An old idea is taking a new form in Waterbury and other major cities in Connecticut.

The idea was to recruit future teachers from the ranks of paraprofessionals working in the schools. This was the concept behind the Teaching Opportunities for Paraprofessionals (TOP) program, which Alma managed at the State Department of Education in the early 1990s.

TOP was an initiative to bring more persons of color into the teaching profession. The program enabled  paraprofessionals to return to college and pursue bachelor’s degrees. Most paraprofessionals in our big cities were persons of color. Many had some college credits, and all were committed to careers in education.

The program succeeded in bringing greater diversity to the teaching profession in Connecticut. Unfortunately, however, the legislature terminated the program in the late 1990s because of the cost.

Therefore, I was delighted to learn the other day that the idea of grooming paraprofessionals as teachers is alive and well.

The CT Mirror reported that Jahana Hayes, 2016 National Teacher of the Year, appeared before the state board of education to endorse an initiative to increase diversity in the state’s teacher workforce.

Hayes, who works to recruit and prepare teachers for the Waterbury Public Schools, shared her experience with the Relay Graduate School of Education. The Relay teacher-preparation program has been enabling school employees from Waterbury and other major cities — primarily paraprofessionals — to earn their teaching certification.

Hayes is working with Relay because she believes in recruiting future teachers from among current employees of the school system. This replicates the concept behind the TOP program from over two decades ago.

Creative efforts are needed to promote greater diversity in teaching because the vast majority of students in the state’s teacher-preparation programs are white. In fact, 82 percent in the 2016-2017 school year were white, according to the State Department of Education.

Now, persons of color account for fewer than 9 percent of educators in Connecticut’s public schools. Meanwhile, over 40 percent of public school students are minorities.

Over the past three years, 14 employees of the Waterbury Public Schools have enrolled in Relay teacher-preparation programs — all persons of color. Now, 13 percent of the district’s staff are persons of color.

The state board of education approved Relay’s non-traditional teacher-preparation program in 2016 over the objections of college faculties and teachers’ unions, who objected to Relay as a “shortcut to certification.”

The Connecticut Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, has endorsed Hayes in her campaign to represent Connecticut’s Fifth District in Congress. But she has parted ways with the union on this issue, maintaining that the Relay program has had a positive impact in Waterbury.

The TOP program supported paraprofessionals in traditional teacher-preparation programs in colleges and universities across Connecticut. But all these years later, with persons of color accounting for a small percentage of Connecticut public school educators, perhaps alternative approaches are justified.

• Woody Exley

Everyone who knows Justis Lopez that he is a rising star. But now he can officially claim that title. He has received the annual Rising Star Award from the New England Educational Opportunity Association.

Mr. Lopez, whom we honored in 2015, received the award at the organization’s annual conference recently in Stowe, Vermont.

NEOA is an organization of educators who work to ensure equal educational opportunities in higher education for low-income individuals, first-generation college students, and students with disabilities.

The Rising Star Award recognizes emerging professionals who are former participants in NEOA educational opportunity programs. Mr. Lopez’s involvement with NEOA began at the University of Connecticut, where he was active with the Student Support Services program.

The SSS program opened a number of opportunities for him during his undergraduate years. He won an internship in Washington, D.C., with the NEOA-affiliated Council for Opportunity in Education, which enabled him to meet President Barack Obama. He served as a peer leader to a group of SSS undergraduate students studying in London, England. And he served as a residential coordinator in the SSS Pre-Collegiate Summer Program.

Reflecting on the impact that SSS has had on his life and career, Mr. Lopez has this to say:

“Never has any program I have been a part of shifted the trajectory of my life as much as SSS has. I have met some of my best friends and learned some of my largest life lessons that the classroom never could have taught me in that program, and I am forever grateful.”

Now finishing his third year as a high-school social studies teacher, Mr. Lopez has been honored as “an emerging leader who is striving for the highest levels of personal and professional achievement,” in the words of the NEOA. Rising Star honorees are recognized for exceling in their chosen fields, devoting time and energy to their communities in a meaningful way, and serving as role models for other low-income, first-generation, college-bound students and students with disabilities.

Mr. Lopez began his teaching career at Manchester High School. Since September 2017, he has been teaching at Urban Assembly School of Applied Math and Science, a public school in The Bronx, N.Y.

Congratulations to Justis Lopez on this much-deserved recognition by an organization of educators from across New England. Our selection committee knew he was destined for greatness, and I’m delighted that he is gaining recognition in the wider education community.

— Woody Exley

Angie Gibbs, who was named a Master Teacher earlier this year, has received another honor.

She has been chosen for a COINED Scholarship from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.

The award pays for two weeks of study in Santiago, Chile, this summer in Spanish language and literature and Latin American culture. She also expects to get out of the classroom and trek the Andes while in Chile.

Ms. Gibbs, whom we honored in 2005, is a Spanish teacher at Green Valley Ranch High School, part of the  Denver Schools of Science and Technology (DSST)  school system in Colorado.

A graduate of James Hillhouse High School in New Haven, Conn., she received a bachelor’s degree with a major in Spanish from Connecticut College in 2005. She earned a master’s degree from Lesley University while teaching Spanish at Media Arts & Technology Charter (MATCH) High School in Boston.

Congratulations to Angie on this award, which will enable her to enrich her Spanish courses for her students in Denver.

– Woody Exley