It’s been just under a year since the U.S. Department of Education announced that it had canceled $600 million in teacher training grants for programs across the country.
It was part of the Trump administration’s larger effort to crack down on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives.
For many educator preparation programs, the loss was a death sentence. And at first, it looked like that would be the case for a local grant recipient, Winston-Salem TEACH, too.
But with an outpouring of community support, officials admitted nine new members this year, and they’re currently recruiting the next cohort.
Terminated funding
Inside a second-grade dual language immersion classroom at Diggs-Latham Elementary School, Winston-Salem TEACH resident Sofia Fuentes is teaching a small group of students about narrative writing.
"Cuando tenemos un 'setting,' tenemos un 'when' y un 'where,'" Fuentes explains to the kids.
Fuentes is a native Spanish speaker with a degree in English. As she switches between the two languages seamlessly, her students look at her in awe. They’re not just figuring out the elements of a story — they’re developing their bilingualism. And, Fuentes hopes, a love of learning.
“I love seeing students be curious and wanting to know about the world around them, not just about how to follow steps or how to solve a problem," she says. "But discovering that, 'I want to solve the problem.' You know, 'What can I do specifically? What are my skills and talents that are going to help me solve these problems?'”
Fuentes had a rough first teaching experience when she lived in Miami. After completing an accelerated teaching program, she says she was thrown into a classroom without ever having taught before.
She wasn’t sure if it was the job for her. But then she heard about Winston-Salem TEACH.
It’s a partnership between Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem State University and Salem College that began in 2022. Residents complete master’s level coursework focused on either elementary, secondary or special education, and intern alongside mentor teachers in local high-need schools.
Plus, they get paid a living wage to do it. Fuentes says the offer was too good to pass up.
“So I did carry a lot of those fears into the classroom coming in, but really it was just all like dissolved as I got there."
Since joining the program less than a year ago, she says she’s found a sense of belonging — in the city, in her school and in this career.
“I think that teaching is what I'm supposed to be doing, and I'm learning so much from the internship and from my classes," Fuentes said. "And so, yeah, I think that I made the right decision. And I admit now that I am a teacher and I like it.”
Fuentes, and the other residents, have agreed to continue teaching in a Winston-Salem Title 1 school, where the majority of the students are socioeconomically disadvantaged, for at least three years after they graduate.
That’s a big deal for high-need, typically hard-to-staff schools, especially as a major financial crisis has cast a shadow over the district this past year.
But it almost didn’t happen.
Last February, the program’s federal grant that was promised through 2027, and made up 80% of its budget, was abruptly canceled. Executive Director Kate Allman remembers getting the news.
“Our first thought was, how are we going to support the cohort that's currently in the program? But we also had already selected our finalists," Allman said. "Basically, I was about to push ‘send’ on their letters of invitation to our next cohort of 21.”
The bulk of the grant paid for the residents’ stipends. Those allowed them to complete their master’s level coursework and intern at local public schools without having to juggle another job or go into debt.
Suddenly, Allman wasn’t sure that she’d be able to pay the current students, let alone admit more.
“But basically, our community, just rallied," Allman said. " I mean, they really just doubled down.”
Within 30 days, Winston-Salem TEACH received $800,000 from local foundations and philanthropists, and another $400,000 a few months after.
It was enough to cover the stipends for their current students, and to admit a new, smaller cohort of nine in May.
Community support
The Winston-Salem Foundation was one of their big donors. Vice President of Community Impact Elaine Summerfield says they’re providing $50,000 in annual operating support because they’ve seen the program’s positive impact.
“They're not just building skills to be an effective and excellent teacher in the classroom, they're also building those connections to the community," Summerfield said. "And the cohort model creates a network of support among those educators so that they will be committed over time. You know, when we have dedicated and excellent teachers, that just means better results for our students.”
This isn’t the only education-related cause local organizations have been rallying around recently. The Winston-Salem Foundation and several other groups banded together over the last year to support the local school system in the wake of its financial crisis too.
The district uncovered a $46 million deficit last summer, brought on by years of overspending and a series of accounting errors. To keep the debt from growing, hundreds of people were let go, transportation services were reduced, and school budgets were tightened.
And just like the community did for Winston-Salem TEACH, they came together to support the district. Millions of dollars in donations helped to pay off debt and stock schools with supplies they might have otherwise gone without.
But Summerfield says while fundraising can be helpful and inspiring, it’s not a cure-all.
“Philanthropy and donations will never be able to fill the hole of what our public sector and government funding provides," she said. "But what we can do is recognize those programs that are most important to us and rally around them, make sure that they continue to succeed.”
The survival of Winston-Salem TEACH was an example of that. But that wasn’t the case for many other teacher training programs that lost their federal grants.
Like SCRIPT-NC, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The program had supported special education training for students at a dozen community colleges since 2011. A spokesperson said they tried to appeal the cancellation, but got denied. The program was discontinued in September.
Project LEADERS, a teacher recruitment and retention program in Wake County Public Schools, had to shut down too.
And Summerfield adds that while Winston-Salem TEACH didn't close, it’s still heavily impacted by the cuts.
“The fact is, they're not going to be able to do as much," Summerfield said. "They can continue to serve participants and get teachers ready for the classroom and build community around educators, but they won't be able to do it to the degree that they could if they had that federal funding.”
A sustainable future
Still, Kate Allman is hopeful.
She’s had to assume that the teacher training grant is never coming back, and rethink the program’s funding model completely. Now, she’s calling it a “P4 partnership,” meaning it involves support from the public and private sectors, philanthropic institutions, and people.
She says there were over 100 individuals who made small donations and participated in crowdfunding campaigns to keep Winston-Salem TEACH afloat this past year.
“I don't think people realize how rare Winston-Salem's commitment to public education is," Allman said. "I think that there's a lot of energy and just commitment to our schools being really strong schools.”
With pledged support from local foundations and philanthropists, she says she thinks Winston-Salem TEACH is going to be sustainable for the long term.
Applications to join the next cohort are already pouring in.
Allman says the plan is to accept between nine and 12 for now. That’s roughly half as many residents as the program used to accept, back when it had federal funding.
But she hopes that with community investment, she can one day scale back up to where they were before — or maybe even higher.