In partnership with our member schools, Teach NYS has completed its 8th consecutive STEM season of assisting with 30% of all applications statewide. We’re proud to have helped 165 schools/divisions with nearly 900 applications. Working with so many schools – as well as having spearheaded the STEM legislation in 2017 – has given us a unique depth and breadth of expertise in this program. Not only do we share this expertise to assist our member schools in a multitude of ways, but NYSED has recognized it, too, even incorporating some of our feedback into program guidance. We couldn’t have achieved such a status without our member schools.
This STEM season was different than any other. Yes, we still hosted weekly open STEM hours, created a multitude of resources, reviewed applications and provided feedback, and offered 1:1 guidance, but we also added an entirely new service: Early Compilation. In case you missed it, “Early Comp,” as we call it, is where we work with our member schools to finish their applications early. Basically, we work with your school in stages over the school year – beginning in the fall or early spring – to collect, compile, organize, prepare, and fix all your application components, so that when the application window opens in the late spring (generally), you’re 99% ready to submit.
How did it work out in its beta testing year? The 46 schools that took full advantage absolutely loved it. We got incredible feedback, with schools’ staffers praising the service and how it removed the burden of application completion, hour calculations, file organization, and document collection off them. What did this mean for them? Less work, more support, better applications, and most of the work done before the summer even started. Most importantly, they finally had summers without STEM applications!
Several of the schools asked us the following: “Why are you doing this for us? It seems too be good to be true.” Well, we’re dedicated to providing the most efficient and effective services to our member schools, and so spreading the application process throughout the school year helps us achieve that. Balancing the workload over the year also stretches our workload out, allowing us to dedicate more time to each school and eliminate a typically hectic review season concentrated into only a few short months.
As successful as this past round was, we’re even more excited for next year. We’re already in the midst of improving and planning everything out. What are we working on? We’re crafting strategies and timelines to complete more applications even earlier, reviewing the portal submission process, upgrading automated trackers, creating better resources and templates to help you collect and draft documents, and more. Our goal for next year is to fully complete 50% of all our member schools’ applications through “early comp” by April 1st.
Not only are we dedicated to helping your school through the daunting application process, but we also want your schools to submit more applications for your teachers. With a single full-time teacher reimbursement potentially reaching $60k for the coming school year, every new teacher can have a major impact on your schools’ quality of education and finances. To help with this, we’re still offering our exclusive Masters in Education partnerships. These member school-only, highly discounted (around $10k for the entire degree) graduate programs with Gratz, SUNY, and Touro have resulted in 40 teachers graduating, currently enrolled, or about to start masters programs. These 40 teachers alone – assuming conservatively that they are part-time, will bring at least $1mil total per year to our member schools!
If you’re a member school and would like to do “early comp” with us or have your teachers enroll in one of our MEd partnership programs, please let us know. If you’d like your school to join Teach NYS as a member school so you can take advantage of our STEM services (reviews and feedback or early comp) and/or our MEd programs, among our other offerings, then now is the time. Reach out to Adam Katz, our STEM Director and Associate Director of Government Programs, at katza@teachcoalition.org.