(1) The general assembly finds that:

(a) A shortage in the availability of teachers to fill teaching positions in rural local education providers is causing a significant hardship for rural local education providers;

(b) The shortage is due, in part, to the high rate of turnover of teachers entering and leaving the profession. Following graduation and initial employment, a high percentage of teachers leave the profession within five years.

(c) The shortage in some rural local education providers also arises because teachers, after teaching in the rural local education provider for a few years, choose to relocate to a more urban area or to an area with a lower cost of living;

(d) A program through which a rural local education provider and an institution of higher education enter into an agreement to provide a teaching fellowship in the rural local education provider for selected teacher candidates in their final year of an approved educator preparation program, which leads to employment by the rural local education provider upon graduation, will help to ensure that teachers are well prepared to meet the rural local education provider's needs and expectations, have met specific competencies the rural local education provider identified as being necessary, and are acclimated into the rural local education provider upon hiring. A teacher who receives this level of specific preparation for employment with a specific employer is more likely to remain in the profession and thereby help to reduce the teacher shortage.

(e) In selecting teacher candidates to participate in a teaching fellowship program, a rural local education provider and an institution of higher education should give preference to applicants who resided within the area surrounding the rural local education provider before attending a higher education institution and are seeking the opportunity to return to the local education provider as a teacher.