CHS grad James Fidler to join Teach For America corps

Cloverdale native James Fidler was recently accepted into the 2012 Teach for America corps.

Teach For America is the national corps of top recent college graduates and professionals who commit to teach for two years in urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders in the pursuit of educational opportunity for all students.

Fidler is a 2008 graduate of Cloverdale High School and 2012 graduate of University of Southern Indiana. Fidler will teach in the Rio Grande Valley.

Fidler joins Teach For America's 23rd incoming corps, which numbers a record 5,800, as a 2012 Amgen Fellow. The Amgen Foundation is Teach For America's Founding National Math and Science Partner and supports 100 new Amgen Fellows selected annually from the top incoming Teach For America teachers with undergraduate degrees in math or science.

Amgen Fellows receive a $1,000 signing bonus and are eligible for additional financial support for classroom resources or professional development. The Foundation seeks to advance science education by developing a national STEM pipeline to train students, from elementary to college, to strengthen science teaching and learning in and out of the classroom.

Selected from a candidate pool of over 48,000, Fidler is part of one of the most diverse and accomplished corps in Teach For America's history. Thirty-eight percent of these first-year teachers identify as people of color, including 13 percent who are African American and 10 percent who are Hispanic.

Thirty-five percent received Pell Grants (which are most often given to undergraduates with family incomes under $20,000), and 23 percent are the first in their families to earn a college degree. Ninety-eight served as student-body president at their alma mater. Twenty-three percent are graduate students or professionals from a wide range of backgrounds, including veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces, financial analysts, nonprofit staffers, consultants, and participants in other AmeriCorps programs.