What does it take to prepare teachers for the classrooms that need them most?

In this episode, Sara Scribner, special educator, researcher, and faculty member at Plymouth State University, shares how a partnership with a small rural district in northern New Hampshire became a model for building teacher preparation around the realities of the school, not the campus. The Littleton residency covers tuition, provides housing, and places residents in co-taught classrooms with layered mentorship from day one. The result: graduates who are all still teaching in public schools, and a district that no longer faces special education shortages.

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Key Insights

• Co-Owning the Problem: What shifts when a university and a district share real accountability for preparing teachers, not just credit.
• Inclusion Demystified: Why teachers resist inclusive classrooms, and how small changes move both practice and mindset.
• Housing as Infrastructure: How removing one logistical barrier changed who could say yes to teaching in a rural community.
• Feedback That Loops: The triad observation model that replaced compliance-oriented evaluation.
• Cohort as Anchor: Why residents who live, teach, and learn together stay in the profession.

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