This summer, eight of our teachers will complete national seminars and an intensive session as part of the Yale National Initiative to strengthen teaching in public schools. We are so proud of all of you!

• Sophia Alvarez - Booker T. Washington High School
• Cinde Berkowitz, Webster High School
• Tina Berry, Will Rogers College High School
• Laura Grisham - Monroe Demonstration Academy
• Christianna Loza - Webster High School
• Cristina Mejia - Booker T. Washington High School
• Krista Waldron, Phoenix Rising
• Tara Waugh - Booker T. Washington High School 

The purposes of the seminars are to provide public school teachers deeper knowledge of the subjects they teach and first-hand experience with the Teachers Institute approach to high-quality professional development. This fosters their leadership in an existing Teachers Institute or prepares them to lead the development of a new Teachers Institute. Each teacher writes a curriculum unit to teach their students about the seminar subject and to share with other teachers in their school district and, through the website at teachers.yale.edu, with teachers anywhere.

The Yale National Initiative to strengthen teaching in public schools, now in its seventeenth year, is a long-term endeavor to influence public policy on teacher professional development, in part by establishing exemplary Teachers Institutes for high-poverty, high-minority schools in states around the country. Teachers Institutes are educational partnerships between universities and school districts designed to strengthen teaching and learning in a community’s high-need public schools.