USF St. Pete Offers Diversity At Low-Income Schools: Report

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — The University of South Florida St. Petersburg and Pinellas County Schools are partnering to include a mentorship program for Black children.

"Call Me MISTER is important for children of color,” Brenda L. Walker, interim associate dean of The College of Education at USF St. Petersburg, told ABC Actions News.

MISTER stands for Mentors Instructing Students Toward Effective Role Models.

Black male teachers, who according to Walker account for two percent of teachers, will volunteer at local low-performing elementary schools. This effort will start at the USF St. Petersburg campus, according to the news outlet.

Program leaders told ABC Action they hope to expand this to USF campuses in Tampa, Manatee County and Sarasota County.

“It’s really important that students of all races white, Asian, Native American, that other students have the benefit of having African-American and other males of color at the head of the classroom,” Walker told the TV station.

Pinellas County Schools said in an ABC Action interview they've been focusing on diversity for many years and will help with recruiting for the Call Me MISTER program. They are recruiting Black men educators or students graduating from high school that have an interest in teaching.

“Our goal has always been to make sure that our teaching workforce and our demographics of our teachers in our schools, match our student population," Associate Superintendent Paula Texel told the outlet. "This is a perfect program to assist with that and to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to make sure that our teacher workforce is evident of students, and our students with our schools to see the variety of diversity in our teacher workforce."

An added benefit to the men who complete the program are guaranteed teaching positions within the Pinellas County District.

The program is planned to launch in the fall.