Project Seeds

Supporting Educators to Educate Diverse Students 

Through the Project SEEDS grant, Florida International University’s Department of Teaching and Learning works closely with Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) to recruit, prepare, and retain diverse teachers. 

Being a part of a SEEDS Cohort will prepare paraprofessionals and pre-service teachers to teach the racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse students served through M-DCPS. Participants in our Cohorts will gain extensive clinical experiences in the field as we implement a residency-like model to give students early exposure to paid professional opportunities (e.g., working with organizations like Breakthrough Miami or After-School All-Stars or working as substitute teachers in M-DCPS). 

The SEEDS program will be offering bilingual coursework in Spanish/English and Haitian Creole/English to some cohorts by infusing strategies to work with PreK-12 bi/multilingual students throughout the Special Education (ESE), Elementary Education (Elem Ed), and Early Childhood (ECE) Programs in all cohorts. 

Program Features  

To support Teacher Candidates, we will provide peer, field, and community mentors, intensive test preparation sessions; and stipends for testing, fingerprinting, and their student-teaching internship. 

What you will get with Project SEEDS: 

• A Dedicated Advisor
• Two paid attempts per test at passing the FTCE
• Reimbursement for fingerprinting
• A $2000 stipend during student teaching
• A multilevel mentorship support system