- Meet Jacobo Lopez and his fifth grade class at WJC Trapp Elementary School in Rialto, a community in San Bernardino County.

The 31 kids in this classroom say they really like their teacher this year who happens to be among a small yet growing number of male teachers of color.

- He wants us to like do good so that like we have a good life and we don't have to like waste it 'cause he says we have a lot of potential so I really, I really like him.

- I just want three quotes and a conflict and a resolution.

All right.

- According to the Rialto Unified School District, this community is 87% Hispanic and 9% African American.

Yet until recent years, thanks to recent efforts, only about 5% of its teachers reflected those demographics.

That's on par with national statistics that show only 23% of teachers in the US are men and an even smaller number are from diverse backgrounds.

- He's my first ever guy teacher.

I, I like him very much.

He is a guy like me and he is like you know, very patient.

- Jacobo Lopez is one of 11 teachers within this district who is part of an innovative program called Project Impact.

It was created at California State University San Bernardino with the goal of recruiting, training and placing more male teachers of color in K through 12 classrooms.

- I did have a lot of teachers who didn't look like me.

I had a lot of teachers who didn't talk like me.

- Lopez says he struggled in school and had a lot of different jobs before being recruited by Rialto's Deputy superintendent.

- It's important because our students come from various different backgrounds and they've had different experiences.

We don't have one type of student, so we shouldn't have one type of teacher.

- Grades three to eight when they have a black teacher, their likelihood of finishing high school and going to college increases by 29%.

- Dr. Shaka Doku is Dean of the Watson College of Education at CSU San Bernardino.

He's also the visionary and creator of Project Impact, which was born out of his own experience as a teacher in East LA - I was always the only black man on campus and these young black men tend to gravitate towards me.

- In 2019, he proposed the idea of Project impact with university support and a million dollar endowment from Jim and Judy Watson.

The first project impact cohort launched in 2020.

The program provides tuition assistance and mentorship guiding men to not only become teachers but role models.

- Because right now we know that most of our children of color think that the only way they can make it is through sport, our music.

But we have so many intellectuals out there.

- Program director, Dr. James Huff works one-on-one, recruiting, teaching, and mentoring men who in most cases never considered a career in teaching.

Project Impact finds its recruits by partnering with local community groups and school districts like Rialto to hire from within.

- We have a custodian who is now a teacher because of Project Impact.

We have a groundskeeper who is now a teacher because of Project Impact.

- It's a great benefit when we have our employees that are able to become teachers in the community that they work and live.

- In its first four years, Project Impact graduated 62 Hispanic, African American and Native American men who are now working in 10 nearby school districts.

- I never had one black teacher all through primary and secondary school until I got to college.

- Another 98 like Jamal Crump are currently going through the program.

- So I feel like I can give them the life where like you don't have to be a TikTok start.

You don't have to be a sports player.

You can go to a trade school, you can go to any kind of schooling and you can further yourself through education.

Why not?

- The goal is not for high school students or even middle school students to drop out to think lower themselves.

The goal is to change the statistics for minorities.

- I believe Project Impact is breaking that stereotypical idea of who a teacher is, what a teacher looks like, what is their background.

- When you have somebody who was a groundskeeper who did not think they had any other professional pathway and they are now on a professional pathway that gives them a middle class wage.

You're talking about social mobility.

- I think if I had a teacher who who saw you know me slipping through the cracks in high school, I think somebody could have stepped in and stopped it.

So that's kind of my mission statement going into the classroom.

- Jacobo Lopez says his goal now is to be that role model for the kids in his classroom to change the statistics and to give young boys other dreams to aspire to.

- Well maybe if I do ever become a comic artist or like a artist or something like that, I probably will remember him actually just the day he encouraged me to do it.

-Academically, your teachers are like the most important thing.

- Studies by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the short term impact of black teachers on black students is significant benefiting students in test scores, attendance, grades, disciplinary actions, and educational expectations.