Mayor Greg Stanton yesterday announced that the successful Microsoft TEALS (Technology Education and Literacy in Schools) industry wide initiative will expand to seven Phoenix area high schools for the upcoming school year.

TEALS is a grassroots program that recruits, trains, mentors and places software engineers and computer scientists from across the tech industry into high school classrooms as volunteer teachers. They work specifically in schools in need of computer science (CS) courses and teachers. TEALS volunteers participate in a team teaching model to eventually hand off the introductory or advanced computer science course to the classroom teacher, so that the school can grow a sustainable CS program on their own. The program started in Seattle.

Stanton and Vice Mayor Daniel Valenzuela joined Kevin Wang, TEALS founder and Microsoft program manager, to make the announcement to a group of local business and tech industry leaders.

Nearly 500 TEALS volunteers from across the tech sector currently serve with more than 130 schools in 18 states plus Washington, D.C. TEALS and the City of Phoenix are looking to the local tech sector to participate in the initiative.

To find out how you or your company can participate or apply to volunteer with TEALS, please visit: http://www.tealsk12.org/