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For three weeks during her teaching residency, Kenlee Pope took over a fifth-grade classroom in Everett.
Pope had already spent months working alongside her mentor, Thomas Treskell, at Monroe Elementary School. She had taught lessons and had built relationships with the students. Still, the students knew Treskell was their main teacher.
Then came the full classroom takeover.
Her mentor did not leave the room entirely, but the planning, teaching, and day-to-day decisions became Pope’s. Lessons did not always work. Students did not respond the way she expected. Behavior problems came up that she had to address without turning to Treskell for an answer.
“I think nothing really prepares you for that. Aside from just doing it,” Pope said.
The first few days were especially difficult, but Pope said those three weeks were transformational for her education.
“I think I learned the most during those three weeks and the time afterward as well,” Pope said. “How to think on the fly. What happens when my lesson does not work? And what happens when the kids don’t do exactly what I tell them to do?”
Pope is now a first-year fifth-grade teacher at Monroe Elementary. This time, the classroom is hers alone.
Preparing to Teach
Before teachers like Pope are handed the keys to their first classroom, Washington teaching candidates spend significant time learning alongside experienced educators. The state’s Professional Educator Standards Board requires at least 450 hours of hands-on clinical practice for candidates in traditional certification programs and at least 540 hours for candidates taking alternative routes to certification, such as career changers or people already working in schools.
These hours of practice time are one of the most crucial experiences on the journey to becoming a teacher. At Seattle Public Schools, Keenen Allen Ladd emphasizes the importance of bringing genuine care to the profession, which can only be truly developed by being in the classroom.
“No textbook can fully teach you how to love and care for students, show genuine empathy, or build authentic relationships,” Ladd said. “Those lessons are learned by being present, listening closely, and showing up consistently.”
For Rachel Oppenheim, Ph.D., senior director of the Seattle Teacher Residency at the Alliance for Education, classroom time is where coursework for aspiring teachers becomes real.
Oppenheim said teacher-preparation coursework can cover lesson planning, assessment, instructional strategies, and ways to adapt lessons for different students, but real-life face time with them is what builds tangible experience.
“Real classrooms can be messy, complicated, and dynamic,” Oppenheim said. “It’s important to be able to experience that messiness, to learn to adapt and pivot in real time, to make mistakes and recover. All of that takes on-the-ground experience.”
Karl Gapuz knows that process from both sides.
Gapuz, a third-grade teacher at Rising Star Elementary in Seattle Public Schools, completed the Seattle Teacher Residency before beginning his own career. Ten years later, he now mentors prospective teachers through the same program.
He knew as early as ninth grade that he wanted to teach. Gapuz grew up in Seattle and attended Title I schools himself, making the idea of eventually teaching in similar communities especially meaningful.
What surprised him was how much of the job could not be planned ahead of time.
Gapuz expected teaching to revolve more heavily around crafting and delivering lessons. Once students were in front of him, though, he found himself needing to learn to adapt the lesson itself for the mood of the room, the needs of individual students, and be flexible to the ever changing dynamics of a classroom.
“It’s the constant balance of reading the ‘vibe’ of the room and individual students, coupled with understanding their current academic progress and how to meet them where they are,” Gapuz said.
At first, the number of decisions felt taxing, even after hours spent preparing before the school day.
“Once you get into the flow, the teaching muscle grows and the habits that you create for yourself as a teacher naturally build confidence,” Gapuz said.
Building meaningful relationships took practice, too.
Gapuz remembers coursework that covered differentiation, core subjects, and culturally and linguistically responsive teaching. Those classes gave him a foundation, but working directly with students and families gave those ideas a different meaning.
“Sometimes all the coursework you spend hours thinking about takes a back seat when there’s a kid standing in front of you who simply needs you to acknowledge them, understand them, and support them in that moment,” Gapuz said.
In Auburn, Nikki Veldwyk took a different route into the profession through the Washington Education Association’s Apprenticeship Residency in Teaching, in partnership with Auburn School District.
Now a middle school special education teacher, Veldwyk spent 18 months and more than 2,000 hours training on the job while completing the program. She worked alongside experienced educators, rotating through different areas of special education and connecting what she learned in coursework to the students in front of her.
For Veldwyk, feeling ready for the responsibility did not come all at once.
“My confidence developed gradually rather than arriving in one single moment,” Veldwyk said. “I began to feel ready when I realized I could respond to challenging situations with greater calm and intention, adjust instruction based on student needs, and use feedback without losing sight of my strengths.”
And the reward was worth persevering through the challenging growth period.
“When students began seeking me out for support, participating more fully, and trusting me with their questions and challenges, I knew I was becoming the teacher I hoped to be,” Veldwyk said.
The Gift of Mentorship
Oppenheim said the relationship between an aspiring teacher and a mentor can be one of the most powerful parts of their preparation.
Experienced teachers can model what works, but they also have to explain decisions they may have been making almost automatically for years.
“The longer you teach, the more aspects of teaching become second nature,” Oppenheim said. “It’s crucial as a mentor to be able to make your decisions visible to your aspiring teacher, for whom very little is intuitive yet.”
Back at Monroe Elementary, Treskell had a similar goal while mentoring Pope.
“I don’t expect her to become me,” Treskell said. “I expect her to become her own person, but she’s going to take things from me and use them as her own.”
Pope completed Western Washington University’s Education for Inclusive Environments Teacher Residency, developed in partnership with Everett Public Schools. The program places candidates with experienced mentor teachers for a yearlong residency.
Being there from the start allowed Pope to see much more than individual lessons. She watched routines take shape in the fall, saw what happened when students returned from winter break, and experienced the end-of-year transition with students she had known for months.
It also gave her time to get things wrong.
Pope said there were times she taught something incorrectly while Treskell sat toward the back of the classroom. She knew there were times he probably wanted to step in.
He often did not.
Now, Pope said she is much more comfortable admitting when she gets something wrong, telling her students she made a mistake and that she needs to restart.
Gapuz said he struggled with mistakes early in his career, too.
“Teaching is not for the weak!” he said. “I had to give myself permission to be bad at things at first after bouts of frustration that my lessons weren’t going the way I intended.”
His advice to the residents he now mentors is to pay attention to what happens during a lesson, reflect, adjust, and try again.
Being a teacher, especially early in a career, is a constant evolution. Ladd said there is a reciprocal nature to being a teacher; students provide opportunities for growth in return.
“What’s powerful is realizing that while our students are growing and transforming, we’re transforming alongside them. I have the honor of introducing them to new knowledge and perspectives, and they continually do the same for me,” Ladd said. “Teaching and learning create a beautiful exchange, where we’re in a space to simultaneously grow.”
Planting Seeds of Success
Once a teaching candidate is hired, continued support is critical to setting them up for long-term success.
“The first year, you don’t really know what you don’t know,” said Michelle Tyson, a mentor in Tacoma Public Schools’ Teaching and Learning Department.
Tyson works with new teachers through BEST, the Beginning Educator Support Team. The statewide program supports beginning educators through mentoring and other early-career support.
Some of Tyson’s work involves answering practical questions new teachers may not have thought much about before they were hired, like filling out report cards or entering grades.
In addition to the administrative learning curve, Tyson said one of the biggest challenges is feeling like they belong.
“It’s not about knowing the curriculum, it’s not about knowing all the things,” Tyson said. “It’s feeling that sense of belonging, so you feel like you can ask questions or be that learner alongside [students].”
Sometimes that means having someone who’s got your back, Tyson said.
First-year teacher Eden Ojala is still working through that learning curve in the Lake Washington School District, where she teaches middle school math and science.
Before entering the classroom, Ojala expected teaching to feel more like her college experience, with more lectures, students who knew what they needed to succeed, and more emphasis on the content itself.
“Now I can see that relationships come first, and that many young learners need trust and safety from me to begin exploring how the school system can work for them,” Ojala said.
Like Gapuz felt during his early years teaching at Rising Star in Seattle, Ojala has also discovered how many decisions fill a school day.
“There are so many moving parts, and we have to pick and choose what today’s priorities will be,” Ojala said. “Eventually some systems and structures will solidify, but as a first-year teacher, that hasn’t come yet!”
Emily Young, director of professional learning for Lake Washington School District, said decision fatigue is one of the consistent surprises she sees among new teachers. The sheer number of choices teachers make each day can be exhausting at first, especially when each one can affect the students in front of them.
To ease the transition and further prepare teachers for a fulfilling and impactful career, Lake Washington’s New Teacher Support Program continues mentoring after teachers enter the profession. The district’s model includes confidential support from more experienced teachers.
How long districts can sustain that kind of support can depend on funding.
BEST grants are awarded competitively to school districts and educational service districts and help support mentoring and professional development for beginning educators.
Tyson said Tacoma’s BEST funding is limited to first-year teachers this year, even though she often sees teachers seeking further help later. “Year two and year three are where I really see teachers digging in and reaching out,” Tyson said. State lawmakers cut funding for second-year BEST support for the 2026-27 school year.
Still on the receiving end of first-year support, Pope said she continues to benefit from that guidance. After completing her residency and starting her first year in Everett, she was assigned her own BEST mentor.
Now, with a classroom to herself, adorned with a charter she built with her students that displays their shared values and commitments, Pope prepares to tackle the entire school year without Treskell in the room to guide her.
Still, he had one last piece of wisdom to impart upon his mentee before she embarks on a new journey with students of her own.
Motioning to the numerous storage cabinets behind Pope, “Put your Kleenex boxes away,” he told her, chuckling.
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