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Teacher Carlos discusses text book with a middle school student in a classroom. The both have brown skin and long curly hair.
Teacher Andre and a young Black student sit on a park bench enjoying a book together.

JOIN

TODAY’S MEN
TEACHING

Central and Southern Illinois

All students benefit from having a teacher of color in their classroom. Change your future and theirs. Become a teacher with tuition support, mentorship, and more. Start your career and lift up your community today. To ensure representation across Illinois, right now we’re only accepting applications from men in Central and Southern IL.

Teacher David looks at a laptop with a smiling middle school aged kid. They are both Black and are standing in front of hallway lockers.
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Bar graph showing the number of candidates in each Illinois location from 2020-2023

GYO-IL’s growth is due to sustained investment from Illinois and our centralized administration of the GYO grant, which includes collaborating with our consortia to support local candidates.

Centering Community in Teaching

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Recruiting and training teachers to lead in hard-to-staff schools in communities across the state

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Providing individuals with comprehensive supports and a strong peer network to become classroom teachers

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Addressing systemic inequities that adversely impact underserved students

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Linking community-based organizations, universities, and school districts to strengthen local schools

What our Graduates say

Latrell Walton

GYO GRADUATE, 2020

I wanted to have this financial support but I also wanted to have this space where I could actually learn more about being a teacher, having the support of someone who is a person of color. …So GYO was just this one place I knew was going to have my back in terms of supporting me going forward with what I wanted to do as a career.

Samantha Sartin stands with her mentor at graduation. The are both wearing mortar boards and graduate regalia.

Samantha Sartin

GYO GRADUATE, 2015

Grow Your Own Teachers was a transformative experience for me. They transformed my entire vision of teaching. And the GYO mission is powerful…getting more African Americans and Latinos into teacher prep programs and then growing the pool of teachers who look like students. 

Mayra holds a Grow Your Own One Student at a Time Award certificate and wears a Chicago Public Schools t-shirt.

Mayra Bravo Gonzalez

GYO Graduate, 2010 & GYO IL Board Member

Grow Your Own’s financial support was great, but even with that, I don’t know if I would have made it without the support from the GYO monthly meetings and the guidance I got. I know for a fact that I am changing lives as a teacher, and even more so because of my culture and how I treat students. I can see the pride in my class when I speak in Spanish.

Follow our journey