This article describes a program created by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, alongside school-based colleagues in nearby Durham County. They created the Partnership for Authentic Communities of Educators (PACE) program to help bridge the gap between pre-service teacher learning and beginning teacher experiences. In 2018, UNC created a pilot program that placed pre-service teacher cohorts in elementary schools in Durham Public Schools with high populations of beginning teachers. Their aim was to give pre-service teachers a more realistic understanding of what their first year will be like "before it's real," while giving new teachers an opportunity to be mentors, to vent and ask for help with their challenges, and to grow in confidence.