Trellis Legacy

About Trellis

Trellis Education, a Bay Area-based education nonprofit, was founded by Dr. Megan Taylor in 2015. Through the Trellis Teacher Scholar Program, we supported new STEM teachers through a unique and focused six-year mentoring program. The mentorship ensured our mission: every student in California has exceptional middle and high school STEM teachers and experiences that propel them into college and beyond. Further, these STEM teachers will also share critical identities with many of their students in their respective classrooms, further enriching their academic journey. 

Over the course of its existence, the organization’s Teacher Scholar Program was responsible for providing teacher-to-teacher mentorship to 640 exceptional instructors throughout the Bay Area of California.  Supporting and retaining Teachers of Color along with empowering all STEM teachers with the capacity to be promoters of diversity and equity in STEM classrooms was also at the program’s core.  

With foundation partners shifting their investment areas of focus and the organization having to navigate a leadership transition at both the organization and board levels, the organization made the painful decision to close its doors in 2022.

About the Trellis Legacy Project

Although Trellis Education has dissolved, the organization’s remaining Board of Directors launched the Legacy Project, designed to preserve the findings, work and stories of Trellis and its impact on the STEM teaching community. The Trellis Board commissioned WestEd to design and create this website and bring forward the Trellis story and share its resources with the broader teaching community. WestEd’s approach included reviewing historical documents and interviewing former staff, Trellis scholars and mentors, and foundational partners to highlight the legacy of this organization and its impact on student achievement.

Through the Legacy Project, those interested can find resources to support and mentor new generations of STEM teachers in their schools and education centers. Past Trellis participants emphasized the importance of Trellis’ work in supporting teachers along with their students and creating spaces for social justice-informed instruction. As a Board, we hope that this resource library will keep these findings alive and support teacher instruction in the future.

Funders and Supporters

Partners

  • Berkeley Unified School District
  • Contra Costa County Office of Education
  • Napa Valley Unified School District
  • Oakland Unified School District
  • San Francisco State University
  • San Francisco Unified School District
  • Santa Rosa City Schools
  • Sonoma State University
  • Sonoma Valley Unified School District
  • University of California Berkeley
  • West Contra Costa USD

Board Members

Foundation Funders

  • 100kin10
  • Battery Powered
  • Berkeley Ed Fund
  • Camelback
  • Carnegie Corporation of New York
  • Educate 78
  • Haas Sr
  • Silver Giving
  • Schusterman

Corporate Donations

  • Adobe
  • BlackRock
  • Genentech
  • Wells Fargo

Public Funds

  • CTC Grants
  • SBA Grant (PPP)