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Jennifer Allen is one of 900 new Teaching Fellows who hope to land teaching positions by September.

Hours before nearly 3,000 teachers at dozens of schools got official word that they would need to look for new positions, Chancellor Dennis Walcott greeted 900 fresh recruits to the city’s teaching corps.

The new teachers were recruited and selected by the NYC Teaching Fellows program, which has trained new teachers for shortage areas such as special education and math since 2000. Fellows get training over the summer, then are sent off into high-needs schools in the fall while they work toward a master’s degree in education.

At its peak, the program brought in thousands of new teachers each year. But under tight budget conditions and hiring restrictions, it shrank dramatically in the last few years. This year’s crop of 900 newbies is twice as many as the program hired in 2011, and 200 more than the Department of Education forecast this spring.

The new fellows packed into a Midtown auditorium for a ceremony that welcomed them into the city’s public school system on Monday.

“You have the opportunity to make sure your students are able to grow and thrive in today’s society,” Walcott told the fellows as he praised them for earning a spot in the competitive program, which accepted just 12 percent of applicants this year. “That’s what we want you to do to make that lasting impact.”

But with only a few months to secure a classroom position, the chancellor’s words of encouragement didn’t ease the anxiety that many recruits expressed. Since 2009, fellows who don’t land a permanent position by the middle of the fall semester are tossed from the program — and its payroll.

“I am very nervous,” said Jennifer Allen, who has already started to search for a position. “Every day, whenever I have down time, I schedule at least an hour or so to put out resumes and talk to principals to try to get myself out there.”

And the fellows have an especially large crowd of competitors this year: The welcome ceremony coincided with the announcement that almost 3,000 experienced teachers at the city’s 24 “turnaround” schools are not guaranteed their jobs this fall. Many are applying to keep their positions, but others are striking out on the open market to look for open jobs elsewhere in the system. They will join the fellows, other new teachers, and other experienced teachers looking for a change in competing for open spots. (more…)

A new recruitment program designed to keep teachers in high-needs schools for the long-term is ramping up its presence in schools where the city is preparing to replace large swaths of teachers.

The city’s $1.3 million teacher apprenticeship program, called the NYC Teaching Residency for School Turnaround, embeds teachers-in-training in high-needs schools and pairs them in classrooms taught by experienced teachers to ease the learning curve. The program launched last summer with 26 residents in two schools and was funded in part with money from federal School Improvement Grants. Next year, the Department of Education aims to double the number of residents and expand into more schools eligible for SIG funding.

Currently the only schools in line to receive SIG funding are the 33 the city has proposed for a “turnaround” at the end of the year, meaning one of the schools that hosted residents this year — Queens Vocational and Technical High School — is likely to close its program at the end of the school year. Queens Vocational was one of six schools that had been receiving SIG funds that the city determined in January should no longer be eligible for them. An education department spokeswoman said no decision has been made about the residency program, but the school’s website is already promoting a different residency starting next year.

The residency is part of a series of recruitment models that the department’s Office of Teacher Recruitment and Quality is piloting to better prepare new teachers for classrooms in high-needs communities. One hundred and thirty-six new NYC Teaching Fellows — up from 25 a year ago — were paired with a mentor teacher this month and will work in classrooms for the remainder of the school year as part of an apprenticeship program to supplement the 10-week training they will receive this summer. The fellows will earn a $3,500 stipend for the remainder of the school year.

The DOE is busy staffing up for the expansion of both programs. (more…)