Teach Coalition - STEM Teacher Reimbursement Program

This first-in-the-nation program, which reimburses nonpublic schools for the salaries of qualified grades 3–12 STEM teachers, helps us achieve our goal of solving the tuition crisis and giving our schools the tools to enhance their educational offerings. Teach NYS led an advocacy campaign involving thousands of parents and students, and worked alongside bipartisan policymakers in Albany, to pass the original STEM bill in 2017. Since then, Teach NYS has successfully advocated for additional funding for this program, bringing total funding up to $120 million for the five-year period.

Total STEM Funding Figures

$120 million has been allocated to nonpublic schools in NY for this program over five years
$5 million for the 2017-18 school year – Awarded already
$15 million for the 2018-19 school year – Awarded already
$30 million for the 2019-20 school year – Awards to be released soon
$30 million for the 2020-21 school year – Application window closed
$40 million for the 2021-22 school year – Application window not yet open

Program Facts

This NYSED program reimburses nonpublic schools for a portion of the salaries of STEM subject teachers.
Teach will always strive to successfully maintain and/or increase total funding each year. We successfully increased from $5 million in Year 1 to $40 million for Year 5.
Teachers must be eligible and teach any grade 3-12
Nearly any eligible STEM subject is eligible, such as Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math classes
Each year schools apply for reimbursements for about 1700 teachers

Teach NYS’s Role

Championed the program since Day 1
Helped about 125 schools with applications in last round alone
Reviewed about 7 application per school
Assisted with 1600+ applications over four years, which is nearly 1/3 of all applications ever submitted
Spent about 2.5 hours applications for each school
Hosts webinars and walks schools through the application process
Helps schools identify and recruit more eligible teachers
Liaise with NYSED on behalf of schools

Stats on schools Teach NYS helped in Year 3

Schools applied for reimbursement of about 1,318 STEM classes
Average teacher taught 3.5 classes and about 14.5 periods per week
Schools applied for reimbursement totaling 5500+ weekly periods
Schools applied for reimbursement of roughly 3,700 hours of weekly STEM classes, which equals roughly 147,000 hours per year.

If you would like your school to apply for this program, please contact Teachnys@teachcoalition.org