An impending loss of two federal grants threatens to significantly scale back UB’s teacher residency program.
Emails from the U.S. Department of Education informed Amanda Winkelsas, the director of UB’s Urban Teacher Residency program, that two federal grants the program depends on would be terminated mid-February. Worth approximately $8.3 million in total, the grants — the Teacher Quality grant and Supporting Effective Educator Development grant — give current students a $20,000 stipend, pay staff and cover professional development costs.
Winkelsas says that the messages did not give specific reasons on why the grants were being terminated.
The 16-month residency program — dedicated to increasing educator diversity in Buffalo’s public and charter schools — recruits and trains teachers at under-resourced schools across districts in Buffalo, Amherst and Kenton, with plans to expand into Lackawanna next year. After the residency, teachers are required to continue working in the area for the next three years, which helps mitigate issues with vacancies and overuse of substitute teachers.
As someone who grew up in Buffalo’s public school system, Winkelsas described the grant eliminations as personally “devastating.”
“I was able to see all the different opportunities that existed in different places and I knew that this was where I wanted to be. This was the school system that I really felt passionately about working with to build a new and more innovative model for preparing teachers,” Winkelsas said. “So, this work is actually, really deeply personal to me, and that’s just made the devastation of the grant terminations that much harder because this is my community.”
While a federal judge blocked the grants’ immediate termination in a lawsuit filed by state attorney generals, the program’s future remains in limbo. Winkelsas says that current students in the program are likely to receive their stipends and graduate, but there may not be a 2025-26 cohort if the cuts are not rescinded.
“We have people waiting in the wings who’ve been interviewed, who we are ready to select and make offers to. But they can’t afford to enter a program that doesn’t provide that living stipend,” Winkelsas said.
Similar federal grant cuts have been implemented nationwide as the current Trump administration works to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. President Trump signed an executive order cutting the department’s staff in half March 11, and another on March 20, demanding Congress to dissolve the agency.
Yanely Reyes, a 2024-25 cohort resident interning at the same Buffalo public school she attended, says that students need more teachers that come from where they come from.
“I’m from the West Side. I speak their same language. We shop at the same grocery store,” Reyes said. “So I guess just seeing like ‘Hey, this person can talk to my mom or talk in my native language,’ it really connects with them on a different level, and then it almost feels like family.”
Reyes entered the program with no previous experience in education, previously working as a dental assistant and lead-poisoning community health worker. Also a mother of two boys and a first-generation master’s student, Reyes said that the residency gave her a lot of support and mentorship as she navigated the pathway to certification.
“Honestly, I wouldn’t have been in here if it wasn’t for this program. I really don’t know what route I would have chosen. It would have been teaching, but I wouldn’t know how,” Reyes said. “Everyone gives you so much support. You don’t feel alone in it and it really makes a difference.”
Winkelsas says appeals are underway. If the grants are eliminated, the program is considering other funding sources such as the NYS Department of Labor, but it may look different compared to now in terms of the amount of support it could provide.
“I know that we are finding and preparing the best, most committed teachers that our students and our schools so desperately need,” Winkelsas said. “Without high quality teachers, we jeopardize the future of our children, and the future of our community, and our economy and we could go on and on.”
Guinevere Dublino contributed to the reporting of this article.
Mylien Lai is the senior news editor and can be reached at mylien.lai@ubspectrum.com
Mylien Lai is the senior news editor at The Spectrum. Outside of getting lost in Buffalo, she enjoys practicing the piano and being a bean plant mom. She can be found at @my_my_my_myliennnn on Instagram.
