Episode description
Hello everyone! My name is Ladek and my guests for today are Brooke Barrett and Makeala Kingsley. Brooke is the founder of Bench K12, a start-up looking to solve the problem of teacher shortages across the US. Makeala is the Director of Strategic Partnerships at Dream.org who is here to tell her story about trying to become a substitute teacher during the pandemic.
In this ‘logjam breaking’ conversation Brook, Makaela and I talk about
00:00 › Start
03:40 › Teacher Shortages, An American Silent Crisis—How Brooke and Makaela became aware of the depth of this crisis first hand during the pandemic and how the situation could be solved by simply creating better systems.
09:50 › How BenchK12 Can Help—By allowing educators get the credentials faster and why opening this critical bottleneck will change so much for so many
12:17 › The logistics and nuances behind all of the different school systems across the US, and how Brooke and her team are able to present a solution that is compatible with them all.
17:00 › Makaela's experience trying to be helpful by becoming a substitute teacher for her kids’ school during the pandemic
20:26 › The challenges BenchK12 › currently faces as a start up and the immediate next steps in its future (including a call to action for everyone to help)
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