Serving as a City Year school day learning coach

Did you know there are three different ways you can coach, guide and inspire students in schools with City Year?

One option is to serve as a school day learning coach.

What is a school day learning coach?

In this role, you’ll partner with a classroom teacher to identify students who can benefit from extra support, like one-on-one academic tutoring, durable skills coaching (think problem solving, communication and teamwork), or mentoring. You’ll provide these personalized supports to help students engage more deeply with their learning and stay on track to graduate from high school.

“City Year [student success coaches] continues to be a powerful part of our school programming.  They develop strong professional relationships with the students and for some students they are the reason that the students come to school.”

–City Year partner principal survey

You and your team of City Year AmeriCorps members might be serving in an elementary, middle or high school. You’ll receive guidance and feedback from a City Year impact manager, whose job is to make your coaching experience successful—for you and the students you serve.

Building relationships drives your work as a coach

Your most important responsibility, though, is to be a consistent, caring presence in the lives of the students you are serving. As a near-peer—mature enough to offer guidance, yet young enough to relate to students’ perspectives—you’re uniquely positioned to form positive, trusting and resilient relationships with the students you serve.

You’ll also offer encouragement and skills coaching, helping students to problem solve, think creatively and work in teams. These skills are critical for success in college, career and life.

It’s these positive relationships that enable you to provide academic and interpersonal support to students, extra help that helps them learn, develop and reach their full potential.

And the relationships you build with your partner teacher, the school community and your own teammates are just as important. This year of service is designed to not only help students and schools to succeed, but to offer you a year of growth, experimentation and skill-building that will help you in your future education and career plans.

A City Year school day learning coach  shares many of the same responsibilities as a student success coach, but instead of serving 1,700 hours over the school year, you’ll serve either 900 hours (about 25 hours per week) or you’ll serve 1,200 hours (about 35-40 hours a week), depending on the location where you serve.

School day learning coach roles are currently offered at only some of City Year’s 29 U.S. sites. Here are some of the responsibilities of a school day learning coach:

• Work one-on-one and in small groups with students you and your partner teacher have identified as benefitting from extra help
• Help students strengthen literacy and/or math skills
• Collaborate with teachers and your team members to collect, analyze and monitor individual student progress, participating in facilitated reviews of student data
• Create an engaging, safe and healthy classroom space in collaboration with your partner teacher

Learn more about service opportunities with City Year and how to apply.