Hutchison, who was appointed to her position in March, said she plans to contact Wisconsin colleges and universities with teacher education programs to inform them about the program as opposed to just working with financial aid officers.

Statewide, 95% of teachers are white, while about 69% of school children are white, according to data from the Department of Public Instruction. In Madison schools, 87% of teachers are white compared to 42% of students identifying as white.

“I think it’s important for students to see people who look like them who are teachers. If you are in a place where you never see someone who looks like you as an educator, it might not occur to you to ever be an educator,” Hutchison said.

In his executive budget, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers sought to convert the loan program to a grant program, but the Legislature’s budget-writing committee rejected that plan and voted to keep the base funding for the loan program the same, at $519,000, over the next two years.

Aside from providing the option to work in more school districts, the bill would also open up applications to all Asian populations as opposed to only former citizens of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, or their children, who immigrated to the United States after 1975, as well as Alaskan natives.