School News

San Dimas resident Tanja Hunt has been named the first recipient of the $1,500 Cliff Wellington Foundation Scholarship, a joint award of the Walnut Valley Unified School district and Cal Poly Pomona’s School of Education.

The fund was set up last year as a posthumous tribute to Cliff Wellington, principal of C. J. Morris Elementary School in Walnut. Money for the scholarship was raised through donations.

The award is designed to help student teachers in the Walnut Valley work at their assigned schools without having to get an outside paying job.

Hunt, 22, a student at Cal Poly Pomona, was assigned to student-teach a first-grade class at C. J. Morris Elementary after she was awarded the grant.

Student teachers must work at a school weekdays for two 10-week sessions before they can get their teaching certificate. The majority of universities in California are not able to pay student teachers unless they have a special fund such as Cal Poly’s, Dr. David Greene, director of the School of Education, said.

Greene said that Cal Poly’s foundation seeks to encourage and support ethnic groups that are under-represented in the teaching field. The university is also trying to start similar grant programs in other districts, using the Walnut district as a model foundation, Greene said.