Grow Your Own Multicultural Teacher Scholarship 2023-2024

$132

Raised

311

Days remaining

$30,000

Goal

7

Supporters
0.43913333333333% Complete
0% to goal
Donate to this campaign:
Jennifer Paepke Image

Jennifer Paepke

  • Beloit School District
  • Beloit, WI

About this fundraiser

The School District of Beloit is proud to continue our Grow Your Own Multicultural Teacher Scholarship Program to provide scholarships to minority students who decide to pursue careers in education. These new teachers will return to Beloit and our community of learners to begin their career. This year, we look forward to awarding a second scholarship to a current staff member in a support role who would like to complete their bachelor's degree, and begin teaching in the district! We are proud to announce that our we have our first teacher hired this year as a scholarship recipient now working at Todd Elementary! You help to support the journey of students becoming teachers!

With extensive national debate about Closing the Achievement Gap in education, we believe having a quality diverse workforce is a key component to address this issue. However, in too many schools throughout our nation, school districts continue to struggle with educating a very diverse student population with a less-than-diverse workforce.

According to the School District of Beloit's 2022-2023 Staffing, Recruitment & Retention (Diversity) Report (dated November 2022) there were 27 Black / African American, 3 Native American / Alaskan, 7 Asian, and 39 Hispanic / Latinx professional educators out of a total of 459 professional educators within the entire school district. In essence, there were 76 minority professional educators out a total of 459, which is 16.56%. This is an improvement over time, yet not reflective of our current student population of 68.06% minority students. The School District of Beloit believes that such a disparity is unacceptable and has taken action steps to address this issue. The School District of Beloit not only values diversity, but also believes our workforce should be reflective of the students and community it proudly serves. Additionally, the School District of Beloit believes that it is important that students see and possibly, have the opportunity to be taught by a teacher who looks like them within their educational experience. Therefore, in an effort to ensure a mix of diversity in our professional teaching workforce, the School District of Beloit launched the Grow Your Own Multicultural Teacher Scholarship Program. The goal of this scholarship is to encourage minorities to pursue teaching as a career and return back to teach in Beloit.

Your support of the Grow Your Own Multicultural Teacher Scholarship Program not only helps our students, but the community as well. Diversity helps our students to be more globally competitive. Michael Lee, a diversity consultant said, "Diversity in the workplace increased creativity, increased productivity, promoted new attitudes, enhanced new language skills, expanded global understanding, and helped develop new processes and new solutions to difficult problems". Mary McCleod Bethune once said, "The growth or destruction of a nation begins in the homes of its people". Beloit is our home. An investment in our students is an investment in our future. Therefore, we ask that you support the Grow Your Own Multicultural Teacher Scholarship Program. A small investment today will yield great returns for our Beloit school district, community, and businesses tomorrow.

Who is managing the campaign?

Michelle Hendrix Nora & Jennifer Paepke

Campaign updates

Supporters View all

  • $25

    AJCastellanos

    Sep 18, 2023

  • $10 (Monthly)

    Nikki Granberg

    Sep 11, 2023

  • $10 (Monthly)

    Lori Gustafson

    Sep 11, 2023

  • $10

    Jennifer Heeren

    Sep 11, 2023

  • $25

    Lesli Nelson Richter

    Sep 11, 2023

  • $25

    Megan Hauri

    Sep 11, 2023

  • $27 (Monthly)

    Jennifer Paepke

    Aug 30, 2023