Boston Public School employees will now pay a discounted tuition when pursuing their master’s or advanced degree in education policy or curriculum and teaching in the Boston University Wheelock College of Education and Human Development through a partnership announced Sunday between BU and BPS.
BPS employees will receive a scholarship equivalent to 33 percent of their tuition and will have full access to the library, technology and student support services, according to a press release from Wheelock.
David Chard, dean ad interim of Wheelock, wrote in an email this partnership was created to make graduate education more accessible.
“We hope that this partnership will help our local schools to achieve their goal of increasing the number of local people of color to become teachers and stay in their community schools,” Chard wrote.
The initial partnership will have a three-year term with two-year renewal terms that BU and BPS can extend, according to the press release. There will also be two appointed program coordinators, one from BPS and one from BU, that will help manage the “operational aspects of the partnership.”
Chard said the idea for this partnership came from the BU-Wheelock merger.
“We reached out to officials at BPS and talked about their needs and how we could partner to help increase the number of highly qualified teachers of color for Boston classrooms,” Chard wrote. “This partnership was the result.”
Ceronne Daly, the managing director of the Recruitment, Cultivation, and Diversity Programs at BPS, said she is excited about the new partnership and what this means for the BPS employees.
“It was definitely a win for us to be able to collaborate with BU,” Daly said, “and have the opportunity to both have access to BU as a large institution and to be able to access BU Wheelock as a small entity within the large institution.”
Daly said giving BPS staff this opportunity will have a big effect on BPS students.
“Anytime we can provide our teachers, our administrators, our school based staff and our central office staff, with an opportunity to develop themselves, that growth and development in turn really does impact our students,” Daly said. “They’re able to come back into the classrooms … and be their best selves, so that they can also support the students that we serve.”
In the effort to improve the program, Wheelock will ask for feedback from BPS employees while also making sure they are attending to all professional needs from the BPS employees.
Celie Johnson, a junior in Wheelock, said she believes this new partnership will make the school stronger and more diverse.
“It gives [BPS employees] an opportunity to further their knowledge and experience in a wide variety of different focus areas,” Johnson said.
Emma Verscaj, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, said this program makes sense and is fair to the BPS employees.
“You should have a better education if you are going to be teaching people,” Verscaj said.
