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Sarah Lawrence Gets State Education Grant To Recruit Minority Teachers

BRONXVILLE, N.Y. -- A  substantial grant to help inner city youth become teachers so they can help economically-disadvantaged youth was given to Sarah Lawrence College’s Art of Teaching Graduate program.

Sarah Lawrence Art of Teaching graduate students on a recent visit to the Center for Urban River at Beczak environmental education center in Yonkers.

Sarah Lawrence Art of Teaching graduate students on a recent visit to the Center for Urban River at Beczak environmental education center in Yonkers.

Photo Credit: Contributed

The $103,000 five-year grant from New York State’s Teacher Opportunity Corps will help the college expand its work in Yonkers public schools, according to a State Education Department announcement Monday.

“This Teacher Opportunity Corps initiative is a natural extension of the relationship Sarah Lawrence College already has with the community of Yonkers,’’ said Kathleen Ruen, Acting Director of the Art of Teaching program.

“The grant offers us vital support and helps us to expand the work we are doing to prepare our students to teach in disadvantaged communities, as well as to recruit students from minority backgrounds and help them become teachers.’’

Under the grant, which comes from the state’s Department of Education, the Art of Teaching program will receive $103,334 in 2017 and up to $659,000 over five years. 

The money will be used to fund the tuition and transportation costs of the program’s pre-service teachers, support the teaching of an additional course addressing the needs of children placed at risk, and help develop certificate programs in special education and bilingual education. 

In addition, the grant will create a teacher mentoring program in partnership with Yonkers’ Cedar Place Elementary School, a pre-K through 8th-grade magnet school whose student body is 96 percent minority, with 76 percent coming from families whose incomes are at or near the poverty line.

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