The University of Wyoming College of Education has received a $4.5-million-dollar grant to improve its preparation of K-12 educators.
The grant comes from nonprofit The Daniels Fund, which gave the college $500,000 earlier this year to plan its initiative to achieve national prominence in teacher prep.
UW Board of Trustees President Dave Palmerlee says that initiative began after trustees met with legislative leadership last year.
“The trustees came out of that with the understanding that there was some serious dissatisfaction with level of preparation the teachers coming out of the College of Education were getting to move into our K-12 system,” says Palmerlee. “So, we created the initiative to build that professional educator preparation program at the college.”
The grant will be used to fund a strategic planning phase in the years ahead. An executive director will be hired to lead the initiative and consultants will be hired to evaluate UW’s teacher prep programs as well as distinguished programs across the country.
“We intend to spend a year plus researching and evaluating the very best professional educator programs in the country, and figure out what we think will be adaptable to the University of Wyoming College of Education,” Palmerlee says.
Trustees and the College hope to develop a strategic plan over the next several years to transform the teacher preparations programs offered at UW.