Purpose: A burgeoning literature investigates the importance of student teaching placements for teacher candidate development, but an important perspective that is largely missing from the existing literature is that of the school districts that host student teachers. In this paper, we describe the student teaching process from the perspective of Spokane Public Schools (SPS), highlighting the challenges associated with the student teacher placement process and several initiatives SPS has undertaken to improve student teaching experiences for teacher candidates. To our knowledge, this is the first systematic effort by a school district to improve the student teaching process and study the effects on teacher candidate outcomes. Conceptual Argument: Teacher education programs and school districts have a mutual interest in creating high-quality student teaching experiences. A fundamental challenge in efforts to improve student teaching is that teacher education programs have no authority over what happens to student teachers in the classrooms of public school districts. The initiatives undertaken by SPS illustrate the potential for districts to take a leadership role in defining the student teaching process and highlight some of the challenges inherent in hosting student teachers. Implications: The extent to which other districts have taken an active role in defining the student teaching process is unclear, but the experience of SPS thus far suggests that playing an active role can be a positive step toward improving the training received by the teacher candidates who are likely to be staffing their schools in the future.