Nearly 15,000 guests gathered this past weekend in the nation’s capital for Teach For America’s 25th Anniversary Summit, celebrating the organization’s 25 years of impact supporting more than 10 million kids in communities across the country. Taking over Washington’s convention center and Verizon Center arena, TFA’s 25th Anniversary Summit brought together the organization’s corps members and alumni, as well as other leaders and advocates in education, government, policy, social justice, and other fields for a weekend of discussion and problem-solving focused on expanding educational opportunities for the nation’s children. Among the issues discussed at the summit were ways to address the critical needs of a growing Latino student population.

Since its launch in 1990, Teach For America has grown to become one of the largest providers of new Latino teachers in the nation, recruiting more than 4,300 Latinos to serve as teachers and leaders in low-income communities. Today, 25 percent of students in the United States identify as Latino compared to only 8 percent of teachers. Realizing more needs to be done to address this disparity, Teach For America announced in October that it would commit to recruit 2,400 new Latino teachers in the next three years. The organization’s final deadline to apply to teach in Fall 2016 is March 4th. To learn more about applying to be a new teacher through Teach For America, visit www.teachforamerica.org.