BEVERLY — When the Beverly public schools begin a new year next fall, their staff will include the usual array of full-time teachers and part-time aides.
But in a time of tight budgets, school officials also plan to enlist the help of six graduate students from Merrimack College.
Unlike more traditional programs that place student teachers for only a few weeks or months, the Merrimack students will work in the Beverly schools full time for the entire school year.
Beverly Superintendent Marie Galinski is touting the new program, called the Merrimack College Graduate Education Fellowship, as a low-cost way to support teachers in schools where class sizes are high. Beverly will pay $17,000 toward the tuition of each student, less than the cost of a teacher's aide with benefits.
Galinski said the graduate students are more experienced than traditional student teachers, who are undergraduates and work in the schools for only a few weeks, and some teacher's aides, who only need two years of college.
"These are people that have a bachelor's degree and are working sometimes toward certification in two areas," she said. "It's a nice opportunity for the fellow and for us."
Galinski learned about the program through her role as a member of the Merrimack College education department advisory board. Merrimack began the fellowship this school year and placed 17 graduate students into four public school systems, two Catholic schools and one charter school.
Dan Butin, dean of Merrimack's School of Education, said the average age of the fellows is 24. They take courses during the summer, then continue to go to class at night in the fall and spring after teaching during the day.
Butin said the strength of the program is that the students are in the school from September to June.
"That kind of relationship through the whole year is so much more powerful than your standard student-teaching model," he said. "It's an intense clinical residency experience."
Emily Janakas has spent the school year as a fellow at Riverside Elementary School in Danvers, where she helps out as a special education aide. Janakas, a 22-year-old Lynnfield resident, enrolled in the fellowship program after earning her undergraduate degree in elementary education last June.
"It's definitely been an intense year," she said. "It's been challenging, but I have an excellent support system at Riverside and at Merrimack. I've learned so much this year I can't even describe it. It's furthered my passion for teaching."
In Beverly, the fellows will be placed at the Centerville and Hannah elementary schools, where teaching positions are being eliminated due to budget cuts, and at Briscoe Middle School, where the sixth-grade class is expected to be the largest in years.
Galinski said the fellows will be co-teaching with experienced teachers and providing small group instruction.
"It's not replacing teachers," she said. "It's providing support because we have a larger number of students."
Kathy Whitehair, who has three children in the Beverly schools, credited school officials with trying to find a "creative" solution to the problem of large class sizes in difficult financial times.
"As a parent, I look forward to a smaller student-teacher ratio in the classroom," she said. "This could be fantastic. I know they're working to ensure that these folks are going to be a good fit. That's going to be important."
Staff writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2675 or pleighton@salemnews.com.
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