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As a small girl in Highland, Baily Wilkins attended San Bernardino schools.
She watched her mom teach special education students there. So it made sense when Wilkins later returned to her school district as a substitute teacher at Emmerton Elementary School, where she too worked with special-needs students.
“During that time, I really fell in love with it, working with this population,” Wilkins said. “… I’ve always been interested in being a special education teacher.”
When Wilkins, 30, received an email inviting her and other San Bernardino City Unified School District employees to join a new UC Riverside program, it was a win for both sides. Wilkins gets to pursue her dream. And the district will get a much-needed special education teacher thanks to the program aimed at reversing a teacher shortage.
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UC Riverside student Bailey Wilkins, right, 30, speaks to students as she assists teacher Robert Rincon, rear left, at Serrano Middle School in Highland on Monday, Oct. 27, 2025. Wilkins is part of a program between UCR and the San Bernardino City Unified School District. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)
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UC Riverside student Bailey Wilkins, right, 30, speaks to students as she assists teacher Robert Rincon, rear left, at Serrano Middle School in Highland on Monday, Oct. 27, 2025. Wilkins is part of a program between UCR and the San Bernardino City Unified School District. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)
“One of the goals for us is not only to diversify the teaching workforce here in the Inland Empire but to ensure that those that came from the Inland Empire, who want to give back to their community, are prepared to be teachers and that they can actually stay in the field for years to come,” said Frances Valdovinos, assistant dean and director of teacher education at UCR’s School of Education.
San Bernardino City Unified and other California districts have seen a teacher shortage in recent years.
The district has 3,016 teachers and 1,200 substitute teachers for its 44,791 students, the district’s Director of Recruitment Robert Morales said. Elementary school classrooms are capped at 24 to 33 students, depending on the grade but not all classrooms reach that level, he said.
Right now, the district is looking to fill another 30 to 40 teaching jobs.
“It’s essentially across the board,” Morales said. “It’s not like it’s any one particular level, if you will, or any one type of position.”
UCR reported that the San Bernardino district expected 190 resignations and retirements at the end of the 2024-25 school year.
A January report from the California Teacher’s Association found that California faces a historic shortage, with 10,000 teaching vacancies in public schools.
Over the past several months, an inaugural class of 35 students has taken part in the one-year program that allows students to earn their teaching credential at UCR with the option of getting a master’s degree. Students are paired with a mentor teacher for a year — longer than in a traditional student teaching post.
Wilkins’ mentor teacher, Robert Rincon, said his journey was a more like learning on the fly. Rincon, who teaches special education at Serrano Middle School in Highland, had an internship and substituted for a colleague on maternity leave at the beginning of his career.
“I got to, like, stay in her class, see her teach for one week and then I had her class after that,” Rincon said. “So that one week … Kind of got me more familiar. But there was definitely behaviors that I did not know how to handle.”
Rincon has made Wilkins part of the classroom from the start. He’s even turned over the class to her when he needs to step away to help a student.
“It’s just awesome to have somebody else on board and she’s been from day one,” Rincon said.
He wished more teachers had the opportunity to participate in a program like this one. Rincon said that when he began teaching it was great to be in his own classroom. But Wilkins has the benefit that he didn’t have of learning alongside someone who’s more experienced.
“It is awesome for us to have our class, but at the same time it is so beneficial to just watch somebody who’s done it so we’re not like figuring it out on the fly,” Rincon said, referring to Wilkins.
The program’s first 35 students are expected to finish in summer. A second class will follow in 2026, bringing a total of 70 new teachers to San Bernardino schools.
Last year, the district offered about 280 contracts to teachers, nurses, counselors and those in other “credentialed” positions.
“Our biggest needs are special education and then our dual-immersion program,” Morales said.
The UCR partnership will create a steady flow of teachers, year after year, he added.
“So regardless of the level of attrition that we experienced, we know we have a steady pipeline of candidates coming to us every single school year,” Morales said. “So it’s a way to strategically plan for for a possible shortage.”
He said staffing levels can change throughout a year as people retire or resign, which can happen any time.
“People leave California, people leave the country, people leave education all together,” Morales said. “So we do experience a cross of all three of those things. It kind of just depends on the individual. So it’s really hard to say exactly why they’re leaving us.”
The program features hands-on teaching in science, math, bilingual or special education classrooms throughout the San Bernardino school district. It also includes workshops and classroom work. Students are paired with a mentor teacher and assigned to a classroom all year.
The program ensures that prospective teachers are ready to go into the field, Valdovinos said.
“Because in preparing our future educators, we ensure that they are able to actually stay in the workforce,” Valdovinos said.
The university chose San Bernardino City Unified because it already has worked with the district on projects such as mock interviews and workshops, Valdovinos said.
UCR is open to expanding the program to other Inland districts, but currently has no plans to do so, she said.
UCR is offering credentials in math and science, special education, and bilingual classes, which are seeing many vacancies. The program will ease students’ transition into full-time classroom roles. They also receive fully paid tuition and fees and an annual stipend of about $32,000.
The program is funded by a two-year grant from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. The grant focuses on filling gaps in fields such as special education, bilingual education, STEM, and transitional kindergarten while also trying to recruit a diverse teacher workforce that reflects a community.
Students with a connection to the San Bernardino area, whether it be as a resident, graduate or district employee, are prioritized. Valdovinos said 80% of the program’s students have San Bernardino ties.
Alexander Franco, a student in the program who is teaching Advanced Placement statistics, was born and raised in San Bernardino. He found inspiration from one of his high school teachers.
A teacher during his junior year of high school showed him statistics that Latino males were unlikely to do well in higher education, Franco recalled. That lit a fire under him to pursue his degree and inspire students the way he was inspired.
“I was able to see myself in him,” Franco said. “That also contributed to me wanting to be an educator because he was able to, I would say, motivate me to continue to pursue higher education.”
Franco called the program a commitment and said UCR has helped him find his voice as a teacher and showed him how to create an equitable classroom.
Student teachers are placed in the classroom before the school year starts and work with their mentor teachers to create lessons, go over individual student plans.
“The opportunity to create together and plan together and tackle challenges together has been fantastic,” said Lisa Randall, a mentor teacher in a Serrano special education classroom.
Randall has mentored several student teachers, who are usually in the classroom for shorter stints of time compared to this program, which places them there all year.
Her mentee Bernice Trigueros, 26, started in the San Bernardino district as a teacher’s aide before applying to the UCR program.
“And often I think when you only have a student teacher for a short period of time, there is no way to cover that in-depth level to where she can pick up, leave here and actually teach your own classroom,” Randall said.
When the year started, students had the sense that Randall and Trigerous were co-teachers — which created a connection, Randall said.
Trigerous was ingrained in the classroom in a way that a traditional student teaching program wouldn’t allow, she said. That partnership from the first day of school makes for a better result than the alternative, she said.
“Student teachers face a challenge there in connecting with the kids when they’re coming later,” Randall said.
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