WITS Encourages Teachers with the Rochelle Lee Teacher Award
Timothy “Tim” Shields is a director at UBS in Chicago, Illinois. When not working at UBS, Stanford MBA Tim Shields supports several charities, including serving as a volunteer for Working in the Schools Chicago, or WITS. WITS aims to promote literacy in schools through positive learning environments and teacher professional development. Last year, Boundless Leaders joined WITS and brought with them the Rochelle Lee Teacher Award, named after a librarian and educator who inspired many children to read. The award is intended to support teachers in the Chicago Public School system who encourage in their students a lifelong relationship to reading. Awardees receive 24 hours of professional development on best practices for literacy instruction, children’s books that they can select from the Rochelle Lee Review Library, recertification credits for participation, and several other benefits. They agree in turn to spend 20 minutes a day reading out loud to their students and offer another 20 minutes of independent reading, to provide access to culturally diverse books provided by WITS, and to encourage their students to bring home books and talk with them about what they themselves are reading. The application for the award is essay-based and highly sought-after, drawing around 300 applicants per year. Teachers may apply as individuals or as a part of a study group. Around 75 individuals and 150 study group participants are accepted into the program each year.