BCPS is the sixth largest and the largest fully accredited school system in the country with nearly 257,000 students from 173 different countries speaking 53 different languages. More than half of all students qualify for free/reduced lunch. The Urban Academies: Educator Succession Development (UAESD) program is designed to attract teachers to our highest-poverty urban schools by motivating students to enter college and become teachers in the communities of highest need.
The UAESD advances innovation through two interwoven programs: (1) Urban Teacher Academy Program (UTAP), a high school program, which identifies students in ninth grade for careers as educators; and (2) Urban Academy of Professional Development Schools, which places student teachers in high-poverty urban schools.
In 2000, the Council of Great City Schools awarded Broward’s Urban Academies a planning grant to develop UTAP as a successful model and take the concept to scale. In July 2006, the Urban Academies received the prestigious Innovation in American Government Award from the Ash Institute at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. The Urban Academies program was described by the director of Harvard’s Ash Institute as “the kind of big picture problem-solving that public education needs.” The Urban Academies has received national recognition as an exceptional approach to address innovation that supports building effective teachers and creating a clear target for those high-need students in high-need schools to be prepared for the challenges of earning a college degree.
To learn more, contact Dr. Elisa Calabrese.
