Teach for America's rocky first year
It's been a rocky first year for the Puget Sound branch of Teach for America, but principals say the first TFA teachers are performing well.
Seattle Times education reporter
ELLEN M. BANNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Jordan Keller, a Teach for America (TFA) teacher, assists fourth-grader Nomin Barsbold and second-grader Laila Abdalla at Silver Lake Elementary in Federal Way in an English Language learning class.
Facts about Teach for America
Origins: Established in 1989 as a way to find enthusiastic teachers for hard-to-fill positions in low-income schools, Teach for America recruits mostly young college graduates who did not major in education.
How it works: TFA members go through the normal school or district hiring process and are paid by the districts the same rate as other beginning teachers. They usually become part of any local teachers union. Before entering the classroom, they receive five weeks of coaching; after that, they are mentored by TFA staffers and must enroll in a teacher certification program for their first year of teaching.
Seattle TFA members: Three Aki Kurose Middle teachers (two in language arts/social studies, one in math), a fourth-grade teacher at South Shore K-8, a Spanish teacher at Rainier Beach High and a special-education teacher at Washington Middle.
Federal Way TFA members: Mostly math and science teachers at middle and high schools; one elementary English Language Learner teacher. A seventh teacher resigned in October for personal reasons.
Kenneth Maldonado's students have no idea he is a member of Teach for America.
If his fourth-graders heard the name of the organization, "They'd probably ask, 'What's a Teach for America?' " speculated Keisha Scarlett, principal of Seattle's South Shore K-8, where Maldonado teaches.
The distinction doesn't mean much to Maldonado either, he said. Like other South Shore teachers, he's focused on the grueling job at hand.
But unlike his colleagues, Maldonado, 24, has had to teach while facing personal attacks on blogs, a lawsuit to get him out of the classroom and an overwhelming number of public-records requests scrutinizing how he came to be hired.
Viral video sparks new interest in Invisible Children chapter at UW
After struggling to gain interest, the UW's Invisible Children chapter has gained dozens of Facebook followers this week.
Seattle Times staff reporter
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As vice president of the University of Washington chapter of Invisible Children, Alison Guajardo has watched the organization struggle recently to gain members and attention.
On Tuesday, after a busy day, she attended a chapter meeting to discuss the video released by its parent organization about atrocities attributed to Ugandan militia leader Joseph Kony.
When she returned home after the meeting, unaware of the popularity the video had gained, Guajardo said, she noticed 75 new followers on the chapter's Facebook page —
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