TSTT Receives $25,000 Grant from Westchester Community Foundation

Aug. 16, 2010 - PRLog -- Elmsford, NY, August 16, 2010 — Today’s Students Tomorrow’s Teachers (TSTT) has been awarded $25,000 from the Board of Advisors of the Westchester Community Foundation.  The grant will support the second phase of TSTT’s Partnering for College Academics and Technology Immersion initiative:  Strengthening Patterns of Collaboration with Supplementary Services.

“The teaching profession is being transformed through technology,” says Bettye H. Perkins, Ed.D, the Founder and CEO of TSTT. “Web-based tools, smart boards, and videoconferencing are just a few of the services schools are implementing.  TSTT’s curriculum includes preparing students for integrating technologies such as these into the classroom.  This is the second year the Westchester Community Foundation has partnered with us in supporting our program. Their multi-year support through this grant will further strengthen our course design.”

Dr. Perkins adds that TSTT’s mission is to cultivate caring, competent, and qualified teachers for placement in classrooms. “Providing students technological know-how through experiences, such as our annual Technology Conference, ensures our students are prepared for success in the classroom when they become teachers,” she explains.  During the Technology Conference, for example, students review numerous virtual learning, techniques, and technologies that are being incorporated in 21st century classrooms.  TSTT’s next Technology Conference will be held November 4, 2010.  

TSTT implements a full circle collaborative model uniting students, parents, school districts, colleges, corporate, and community partners in the pursuit of bringing the best and brightest teachers of color into the profession of teaching.  Students begin the program in the 9th grade. During the program, they receive mentoring and essential exposures needed for a teaching career.  Qualified students receive 50% college tuition from TSTT partner colleges.  

The faculty and staff of two Westchester-based organizations (The Center for College and Careers at Mt. Vernon High School and the Division of Adolescent Education and Online Education at Fordham University) will partner with TSTT to implement the grant.

“TSTT is proud of its ongoing relationship with the Westchester Community Foundation,” adds Dr. Perkins.  “They share our vision of enhancing the community.  Their support through this grant will be invaluable to our students.”

         


About Today’s Students Tomorrow’s Teachers
TSTT is a 501 (c)3 not-for-profit organization designed to recruit, mentor and prepare economically-challenged, culturally-diverse students to become teachers. The program brings hundreds of students, teachers, superintendents, colleges and universities, and business and community leaders together to improve the educational outcomes of students. Students use a research-based program syllabus that begins in high school and carries them throughout the TSTT college curriculum. Since its founding in 1994, TSTT has experienced steady significant growth—from just seven students from Westchester County to nearly 600 students in New York, Connecticut and Virginia.  For more information, contact Karla Jones (914) 345-3444, ext. 16 or visit www.tstt.org.


About the Westchester Community Foundation

The Westchester Community Foundation (WCF) is a non-profit community endowment for the benefit of Westchester County.  Its mission is to develop and manage philanthropic resources and to distribute them in a way that is responsive to donor interests and community needs.  The Foundation actively promotes charitable giving on behalf of the area’s non-profit organizations.  WCF is a division of The New York Community Trust, one of the largest community foundations in the country with assets of approximately $1.5 billion.

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Not-for-profit whose mission is to recruit, mentor and place economically-challenged and culturally-diverse high school students through college to employment as teachers and leaders who can then strengthen their communities.