Lloyd Hopkins is the Executive Director and Founder of Million Dollar Teacher Project, an organization aimed at increasing support for teachers inside and outside of the classroom, raising the profile of highly effective teachers and drastically improving teacher compensation to bring the teaching profession to the prestigious level it deserves so ALL students are able to receive excellent instruction every day. Lloyd has worked in and around the education system in varied capacities. He has worked with youth offenders, dropout prevention and ran after-school recreation programs. But, it was his time spent as a Teaching Assistant in the Alhambra School District that impacted him the most. The combination of these experiences led to the creation of MDTP because he recognized that if we truly want to help students reach their full potential we must have amazing educators in every classroom.
Teachers cite lack of support as the top reason they choose to leave the profession. We strive to engage the community to support teachers through partnerships, classroom support teams and other community-focused strategies.
Teaching is largely a thankless job. Schools statewide have reported teachers feeling a lack of professional support, and underappreciation has adversely affected teacher retention and recruitment. Every time a school loses a skilled teacher students suffer, and student-teacher relationships greatly affect the success of students. This is why we have made it our focus to improve these interactions through promoting teacher appreciation and recognition.
Nationally teacher salaries are dramatically lower than other professions. We want to raise the profile of highly effective teachers by drastically improving teacher compensation to bring the profession to the prestigious level it deserves so teaching becomes the destination rather than an afterthought.
Million Dollar Teacher Tree was first developed in a classroom by students in a program called, Next Generation Service Corps at Arizona State University in December of 2017. These students were tasked by Lloyd Hopkins, founder of Million Dollar Teacher project with developing a project that can potentially become an integral part in helping MDTP achieve its mission. The group eventually developed the original prototype for Million Dollar Teacher Tree—a cutout dollar sign that would be placed in surrounding businesses near the partner school. The idea was pitched to staff members of MDTP during the last of their class, and the project was picked up by MDTP as a new pilot program for the organization. After many months of planning, the prototype was eventually revamped into what it is today, Million Dollar Teacher Tree.
These apples are intended to provide any sort of Professional Development which, in turn, gifts them with key knowledge to add to their personal skill-set to better work with their students.
As educators, teachers are constantly looking to continually grow in their profession to not only learn how to better connect with their students, but to also make the learning experience much more exciting.
Suggested donation amount range: $10 – $100
These apples are designed to provide the typical day-to-day items in the classroom. Teachers spend can spend upwards of $1,000 out of pocket to have enough supplies yearlong for their students– to alleviate this, the Red Apples were created.
Everyday school supplies include; pencils, notebooks, crayons, hand sanitizer, etc.
These apples are intended to provide a big-ticket item for the teachers. These supplies are typically something that the teachers can use for more than one school year.
Examples include; a class-set of computers or new furniture for the classroom.
Suggested donation amount: $500+
