CHAPEL HILL (November 4, 2021) – It’s so important to have someone who looks like you at the front of the class.
That’s what the DREAM program – Diverse and Resilient Educators Advised through Mentorship – aims to provide in the Durham Public Schools.
DREAM is a partnership between the School of Education at UNC-Chapel Hill and DPS. Over five years, it will try to recruit 40 more teachers of color – Latinx or Black – to teach in high-needs schools in Durham.1
The need is pronounced: While 33% of the students in the Durham Public Schools are Latinx, just 2.6% of faculty and staff are, Yuliana Rodriguez, a LatinxEd Fellow and Clinical Assistant Professor of Education at UNC, says in the accompanying video.
Rodriguez notes that research finds having a teacher of color improves both short-term outcomes – how a student does in class – but also long-term outcomes, “meaning that you are more likely to seek out higher ed, that you are more likely to do better overall in your academics,” she says.
“That is so important! I didn’t have my first Latina professor until college, so there was never for me an experience where I saw someone that really looked like me that could speak to my experiences a little bit more – I never got to have that.”
Rodriguez is thankful the UNC School of Education is thinking about how to recruit and support minority teachers. Students who enter the program earn their Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) and a $25,000 stipend. But they also receive support from other teachers of color.
“In those first three years, we’re thinking about our residents. We’re thinking about, ‘Well, if you are also not going to have colleagues of color – right? – what can we do to support you during those beginning stages of this experience? And also mentorship from teachers who are more seasoned … how can they support you as well?” Rodriguez says.
“So we will have all of those things in place for them, and I think that that’s going to really help to support – especially those beginning years as these teachers are starting out.”
The program is funded by a $4.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education.2 But it also is consistent with the recommendations this year from Gov. Roy Cooper’s DRIVE Task Force, which seeks to recruit more teachers of color in North Carolina.3
1 https://ed.unc.edu/2020/10/28/school-of-education-durham-public-schools-team-wins-4-8-million-grant/; https://www.dpsnc.net/site/Default.aspx?PageType=3&DomainID=4&PageID=1&ViewID=6446ee88-d30c-497e-9316-3f8874b3e108&FlexDataID=45873.
2 https://ed.unc.edu/2020/10/28/school-of-education-durham-public-schools-team-wins-4-8-million-grant/.
3 https://hunt-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/HI-DRIVE-Final-Report.pdf.
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