For the fourth year in a row, a Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Refugee Teacher Training Grant, totaling $22,500 to the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, will help increase certified Southeast Asian refugee classroom teachers for Wisconsin.

The grant has a twofold purpose. It offers each eligible junior or senior student in the School of Education $45 per class as an undergraduate and $235 for graduate students to help pay for text purchases. In addition, each student teacher receives a $2,500 stipend for the semester. To be eligible, a student must either be a Southeast Asian refugee or have parents or grandparents who were refugees.

According to Maggie Beeber, senior adviser for UWSP�s School of Education, over the first three years of the program, four master�s candidates and eight undergraduates have benefited from the grant.

"While Southeast Asian classroom teachers remain scarce, this program is playing a positive role in bringing more Southeast Asian teaching professionals into Wisconsin�s classrooms," Beeber says.

Currently 24 UWSP undergraduate Southeast Asian students are majoring in education while four others are pursuing graduate degrees.

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tmiller/vc/Hmong SOE refugee grant