Rachel Emerson

Rachel Emerson got her first classroom hours at the Campus School as a sophomore, co-teaching a small reading group alongside a licensed special educator two years before her formal placement even started. "Dual licensure means you're qualified to teach a general classroom AND run an IEP-driven caseload, which sounds like twice the coursework because it is. Having actual kids in front of me that early made the theory classes make sense instead of feeling like an abstraction I'd apply someday."

She's now an inclusion teacher and case manager carrying both a caseload of students with IEPs and a co-taught general classroom, work she says almost no other credential prepares you for as directly. "Districts are short on dual-licensed teachers everywhere, not just here. I had four job offers before I'd finished student teaching. The shortage is real, and the program is built specifically to answer it."