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The U.S. Department of Education has awarded a five-year, $3 million grant to Dr. Belinda Louie to support Project TELL-Equity. The goal of the project is to improve academic performance for multilingual learners by
- Providing equity professional development to schools
- Increasing public awareness
- Offering shared training with teachers and parents
Project TELL-Equity has launched an outreach to 60 teachers who are starting to take our online Teaching English Language Learners endorsement program in March and June 2023. These teachers are taking five online Teaching English Language Learners endorsement courses in the School of Education's master of education program. The grant covers 90% of their tuition.
Dr. Louie, Project Director and Dr. Davis-Welton, Project Coordinator, bring gifts to the teachers. UW Tacoma SOE faculty visit teachers in their classrooms so that they can better support the teachers taking online courses.
More about Project TELL-Equity
- Parent/Teacher Advisory Council
- Early Childhood
- EL Endorsement
More information coming soon
Dr. Belinda Louie
Project Director
Dr. Belinda Louie is the principal investigator and the project director of Project TELL-EQUITY. Dr. Louie is a professor of education at the University of Washington Tacoma. She is a Chinese American immigrant, beginning her career as a multilingual teacher in Seattle School District and Los Angeles Unified School District. Dr. Louie conducts research on children’s literature to identify quality works for culturally and linguistically diverse students. In 2007, she received the Virginia Hamilton Essay Award in honor of her contribution to the scholarship of multicultural children’s literature. In 2006, she established the Professor Belinda Y. Louie Endowed Children's and Young Adult Literature Collection at the UW Libraries. Dr. Louie holds 3 bachelor’s degrees in English, History, and bilingual and bicultural education, a master's degree in Teaching English as a Second Language, and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Washington. Dr. Louie is experienced in grant management. She has received numerous state and federal grants including the National Professional Development 2012, 2017, and 2022 grants. Her strong commitment to building connections in the community resulted in the 2006 Top Contributor Award and in 2017 the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Northwest Asian Weekly Foundation, recognizing her contributions to the community.
Dr. Karlyn Davis-Welton
Project Coordinator
Dr. Karlyn Davis-Welton, is an experienced grant coordinator and guest lecturer at University of Washington Tacoma as well as a K-12 educator with 20+ years as an assistant principal, instructional coach, and classroom teacher. Over the past decade, she has coordinated and work collaboratively with 15 school districts, which included 66 schools, 254 participants, 37 principals, and 15 district leaders on two University of Washington Tacoma professional development grant projects, Project Core Time Digital and Smarter Balanced PD, under the Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC). Innovated grants totaled more than $1mm. She also coordinated with UWT, Tacoma SD, and Washington Association of Better Schools (WABS) on a five-year, $2.75mm Project TELL-PD grant to serve 450 participants aiming at supporting educators and parents to improve academic performance for ELs. Presently, she is coordinating and working collaboratively with UW Tacoma, Federal Way SD, Puyallup SD and Warden SD on a five-year, $3M Project TELL-EQUITY grant aiming at increasing teacher certification and EL endorsements as well as improving EL instruction.
