Maine’s largest school district is set to receive a $175,000 grant to help educational technicians become certified teachers and diversify the teaching staff.

The grant to Portland Public Schools is from nonprofit group NewSchools Venture Fund.

The school district said the grant will help educational technicians with services such as foreign transcript analysis, payment for additional coursework and expanded mentoring.

The district said many of the techs are immigrants who worked as teachers before coming to the U.S.

The district said the training would benefit schools because demographics of teachers employed in Portland haven’t kept up with the pace of diversification of the student population.