This project brings together science and mathematics and education stakeholders in the Northern San Francisco Bay Area, the Sonoma State University Schools of Education and of Science and Technology, Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment programs in the area, and several school districts, including Sonoma Valley Unified School District, Roseland School District, Petaluma City Schools. It capitalizes on the strengths, opportunities and existing connections between the university and the K-12 schools and on existing supports for science and mathematics teacher recruitment. It addresses the need for highly qualified science and mathematics teachers by proactively recruiting and supporting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors who are pre-teacher candidates during their junior, senior and post-baccalaureate pre-certification years and providing a career change opportunity for people with STEM majors and in STEM careers who want to enter the teaching profession as STEM teachers. The program is providing twelve Noyce scholarships of up to $10,000 each during each of the program's five years. These scholarships can be combined with benefits available under an existing program designed to offset tuition costs for students preparing to become STEM teachers, the Science Mathematics Teacher Recruitment and Retention Initiative.
The intellectual merit of the program is found in what is being learned about the value of these approaches to increasing the supply of well qualified STEM teachers to schools in these areas with particular attention to high needs schools
The broader impact resides in the number of school districts that will benefit from the graduates of the Noyce scholarship program.
