Program Overview

The Philadelphia Teaching Fellows operates on two admission cycles during the year. Our Mid-year Program starts in January, and our Summer Program starts in June.

The School District of Philadelphia is committed to helping outstanding professionals enter the Philadelphia Teaching Fellows program to teach in our city’s high-need public schools. The District wants you, successful individuals from a variety of careers and backgrounds, to bring your experiences, knowledge, and records of achievement to the classroom by becoming certified teachers and positively impacting the lives of our students. The Teaching Fellows program is part of a dynamic movement to bring teaching excellence and student achievement to higher levels in Philadelphia.

As a Fellow, you will be trained at an intensive Training Institute where you will become part of a powerful support network of diverse, but like-minded, individuals working to ensure student achievement in our classrooms. During training, Fellows will be instructed in the foundations of teaching grounded in a research-based curriculum proven to be effective with urban, high-need students. Upon successful completion of the Training Institute, Fellows will assume full-time teaching responsibilities in School District of Philadelphia classrooms.

Fellows will also pursue Pennsylvania Certification concurrently through a local college or university. Most first year Fellows will be eligible* for the added benefit of an AmeriCorps Education Award worth $5,350 that will help defer the cost of certification coursework. (*Note that additional eligibility criteria must be met to receive this award.)

Philadelphia Teaching Fellows will work in the most critical teacher shortage areas as designated by the District. These are subjects in which the need for high-quality teachers is especially great.

Winter Program

The School District of Philadelphia (SDP) has made significant improvements to its teacher quality efforts. (See Teaching in the School District of Philadelphia.) Like many large urban school districts, however, SDP still faces persistent teacher shortages in the middle of each school year. Once the year has started, some schools continually experience unexpected vacancies where teachers, quit, retire, or take a leave of absence. These mid-year vacancies often impact students by continually presenting a revolving door of teacher substitutes to them. The Philadelphia Teaching Fellows seeks to confront this challenge by selecting 30-40 of the most outstanding candidates to begin training in January, 2011, and to start teaching in February, 2011. We will begin accepting applications for the 2010 Winter program on June 25th. We are currently accepting applications for the 2011 Winter program, please click here to apply now.

Summer Program
In order to further the District’s goal of ensuring that each school year begins with a high-quality teacher in every classroom, the Philadelphia Teaching Fellows program is currently recruiting and selecting an exemplary cohort to begin teaching in the fall of 2010. These Teaching Fellows will complete an intensive Training Institute in the summer of 2010 before beginning to teach in September. We are no longer accepting applications for the Summer 2010 program, but we are acceping applicatons for the Winter 2011 program. Please click here to apply now