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UNCG Education Grant Will Help Place Teachers In Rural Counties

The UNCG School of Education Building (left). Photo courtesy UNCG

UNC Greensboro will use a federal grant to attract and place new teachers in two rural North Carolina counties. The goal is to bring digital-age problem solving into the high-poverty school districts.

UNCG's School of Education received a five-year, $6.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

The funds will help create the Piedmont Teacher Residency Partnership, which will place new teachers in Rockingham and Surry County public schools.

According to a university press release, those teachers will be trained in computational literacy, a method to collect and analyze information to solve real-world problems in the digital age.

UNCG will recruit 80 prospective teachers over the next four years. Graduates who complete the program will earn a master of arts along with their teaching degree but must stay on in a designated school in either Rockingham or Surry County for at least three years.

The first class will start next summer. 

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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