The Teacher Diversification Grant was launched in April 2019, with state funds to support local schools and district efforts to develop and implement thoughtful, high-impact strategies to influence the recruitment and retention of diverse Massachusetts educators.
Since former Commissioner Riley launched "Our Way Forward", the Department has engaged in several strategic efforts to create and sustain an educator workforce that is diverse, culturally responsive, anti-racist, well-prepared, and committed to continuous improvement so that all students have equitable access to effective educators. Most recently, DESE released a new educational vision , which centers the educator workforce diversification through Strategic Objective 3, which contains three sub-objectives:
A growing body of educational research demonstrates the positive influences of teachers of color on short- and long-term academic outcomes of students of color - with research finding that having a single teacher of color can boost academic achievement, high school graduation rates, and college enrollment for students of color (Dee, 2004; Gershenson, 2018).
To increase effective teacher recruitment and retention, participating schools and districts will be required to review school and district policies and procedures. The schools and districts will also be required to identify the cultural proficiency training needs for district and building leadership, including hiring managers, teachers, and principals. Talent diversification strategies will be developed by districts and schools through their required participation in the Teacher Diversification Professional Learning Community.
Historically this grant has prioritized funding diverse educator recruitment and retention strategies in the following areas:
The FY25 Teacher Diversification Grant has been posted and is due December 13, 2024. It is important to note that the FY25 Teacher Diversification Grant will be supporting school districts, non-profit organizations and institutions of higher education. Once awarded, all school districts will be required to send a team to attend and actively participate in the Teacher Diversification Professional Learning Community. This hybrid professional development series is currently operating, if you are interested in joining the PLC please complete.
Districts are strongly encouraged to sign up and to attend the Teacher Diversification Professional Learning Community.
Please note, in order for previous Teacher Diversification grantees, Educator Diversification grantees and/or Diversifying the Educator Workforce grantees to apply for this grant opportunity, previous grantees must complete and submit the data collection outlined in the "Teacher Diversification Grants Data Collection" section of this webpage.
DESE is collecting data from all past grant recipients to learn from your experience working with these grants. This is an attempt to learn about the impact of these grants and to understand efforts that may be working to increase the diversity of the teacher workforce; it is not an assessment of your district or organization.
With this data collection, DESE intends to: 1) assess the broad impact of the grants in terms of the number of individuals served, and 2) see where the grants have provided the greatest benefit, using individual data where available to identify participants/recipients and their status becoming or remaining teachers of record.
School districts, non-profit organizations, and institutes of higher education that have previously received funding from the Teacher Diversification Grant, Educator Diversification Grant or the Diversifying the Educator Workforce Grant must submit a Summary Report for all years of funding. This report must be submitted to DESE by 5:00pm on December 13, 2024. Failure to do so will result in disqualification of your FY25 Teacher Diversification Grant application.
Please review the FY19-FY25 Historical Context spreadsheet that identifies the various school districts, non-profit organizations and higher education institutions that were funded from FY19-FY25 with either the Teacher Diversification Grant, Educator Diversification Grant, and/or the Diversifying the Educator Workforce Grant.
Within the spreadsheet, an "X" indicates that the organization received funding in the column with the identified fiscal year. A greyed box within the spreadsheet indicates that no funding was provided during that fiscal year and will not be required to submit information.
Click on the link below for answers to grant related questions that were submitted by November 29, 2024.
Teacher Diversification Grant Q&A
For more information about this grant please email Eric Washington and Sylvia Lam .
Last Updated: January 21, 2021