ATU teaching grads to benefit from grant

ARKANSAS — A $600,000 grant from the Walton Family Foundation will provide loan relief to new teaching graduates at Arkansas Tech University who agree to work for three years at Northwest Arkansas schools.

The new effort aims to provide incentives for students from historically underrepresented groups to become teachers, the university announced. The grant comes at the recommendation of Alice Walton, daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton, Arkansas Tech announced.

“It is important to have a diverse teaching force that reflects the demographics of the student body,” Robin Bowen, the university’s president, said in a statement.

In Benton County, Hispanic students make up 25% of all 48,681 enrollments, according to the state Division of Elementary and Secondary Education. Hispanic teachers are 3% of the total of 3,175 certified teachers in Benton County schools.

Benton County has far fewer Black students, who make up about 3% of all enrollments. About 1% of all teachers in the county are Black.

In Washington County, Hispanic students make up 30% of 41,983 enrollments, while Hispanic teachers make up about 3% of 2,939 teachers. The county has a large Marshallese population, but while students categorized as Pacific Islander or Native Hawaiian make up about 8% of all enrollments, there are two teachers in the same demographic category in the county, or less than one-10th of 1% of all teachers.

An initial group of 21 Arkansas Tech University graduates will benefit from the grant, according to the university.