Strategies for Teacher Excellence Promoting Student Success (STEPSS) was a five-year, $3.9 million project that received initial funding in August 1998. A sixth year of STEPSS-supported activities was made possible through a no-cost extension for 2003-2004, so the official ending date for the STEPSS project was July 31, 2004.
STEPSS was designed to strengthen and enhance the mathematics content knowledge and instructional expertise of over 800 K-6 teachers, administrators, and preservice teachers in the Visalia Unified School District (VUSD). The district is located in the heart of California's agriculturally rich San Joaquin Valley and serves 25,000 ethnically- and linguistically-diverse students in grades K-12. California State University, Fresno (CSUF) and Fresno Pacific University (FPU) are the major graduate universities in the region and were active partners in the STEPSS project. A faculty member from each campus coordinated the STEPSS master's cohorts on that campus and also served as a Project Co-PI... [The full 2003-2004 project activities summary for STEPSS is available at the URL below.]
