Welcome to SCC-PitS!

Santa Clara County Poets in the Schools is the Santa Clara County home of California Poets in the Schools. 

Since its start in 1964, CPitS has grown to become one of the largest writers-in-the-schools programs in the nation, serving students K-12 in over 30 California counties, stretching from Humboldt and Siskiyou to Inyo, Mono and San Diego, in districts both urban and rural. Each year CPitS reaches thousands of classrooms, teaching in public and private schools, juvenile halls, after-school programs, hospitals and in other community settings. CPitS proudly taught its 1,000,000th student in 2011.

Our goal is to make curriculum-enriching poetry workshops available to every student in California.

• Currently CPitS reach includes 30,000 students served by 102 active poet-teachers, ranging from new MFA graduates to poets with over 25 years classroom experience.
• Our visiting poet/teachers are professional published writers who are trained in the art of teaching poetry at different age-appropriate levels. 
• Our poet/teachers affirm the cultural diversity of California by sharing its multicultural literary heritage with K-12 students. 
•  Poet/teachers are living models of an artist’s commitment to creative and imaginative use of language. 
• CPitS poet/teachers leverage new technology to reach more classroom teachers, young poets and new audiences. 
• CPitS poet/teachers reach and represent the diversity of each local community, including multilingual students.

Poetry workshops and residencies are funded by a variety of sources, including PTAs, school districts, foundations and locally-sourced community and business funds. The statewide office supports the independent contractor poet/teachers by organizing grants, providing training and technical support, networking, hosting literary events and meetings, and sharing best-practices creative writing pedagogy. Statewide poet/teachers submit exemplary student work to be published in annual poetry anthologies, beautifully edited and printed to showcase the talents, voices and diversity of today’s Californian youth.