Trellis

OUR STORY

You remember your most inspiring teachers — a person who ultimately led you to major in music, or history, or math. At Trellis Education, we believe all students deserve exceptional teachers, so we're creating them.

As career opportunities in STEM grow at a rapid pace, public schools are hemorrhaging STEM educators - we lose 50% of our teaching force by their fifth year in the classroom, and worse in the schools in which students are the most underserved. The very people we need preparing and inspiring our students to pursue STEM careers of the future are leaving. Why? The number one reason is lack of support. Trellis Education is changing that. 

Teaching is a monumentally complex endeavor - to master it requires time, intentionality, and support. Trellis is providing all of that and more.  At Trellis, we stay with our STEM teachers for 6 years - starting in their credentialing program and following them through their fifth year in the classroom. Trellis teachers develop expertise enacting research-based teaching practices we know help students learn best. Trellis teachers are supported by a consistent community of trained mentor teachers. Additionally, Trellis educators enter the profession gradually, starting off their first two years at 50 - 80% time, then are supported obtaining Master’s degrees and National Board Certification. 

Be a part of the reason a master STEM teacher is born in the Bay Area. Your donation in the amounts to the right will help aspiring STEM teachers grow into the inspiring master educators we need in our public schools. 

OUR IMPACT

This past Fall Trellis piloted a course with 40 pre-service STEM teachers from two Bay Area teacher education programs. These pre-service teachers worked with Trellis mentors, in their classrooms with students, as they learned to enact core teaching practices. Here is a taste of how these brand new teachers reflected on the experience:

“I want to work on asking open-ended and probing questions of all students when appropriate for the activity. I started to do that a little bit with a couple students, but I want to work on doing it more. I also want to work on facilitating student-to-student talk.” - Phoebe

"Looking back at how this approximation [practice] went I want to avoid maybe asking “what” questions and more on “how” and “why”." - Samuel

“I hope to ask more probing questions of students, to further check how deep their understanding goes. It’s important that students’ knowledge is rooted in explanations and justifications of why things work” - Jessica

"We are really good at getting pre-service teachers to say the 'right' things about excellent teaching. They enter classrooms talking about constructivism, and the importance of students collaborating and talking to one another, and about equity and access. But rarely can they practice what they - or we - preach. We changed that in three months in our pilot work. Imagine what we can do in six years." - Megan, Founder of Trellis