Campus Roundup: Back to School Highlights
This year, Citizen Schools Massachusetts welcomed eight returning and six new AmeriCorps Teaching Fellows (TFs). This year’s TFs come from a diverse range of personal and professional experiences, united by their deep commitment to public service and social justice for the 300+ students we are serving at our three partner middle schools in Somerville.
After a two week respite, our veteran TFs completed a leadership and professional development week in July before jumping back into work rejuvenated for the year ahead. Our new TFs joined us in late July and went through a revamped, intensive summer training program with session topics ranging from “Classroom Management” to “Living on an AmeriCorps Stipend”. Additionally, the Massachusetts regional staff piloted a new framework for training based on the approach of service learning, which is learning through examining and solving real world problems. This year, the issue all TFs will engage and wrestle with is how to improve student engagement and retention in our programs. Through service learning, TFs will discover what makes them better in the classroom and implement the created strategies to increase our student recruitment and retention rates.
Our 2019-2020 Campuses:
East Somerville Community School
Campus Director: Ani Yanachkova
Partner since 2017
Winter Hill Community Innovation School
Campus Director: Angela DiPesa (former Teaching Fellow!)
Partner since 2018
Campus Director: Janae Dixon (former Teaching Fellow!)
New partner this year