The University of North Florida’s college of education recently received a three-year, $2.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to launch a new professional development program for civics teachers in Duval County.
The program, Cultivating Comprehensive Civics Education Professional Development (3C-EPD), was developed in partnership with Duval County Public Schools and the University of Central Florida. The program will provide a year-long series of professional learning opportunities for 90 in-service civics teachers—many from high-need schools.
According to Diane Yendol-Hoppey, a UNF education professor and the project’s principal investigator, the initiative is designed to deepen teachers’ content knowledge, improve their instructional approaches and build confidence in leading discussions about democracy and civic issues.
“Civics education is about more than memorizing dates and facts, it’s about helping students engage deeply with ideas, texts and issues that shape our democracy,” said Yendol-Hoppey. “This grant allows us to support teachers in creating classroom spaces where inquiry, analysis and civic responsibility are at the forefront.”
Building partnerships and lasting impact
According to Yendol-Hoppey, the program was inspired by Duval County Public Schools’ commitment to improving civics education and their willingness to collaborate with UNF.
“The district reached out, which shows we have a strong partnership,” she said. “It’s a bold move on the district to seek out help—it’s different when they say, ‘we want to get better.’ If we had more of these partnerships, we’d be able to use resources more efficiently.”
Yendol-Hoppey said collaboration between universities and school districts is essential for long-term educational progress.
“Universities and schools coming together instead of competing with each other shows what can happen when we say, ‘hey, let’s come together,’” she said. “That makes us more efficient and both organizations more sustainable. Districts should be about kids and universities should be about how we teach teachers.”
Supporting teachers in under-resourced classrooms
The program aims to address significant challenges facing civics educators, especially in Florida’s high-need schools.To counteract teacher shortages, Florida has lowered requirements for new hired teachers. According to Yendol-Hoppey, many teachers enter the classroom without full teaching credentials or access to professional development.
“The state and the districts don’t pay any extra money right now to teachers for continued learning, and many teachers are entering positions without any teaching preparation,” she said.
In the state of Florida, only 85% of teachers met all certification and licensing requirements, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
The program will offer sustained, online learning opportunities beginning in January, structured as multiple year-long cohorts.
“One of the things the grant allows us to do is get teachers to spend enough time to actually make changes in their classroom,” Yendol-Hoppey said. “It allows us to do what districts usually can’t do—deep, supported learning for teachers.”
Beyond test scores
While the initiative is expected to help raise student performance on the Florida Civic Literacy Exam, its broader goal is to foster critical thinking, civic reasoning, and engagement.
“Sometimes we get mixed up in education and only move toward test scores,” Yendol-Hoppey said. “But when you move to the university level, we’re cautious about moving forward—learning first, then test scores will come.”
The program’s design emphasizes inquiry-based learning, encouraging students to analyze primary sources such as the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
“Embracing and cultivating critical thinking should have longer impacts,” Yendol-Hoppey said. “We want students to work through complex issues themselves and draw decisions themselves.”
Collaboration for democratic learning
UNF faculty members Eric Schoute and Daniel Dinsmore will join Yendol-Hoppey in leading the project, bringing expertise in instructional design, teacher learning, and assessment. Together with DCPS and the Lou Frey Institute of Politics at UCF, the team aims to create a scalable model that could influence civics education statewide.
April D. Slade, director of K–12 social studies at DCPS, said in a press release that she was thrilled to begin collaborating on the project.
“By building a sustainable pipeline of expertly trained civics teachers, we will expand access to rigorous instruction, improve performance on key benchmarks and deepen students’ sense of civic responsibility across every neighborhood we serve,” Slade said in the release.
Yendol-Hoppey hopes the program will serve as an example of what effective collaboration between universities and school districts can achieve.
“This really leads to long-term changes,” she said. “If we can get past the barriers and focus on supporting teachers, we can create classrooms where civic understanding and democratic engagement truly thrive.”
Earlier this year, The Project to Renew the Education Pipeline (Project PREP) in UNF’s Silverfield College of Education and Human Services lost $4 million in funding, significantly reducing the scope of its initiatives.
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