Since 2015, University of Northern Colorado (UNC) has offered a graduate degree in Teaching Diverse Learners. The degree enables current teachers to earn a Master of Arts through online courses and apply for state credentials to teach Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD) and Special Education. In addition to the MA degree, an opportunity for career advancement and meaningful pay increases, the program supports current teachers to develop the competencies needed for additional state endorsements in both CLD and Special Education. Graduate have expanded capacity to support diverse and multilingual learners with and without disabilities, and credentials needed to teach supporting multilingual learners, and providing special education support in addition to general education, as may be needed to support underserved students in areas most impacted by significant teacher shortages (CDE, 2024).

The US continues to struggle with a teacher shortage (National Center for Education Statistics, 2023), low enrollment in Teacher Ed programs (Will, 2022), and significant need to increase educational equity through reduction of disproportionate representation of CLD students in Special Education (US Department of Education & Office for Civil Rights, 2016). The MA-TDL program that prepares teachers to best support students with diverse learning needs has more than 50 graduates since its inception and has evolved through multiple changes in response to insight from graduates.

Now the School of Teacher Education at UNC is working to expand the Master of Arts in Teaching Diverse Learners (MA-TDL) program to support widespread teacher shortages across the state. During a time when enrollment in teacher education programs low, state-level data shows teacher shortages are most significant in rural communities (CDE, 2024). Rural communities and schools are impacted by the slowed generation of new teachers who may not be eager to move to a small, distant rural community they are not familiar with. Rural educators also face limited opportunities for career development within the small communities they serve as teachers and as members of the community.

This presentation will share the efforts undertaken across 2024 to prepare a project to provide 30 rural educators with the opportunity for career development through the MA-TDL program, increase support for students with disabilities, and improve learning outcomes for underserved diverse students within the rural schools and communities these educators call home. The presentation will cover program design for effective rural educator development, responsive changes to improve the program and recruiting strategies for reaching rural schools struggling to support students with disabilities because of teacher shortages, and the current teachers motivated to develop new competencies to support their diverse and underserved students.

Keywords: Rural teacher development, diverse learners, special education, multilingual.