Quality in the Classroom

The BellSouth Quality in the Classroom Teaching Initiative—a $10 million, five-year initiative—is designed to assist teachers across the company’s nine-state region with professional development, recruitment and retention, top issues facing teachers nationwide.

In each participating state, BellSouth is partnering with local education institutions and non-profits to design and implement programs that are customized to meet the needs of the local communities. In addition to the funding provided, a key component of each state initiative will be the time, energy and talent of hundreds of BellSouth volunteers assisting with implementation of the programs.

The BellSouth Quality in the Classroom Teaching Initiative will focus specifically on grants for professional development, teacher recruitment and retention programs. Professional development grants will focus on developing teachers’ skills and content knowledge in math, science and technology. The recruitment grants will focus on supporting colleges of education, and the retention grants will focus on supporting new teachers and improving working conditions.

Six states in the Southeast are already hard at work improving teaching quality through this initiative.