Golden Apple Scholar Institutes: Preparing the Next Generation of New Mexico Teachers

“What strategies have you seen the teachers at your schools do to motivate their students?” asks a Golden Apple instructor from the front of a classroom at the University of New Mexico (UNM). 

Hands around the room shoot up, and she calls on a young man named Matthew Campos sitting in the back row. 

“At my school, they are doing a point system for earning snacks,” he says.  

Other students mention gold stars, stickers, and stamps. These, the instructor says, are “tangible things,” external tools used to motivate students, rather than skills that can spark that gold standard of learning, intrinsic motivation. Heads around the room nod, recognizing the term or agreeing with the goal.

This was week one of the Golden Apple Scholar Institute, a three-week-long hands-on workshop where New Mexico’s future teachers come to lay the groundwork for a successful career in the classroom. This year, their work is perhaps more pressing than ever. With a 23% teacher turnover rate and more than 700 teacher vacancies statewide, New Mexico is racing to get more high-quality teachers into K-12 schools — and to equip them with the skills and confidence they need to stay.

“We know that when aspiring teachers are supported on their journey to the classroom and in the first few years after licensure, they are more likely to be successful,” says Julie Lucero, Golden Apple’s chief program officer in New Mexico. “Our Scholar Institute is a critical component in our approach to teacher preparation.”

First Year Scholars Gain Skills and Confidence

The board behind the instructor is covered in sticky notes that say things like “how to de-escalate” and “opportunities for leadership.”

“All of us are here trying to learn how to become better teachers for our students,” says Addycen Luck, who will be starting her sophomore year at Eastern New Mexico University in the fall. “We’re learning about AI, how to deal with student behavior and parent behavior. We’re learning activities we can try in our classes or how to accommodate students with special needs.”

This is Addycen’s first year with Golden Apple — and her first Scholar Institute. Over the course of three weeks, she and her cohort attended  workshops and lectures about everything from planning a classroom activity to dressing for the job. Scholars also met and collaborated with peers from across the state and spent time in actual classes, observing or assisting summer-school teachers in various nearby schools.

Matthew, the student who raised his hand earlier, says he is hopeful that the Scholar Institute will better prepare him for the classroom because he is getting more hands-on experience and support. 

Matthew is a rising sophomore at New Mexico Highlands University who wants to be a high school history teacher. At this year’s Scholar Institute, he’s working in a classroom with young kids, but he says most of the lessons still apply. He hopes the program will help more young people in New Mexico become — and stay — teachers. 

Meeting the Moment in New Mexico’s Teacher Crisis

New Mexico’s teacher shortage is not new. While the number of vacancies decreased by about 2% from 2023 to 2024, there were still 737 teacher vacancies in the state last year. Meanwhile, the number of students admitted to a New Mexico-based educator preparation program — a university or college degree program that prepares teachers for licensure —  decreased by 229 between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years.  In other words, not only are teachers leaving the profession, but fewer new teachers are joining it at a time of great need for classrooms statewide.

Golden Apple is working hard to fix that. By 2026, the program aims to place 100 new teachers in classrooms across the state.

Next summer, after their sophomore year, Matthew and Addycen will return to the Golden Apple Scholar Institute for one week of instruction, workshops, and observations, followed by up to 50 hours of teaching in their home communities. The following year, they’ll repeat that schedule.

A few classrooms down from the first-year students, another group was marking an exciting milestone. This spring, Golden Apple’s first cohort of New Mexico Scholars graduated from college. They will begin teaching in the fall. But that doesn’t mean their time with Golden Apple is over. Students will have two more years of mentorship through Golden Apple as they begin their teaching careers. If they stick with the program for five years in the state of New Mexico, they will receive a “Crystal Apple” award.

These scholars have gotten to know each other well over the years. This is one of the key components of the program—creating a lifelong network of teachers who can rely on each other for support and advice throughout their careers. This group will still participate in Golden Apple and stay in touch, but they are a little nostalgic about this being their final Scholar Institute. 

“Being here every summer allowed me to go back to NMSU and feel more confident. I felt I had more information than my peers did,” says Martinez. “The speakers are always amazing — not only because they have different specialties, but because they come from all over the state and sometimes the country. “

Seated next to Martinez, Adriana Padilla credits Scholar Institutes with exposing her to different perspectives than those she got growing up in Las Cruces.
“We get to learn from people all over New Mexico about their different cultures,” she says. “They bring in people from reservations and from places I’ve never been. And they provide me with a lot of tools and mentors that I’m still in touch with.” 

Scholar Cassandra Villanueva says she switched careers because she wanted to do something personally to change the education system in New Mexico, and she joined Golden Apple because the organization is a key player in creating that change. 

“There’s no other program that I’ve ever heard of, researched, or learned about, that takes you by the hand and walks you through every step of the way and provides you the support, the training, the resources, the mentors, and the guidance that sees you through from day one to graduation and beyond,” says Villanueva.

In addition to the hands-on instruction, mentorship, and job placement from Scholar Institute, Golden Apple scholars can earn up to $15,000 for participating in these summer professional development experiences while pursuing their undergraduate degrees.

Students in New Mexico deserve well-prepared teachers who want to stay and teach in their home communities, and Golden Apple is committed to making that happen.