily available quality pool of teaching talent," said Charter System Human Resources Director Dr. Julio Acevedo. "This program allows some of our potential future teachers to be trained in the Lake Wales Charter School culture from a very early start."

Along with Janie Howard Wilson instructional and curriculum administrator Stacie Padgett, Acevedo sits on a steering committee for the "Homegrown Teaching Academy" with the Orlando based university.

"Qualified students who are in the program are given a spot in the UCF College of Education, are able to do their internship opportunities in LWCS schools, can take teacher exams ( with the help of the high school teachers) that are good for 10 years, and come back and teach in our community," Padgett noted. "Students and staff have full access to UCF resources now through this partnership."

The partnership started just this past spring, and the two local charter school employees will attend their next advocacy committee meeting at UCF next month.