ECPS Educational Foundation: Growing Our Own Teachers
Join Corning in investing in Edgecombe's next generation of educators!
Teachers help inspire the future innovators of tomorrow. Corning is committed to match every dollar up to $200,000 to the Edgecombe County Public School (ECPS) Educational Foundation over the next five weeks. The ECPS Future Teacher Endowment fund will help address the teacher shortage by supporting local students’ career aspirations in teaching while bringing them back to teach in an ECPS school. Our goal is to reach 1,500 donors by November 29! #GivingTuesday
Edgecombe County’s Grow-Your-Own Teacher Initiative
•The ECPS Educational Foundation Future Teacher Fund is dedicated to funding the Edgecombe Early College High School Scholar Teacher program to support diversity in education in North Carolina, to cultivate a pipeline of the next generation of teachers and build the economic and educational resiliency of our North Carolina communities by cultivating home-town talent.
•From 2006 to 2018, one of every five teachers in ECPS left the district each year on average — a trend found in many rural districts.
•The Scholar Teacher Program was designed to help the Edgecombe County school district recruit diverse, high-quality teachers to combat that 20% teacher turnover rate.
•The Scholar Teacher program introduces students at Edgecombe Early College High School to the basics of teaching and provides them with classroom experience in their local schools. Students graduate with an associate’s degree and can apply for a $10K college scholarship every year for three years.
•By accepting the scholarships, the students agree to return to teach in Edgecombe County for three of their first seven years after graduating from college.
•The first cohort of three Scholar Teachers was hired by ECPS schools this fall, and there are 13 other students currently enrolled in the program.
Corning Commitment to Education
•When we launched Corning’s Office of Racial Equality and Social Unity in 2020, the ECPS program was a perfect fit to our mission and vision.
•In 2021, ORESU joined other Scholar Teacher donors – including the Anonymous Trust and Barnhill – by sponsoring the Edge for Tomorrow Future Teacher grant, which provides a $30k investment per student to go toward their education.
•As of summer 2022, Corning has sponsored two Scholar Teachers, Maria Mata-Reyes and Diego Alonso-Galindo, and have pledged to support six students over six years via our Edge for Tomorrow scholarship.
•In 2022, Corning Optical Communications and Corning Life Sciences joined ORESU by committing to support four students over the next two years.
Meet our ECPS Scholar Teachers! These aspiring educators are preparing to be ECPS teachers one day! Four Teacher Cadet classes. 200 internship hours working in ECPS schools. Mentoring with ECPS teachers and learning from the best! Who better to become our next generation of teachers than our current generation of Edgecombe scholars?
Want to stay updated on the ECPS Scholar Teachers Program?
Check out the latest article, video, and infographic!
WHY YOUR SUPPORT MATTERS
Community donations to the ECPS Educational Foundation support our ECPS Scholar Teachers Promise Scholarship. Recipients of this highly competitive scholarship loan sign a promissory agreement to return to ECPS after college to teach in our schools. The scholarship loan is similar to the NC Teaching Fellows, but it is specifically for ECPS Scholar Teachers who commit to returning to ECPS to teach.
Think "by us, for us." Think "growing our own." Think "investing in our future."
Interested in donating to the Foundation? You can give online by clicking the button below, or mail a check.
Make checks payable to "ECPS Educational Foundation" and on the memo line write, Scholar Teachers Program.
Send Checks To:
ECPS Educational Foundation
2311 North Main Street
Tarboro, NC 27886
Attention: Susan Hoke