One of the education related issues the Kentucky General Assembly is looking to address this session the state's teacher shortage.

Among the legislation introduced a bill supporting the Grow Your Own Teacher initiative.

One organization that has been taking this grow your own approach.

Educators rising Kentucky.

It's an annual conference.

Thursday, aspiring teachers got the opportunity to build their skills and connect and learn from experienced educators.

Educators rising as an organization aim to recruit middle school and high school students who are interested in education and then give them early exposure opportunities like visiting classrooms, tutoring college campuses.

So really, we're just hoping to grow the next generation of teachers.

We have teachers that will be retiring, and so we're always in the growth mode.

We're always in the area of needing excellent teachers, quality teachers.

So recruitment is so important for us.

We started out with 200 students attending a one day event, and today we have over 975 students registered for this event.

So it has grown over the past four years, and it's just an opportunity for students to test drive teaching for us to grow our own right here in Kentucky.

This year, it's a lot of it's a lot of people, and it's very encouraging.

Looking around just to see how many people genuinely are interested in coming to this conference are participating.

And they're so excited.

It's not just the amount of people in the room, it's the energy that they bring with them.

It's the passion and the drive that they bring with them.

And you feel it.

This year we had a red carpet teacher walk, and it gave every teacher leader an opportunity to feel the spotlight, to feel like a celebrity.

Most times, teachers sometimes feel like an island or, especially in the CTE world, that they're the only teacher in their chapter.

And to have that moment and to have your students cheering you on.

You don't really get that a lot.

So to have that be something we can offer our teacher leaders today, it was amazing.

And then in this recruitment phase, in this phase of, trying to gain our next generation, it's important to show them that we are going to continue spotlighting, celebrating, supporting, lifting up, hugging, loving our teachers and educators.

Rising is one of those ways that we we ensure that happens.

It has really turned me into a confident, well-spoken, collaborative leader.

And I think that that skill is so invaluable to me.

As well as that, I obviously I do intend on being a teacher.

I think the main thing that Educators Rising has done for me in that area is just putting me around so many like minded people, giving me that community, giving me that sense of self.

It really has.

All of the competitions are tailored to what I will be doing in the future.

Getting that practice gives me confidence, getting around other older teachers and newer teachers and seeing the different passions and drives and the reasons that they want to say in teaching and the reason that they join teaching.

Hearing all the stories of how teaching has changed somebody's life or a teacher has changed somebody's life has really impacted me and made me want to become a teacher.

I just see that the teaching profession is going to be in great hands.

The students are so much further along than I was when I started thinking about teaching it was so much later that they're getting this earlier and that they're seeing these experiences.

They're going to be ready on day one to teach, and I'm excited about that.

Winners from the competition portion of the event will go on to compete at the National Conference in Oregon in the summer.