What is ITEP? 

ITEP stands for the Indigenous Teacher Education Project. Our goal is to prepare future Indigenous educators to fuse their knowledge, culture, language and aspects of their tribal identities with academic classroom teaching.

Why what we do matters:

There are 22 federally recognized Tribal nations in the state of Arizona. Despite the presence of the many Tribal Nations, there are few Indigenous educators who serve Indigenous schools and communities. Before ITEP, the University of Arizona's Elementary Education program had less than 1% of teacher candidates who self-identified as Native American. Now, approximately 7% of teacher candidates in the Elementary Education program are from Indigenous backgrounds and the majority of those students are in ITEP. ITEP believes in the power of indigenizing education to sustain Indigenous cultures, knowledges, languages, and identities.

ITEP provides teacher candidates the opportunity to teach in schools serving Native students. This requires teacher candidates to understand the unique contexts of tribal communities. The funds will allow ITEP to bring in cultural specialists, consultants, and knowledge holders of various tribal communities to contribute to the preparation of the ITEP teacher candidates.

How you can help: 

ITEP is currently funded by two federal grants, but these funds are not sustainable. As a result ITEP hopes to raise 5,000 dollars to help work toward sustaining the program and support the future Indigenous educators in their pursuit of their Bachelor's degree and teaching certificate in Elementary Education.  

How will you be a part of the future of Indigenous Teacher Education?