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Career Ladder Program

MCC’s “Grow Your Own Teacher” Career Ladder Program offers Professional Development Opportunities For Paraprofessionals, Tutors & Classified Employees of MCC Partner School Districts

Morgan Community College has developed an Associate of Arts degree program that will assist paraprofessionals to advance their education while remaining employed within the school districts and prepare them in ESL education.

Program Goals:
Goal 1: To provide paraprofessionals, tutors and other classified employees working in MCC’s service area an opportunity to meet the “highly qualified” guidelines of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation.

Goal 2: To provide an opportunity to earn an Associate of Arts degree, while allowing school employees to maintain their current jobs. Those who are already invested in their community would more than likely stay in rural Colorado to teach.

Program Benefits:
1. A full-time Director will serve as project students’ advisor and mentor.
2. Courses are scheduled during evenings and weekends and full time in the summer.
3. Tuition, books and fees are provided by a federal grant from English Language Acquisition (ELA).


FOR MORE INFORMATION: call Program Director Dr. John Rocha, (970) 542-3227, or his assistant Darlene Doane, (970) 542-3228. Office location is 132 Cottonwood Hall on MCC’s Fort Morgan Campus.

CAREER LADDER NOTES, Spring 2008:

The program was introduced by Dr. John Rocha and Dr. Lorenso Aragon from the University of Colorado, Bueno Center. Both have experience running similar programs in community college settings at Aims and Front Range Community Colleges. From there, students have the option of transferring into UNC (well known as a teacher’s college), then onto CU to earn their Master’s. Here in Morgan County, they first talked with the Fort Morgan School District and MCC and it was determined the program would be a good fit for this area. Then, MCC successfully applied for a federal grant of $928,744 from the office of English Language Acquisition (ELA). This will pay for the education of 40 paraprofessionals over a 5 year time frame.

Dr. Rocha is the Director of the program and will teach when needed as well. Dr. Rocha has worked as an educator for more than thirty years; his experience includes work as a public school teacher, and as a teacher educator for the past twenty years. College and university level courses he has taught include: Spanish; ESL Methods; Introduction to Bilingual/ESL Education; Multicultural Education; and Literacy for English Language Learners. He has experience in designing and implementing both pre-service and in-service professional development programs. Dr. Rocha served as Director of Career Ladder teacher prep projects at Front Range Community College and at Aims Community College Fort Lupton Campus. He is knowledgeable about teacher licensure and endorsement requirements, and has served on Colorado Department of Education work committees to develop standards for adult learners of English as a Second Language, and English as a Second Language teacher endorsement.

Darlene Doane was recently hired as his assistant. She has an AA from MCC, and a BA from UNC. She has worked as a newspaper publisher / editor and a director of the Brush Chamber of Commerce. She hopes to use her grant writing experiences and skills to continue the program beyond the initial five-year plan.

A big supporter of the program is former MCC President Michele Haney who is a member of Alliance for Quality Teaching (AQT), a coalition of policy makers, stakeholders and practitioners with the mission to ensure that Colorado children have a quality teacher in every classroom every day.

“I see this project first as an exceptional opportunity for persons who might have thought earning a degree was out of the realm of possibility;
and secondly, I see paraprofessionals who are often already invested in their respective communities and would more than likely stay in rural Colorado to teach. That would help close the teacher gap that AQT research correlates with student achievement.”

Similar Program Results: ½ who complete an A.A. go on to earn their bachelor’s; and ½ who achieve a B.A. complete their master’s degree.