(Posted 12-7-99)
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
News Service Contact: Steve Gilliam, 336-334-5371
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SERVE OFFICIAL HONORED FOR ESTABLISHING
NATIONAL CENTER FOR HOMELESS EDUCATION
GREENSBORO--Dr. Beth Garriss, who is a program director with the SouthEastern Regional Vision for Education (SERVE) laboratory, has received the first Presidential Award for Leadership from the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth.
Garriss received the award for her work in establishing the National Center for Homeless Education (NCHE), which is operated through SERVE. The honor was presented at the association's annual conference held in Orlando, Fla.
The NCHE was started in 1998 through federal funding of $125,000 from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Compensatory Education. Additional funding in the amount of $590,645 was allocated for two additional years. The center was established to provide information to help to remove barriers and to improve educational opportunities for homeless children and youth.
The goals of the NCHE are to disseminate important resource and referral information related to the complex issues surrounding the education of homeless children, to foster collaboration among various organizations with interest in addressing the education of homeless children and to promote national grassroots awareness of homeless issues.
Garriss is director of SERVE's Children, Families and Communities Program, which includes the NCHE. Garriss, who has a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction from UNCG, has worked at SERVE since 1997 as a senior professional development specialist. She was previously the coordinator for Project Step-Up, a program for homeless children in the Guilford County Schools.
SERVE is affiliated with the School of Education at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Its programs are administered through contracts and grants totaling $11.5 million for 1999, $51.5 million for the period 1996-2000, and over $83.5 million since its inception in 1990. SERVE is a research and development center at UNCG that has as its core business the operation of the Regional Educational Laboratory for the Southeast, one of 10 regional laboratories across the nation funded by the U.S. Department of Education.
Also integral to SERVE are the Southeast and Islands Regional Technology in Education Consortium, the Eisenhower Math and Science Consortium for the Southeast, a subcontract for the operation of the Region IV Comprehensive Technical Assistance Center, and a number of smaller projects.
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