TeacherUp
Upward Scholars has adopted and redesigned Community Equity Collaborative’s (CEC) Teacher Pipeline Project. TeacherUp, our newest program, will support adult immigrant college students, bringing real solutions to prospective early educators who will benefit from our track record of delivering academic and career development support.
Launched in 2018, CEC’s Teacher Pipeline Project addressed the severe shortage of early childhood educators across the Bay Area. This work inspired state legislation and informed local workforce development efforts.
Upward Scholars partnered with CEC in 2022 to build on The Teacher Pipeline Project, adopt it into our programming, and relaunch it as TeacherUp, an ECE academic and career development support initiative. To learn more about our collaboration with CEC and TeacherUp and to read our press release, click here.
TeacherUp aims to increase childcare workforce capacity by encouraging and supporting adult immigrant students from low-income households studying early childhood education. Our support will lead them to fulfilling careers as teachers and family childcare providers.
Program Goals:
Increase compensation to reach living wages and pay parity for early educators
Build a pipeline to ensure a career path for effective early educators
Expand the diversity of the ECE workforce
Ensure all children have equitable access to great educators
Ensure the workforce has the skills and experience to implement high-quality practices
Upward Scholars is accomplishing these goals through:
Recruitment: Student recruitment to date has targeted both students already enrolled in Upward Scholars and expressed an interest in a career working with children and recruiting students enrolled in ECE classes at Cañada College or Skyline College.
Scholastic Counseling: Individualized student education plans (SEPs) help TeacherUp students articulate their goals and envision a pathway for achieving them. Our Programs Manager, Marlene Torres-Magaña, meets with every TeacherUp student individually to review their SEP and answer any questions and works with our partners at Cañada and Skyline colleges to ensure TeacherUp students receive ECE-specific academic counseling.
Professional Development Opportunities: Upward Scholars promotes professional development opportunities for TeacherUp students that include skills-building on working with LGBTQ+ families, bilingualism, CPR training, social-emotional learning, and many more topics.
Internship Opportunities: We are co-creating internship opportunities with our partners at Family Connections so our TeacherUp students can work with their staff, parents, and young children to create the highest quality family learning community for all involved.
Resources: Beyond sharing resource links with TeacherUp students through eNews communications, Upward Scholars is also covering the one-time cost of having each TeacherUp student enroll in Good2Know—an online network that provides child development educational resources for students to raise awareness of career and professional development opportunities.
Stipends: Stipends offset the many costs that our students encounter while pursuing advancement in this field. They also act as significant motivators for achievement. Our stipend initiative includes stipends for course completion, educational plans, attendance at professional development opportunities, and other costs that present barriers, such as child care and transportation.
Safety Net Support: Upward Scholars’ Safety Net Fund, created during the pandemic, provides help with rent, utilities, food, childcare, and medical expenses so that students can continue to focus on their educational goals. All students, including TeacherUp students, are eligible to apply.
Overall, we’re committed to increasing the pipeline of quality bilingual/bicultural early childhood educators here in our local community.
If you are interested in joining the TeacherUp program as a student or would like to collaborate with us, please contact Programs Manager Marlene Torres-Magaña at marlene@upwardscholars.org or (650) 209-0178.
Upward Scholars has supported ECE college students since we started in 2010. In recent years, we helped one ECE student secure a house to rent and use to open her own licensed family childcare home. Marta Lily’s story is inspiring and unique, but her success should not be. Through TeacherUp, Upward Scholars will support more BIPOC early childhood educators so they can thrive in fulfilling careers and prepare the future minds of the Bay Area.
Here’s what our community thinks of TeacherUp:
“With its roots in the Teacher Pipeline Project and its future with our Latinx-led organization, TeacherUp will bring real solutions to early educators who can benefit from Upward Scholars’ track record of delivering academic and career development support for adult immigrants from low-income households.”
“CEC launched the Teacher Pipeline Project in 2018 to increase equity in early childhood education and empower BIPOC early educators. Upward Scholars, a Latina-led community partner, is the perfect permanent home for this vital workforce development effort to continue.”
“The pandemic has wrought devastating effects on our early learning workforce and has made already existing equity issues much worse. Latina educators are the largest single demographic in the early learning workforce in San Mateo County. In a variety of settings, including family child care homes, they play an integral role in caring for and teaching our littlest learners. At 4C’s, we look forward to partnering with Upward Scholars to bring greater equity to our field and to support and expand the early childhood workforce.”
“The Foothill College Child Development Department is excited to work with partners like Upward Scholars. Together we can empower educators to earn the units they need to serve children and families, enabling them to positively impact our communities.”
“Thanks to Upward Scholars’ support, I earned my AA in Early Child Education. When I decided to begin my studies at ECE, I had no idea what classes to take. If there had been a support program like TeacherUp to help and guide me, I know I would have felt more confident and sure of the steps I needed to take to complete my academic and career goals. With TeacherUp, students will have great help, they won’t feel lost, and they won’t have to make the mistakes I did. Upward Scholars is starting something that has not been done with ECE students, and I know it will be a huge success.”