Professionals in math-related fields have a new career option teaching middle and high school math, thanks to a new program being offered this summer.

Courses will be offered that might ultimately allow students to earn their teacher’s licenses in as little as 15 months, said Janet Sharp, associate professor of curriculum and instruction and director of the program.

The program will help with the current shortage of math teachers in the seventh to 12th grades, said Cathy Curtis, alumni officer in education administration. It is an opportunity for people to change their career to something that is more meaningful and will make a difference, she said.

The program is geared toward non-teachers who would like more interaction, Curtis said.

The program is designed to build on the experience of someone who’s already been in the working world a few years.

Sharp said the program is for people with a substantial amount of math experience who want to make a difference in kids’ lives.

Under the old system, returning students would have to complete the undergraduate program, Sharp said. At completion, the students would enter at the bottom of the pay scale.

The new program is a graduate-level program which moves quicker and means higher-paying teaching jobs, Sharp said.

Students in the program “come out better -qualified to teach math than those from the undergrad program,” said Sarah Lubienski, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction and co-creator of the program. This is because they will have had more math education courses.

This summer, seven students are enrolled in the program, and all have completed the required 10 hours in local classrooms to decide if teaching is really what they want to do, Sharp said.

One student is in a management level engineering job, a few are straight from an undergraduate program, one is a retiree and one is a mother of four children.

Come fall, there should be a higher, more definite number. There may be up to 14 people in the program this fall, Lubienski said.

“The numbers sound small,” Lubienski said. However, with this program Iowa State will easily double its graduates in secondary math education.

Typically, there are 9 to ten graduates in secondary math education each year, Lubienski said. Of the 900 in Iowa State’s education program, about 30 have an emphasis in mathematics.

Some students enrolled in Iowa State’s program looked for other options elsewhere, but decided on Iowa State because of the master’s program rather than piecing together a program through undergraduate courses, Lubienski said.

The program is unique in the state of Iowa, and as far as Lubienski knows, there are no similar programs close by.

There is such a shortage of fully certified math teachers, that the state has worked on an emergency certification program to increase the numbers of teachers qualified to teach math, Lubienski said.