University Gets Grant to Aid Minority Children
Cal State Dominguez Hills has been awarded a $600,000 federal grant for a project to recruit and train teachers from diverse ethnic backgrounds to work with disabled and at-risk children with similar backgrounds.
The university plans to create a program this fall that would train 40 teachers and 32 related-services personnel with linguistics backgrounds to work with children from infancy to age 5. Educators hope the extended one-on-one relationships that would be formed would allow the children to enter general education classes at elementary schools.
The program is believed to be one of the first culturally diverse special education efforts.
“Programs to train personnel for early childhood education programs at the local, state and national levels must be developed,” said Doris Okada, the program’s director. “The shortage is especially critical for minority and linguistically diverse personnel to serve similarly diverse populations in California and Los Angeles County.”
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