Fellows Program
The Urban Prep Fellows Program brings exceptional recent college graduates to serve full-time in a unique role as in-school mentors, tutors, and advocates for high school students at Urban Prep Academies. UP Fellows teach, but not in the traditional sense; rather than controlling a classroom and multiple classes of students, Urban Prep Fellows focus on the total academic achievement of just twenty-five students.
These groups of twenty-five students are named "Prides" after Urban Prep's mascot, the Lion. The Fellows' primary goal is to build bonds with their Pride members that create opportunities for intellectual, social, and personal growth. We believe that these relationships are essential in meeting each student's individual academic and social-emotional needs. To form these bonds, Fellows spend a large portion of each day meeting individually with students - sitting alongside them for tutoring and focus in classes, chatting in hallways and the lunchroom, and counseling them through behavioral episodes. Fellows also work to weave a network of support for the student through conversations with parents, coaches, other mentors, and teachers who can utilize their own relationships with students to promote their maturation and academic performance.
Time and again, our teachers and staff report that one of the most difficult aspects of their jobs is to understand the issues and challenges that face each of their students. UP Fellows close this crucial gap by taking a 360° view of each student's life, circumstances, and interests, and then sharing this knowledge to coordinate opportunities, programs and enrichment activities between the student, his teachers, the school community, and outside resources.
To complement and reinforce these one-on-one relationships, each Fellow teaches a year-long, humanities-based "Life Skills" course to the Pride as a whole. This course explores themes important to young urban men, such as violence, poverty, and manhood, as well as social, organizational, and study skills. Fellows collaborate with one-another and veteran Urban Prep teachers to design lesson plans tying academic work with issues facing their individual Pride members.
The program enables Fellows to develop the skills to connect, communicate, and lead across a broad array of scenarios and relationships involving students and urban public education. This arrangement connects what is best about the new teacher: his or her dedication, passion, and desire to make a difference in students' lives, with what is most urgently needed in our schools: knowledge and guidance of each student's social, emotional, and intellectual development.
Fellows are provided with housing, a monthly living stipend, full health and dental benefits, and an unlimited public transit pass.
