FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 16, 2016
CONTACT FOR EDUCATION PIONEERS
Kirsten Searer
kirsten.searer@educationpioneers.org
Eldrin L. Deas Awarded 2016 Education Pioneers Scott Morgan Award and $10,000; Two Runners-Up Each Receive $2,500 to Increase Opportunity and Equity for Students
Deas, an education consultant and former teacher, demonstrates remarkable achievement for underserved students
SAN FRANCISCO -- Education Pioneers (EP), a national nonprofit that recruits professionals with diverse skills and backgrounds into non-teaching leadership positions throughout K-12 public education, announced today the winner of the Scott Morgan Award at a national conference at the Grand Hyatt San Francisco.
Eldrin L. Deas (2013 EP Fellow), an education consultant and former teacher, was awarded the 2016 Scott Morgan Award for demonstrating remarkable achievement in creating equity and opportunity for underserved students. Deas received a $10,000 award to advance critical initiatives in his work, or to support his own leadership development to increase opportunity and equity for underserved students.
Two runners-up, who each received $2,500, were also named: Anjelica Hardin Hall (2014 EP Fellow), Managing Director, Partnerships and Programs for the Tennessee Charter School Center, and
William Jackson (2013 EP Fellow), Chief Dreamer for Village of Wisdom.
The Education Pioneers board of directors created the Scott Morgan Award in 2013 in honor of the organization’s 10-year anniversary and the organization’s Founder and CEO, Scott Morgan.
“Many of Education Pioneers’ 3,000-plus Alumni work to create equity and opportunity for underserved students, and we were thrilled to recognize three especially distinguished Alumni today,” said Aimée Eubanks Davis, Board Member for Education Pioneers and Founder and CEO of Braven, who presented today’s awards in San Francisco. “Eldrin Deas, Anjelica Hardin Hall and William Jackson have each demonstrated remarkable achievement in helping to ensure that students who are growing up in low-income communities and students of color have access to the educational opportunities they need and deserve.”
Eldrin Deas, the grandson of a sharecropper, has always felt a personal connection to the effects of educational inequity and has spent his career devoted to education. He started his career as a math teacher in Atlanta, GA and then became a math test developer in Washington, DC. He later served as an assistant director of the Centennial Scholars Program in North Carolina and as an analyst for the Connecticut State Department of Education. Deas has since become an education consultant and researcher, as well as a member of the education committee for My Brother’s Keeper Durham, where he is responsible for developing strategies to ensure boys and young men of color graduate high school.
Deas’ work and accomplishments also include:
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Helping craft an action plan to improve education outcomes for more than 28,000 typically underserved students of color in Durham, NC;
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Increasing kindergarten registration efficiency in Delaware to ensure that more than 9,000 students have adequate access to transportation and school resources; and
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Disrupting the cycle of recidivism for 18,717 young adults (aged 18 to 25) who are incarcerated in California by designing a new academy where students serving multi-year sentences can earn a high school diploma or GED.
All Education Pioneers alumni currently working in public education at any level were eligible to be considered for EPic Alumni recognition and the Scott Morgan Award. In addition to assessing alumni applicants’ work and impact on underserved students, Education Pioneers assessed how applicants work, including how they reflect Education Pioneers’ core values, including courage, optimism, collaboration, action, and diversity, equity and inclusion.
To date, more than 3,000 leaders have completed the Education Pioneers Fellowship, where they worked with school districts, charter schools and other organizations that support public education to help solve problems from outside of the classroom so students and teachers succeed in the classroom.
About Education Pioneers
Since 2003, Education Pioneers has recruited professionals with diverse skills and backgrounds to solve problems from outside of the classroom so students and teachers succeed in the classroom. Education Pioneers has recruited and trained more than 3,000 leaders in partnership with more than 200 education organizations in 20 cities nationwide.
Of the organization’s alumni in the workforce, more than 70 percent serve in education and lead or contribute to work that impacts more than 3.5 million public school students – most of whom are students of color and come from underserved areas. Find out more about where Education Pioneers’ leaders work and their impact here: http://www.educationpioneers.org/our-impact.
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