Teaching Fellow: Independent School Fellowships and Charter Residencies as a First Job

A teaching fellow is hired by a school and does the work of a faculty member.

Penn GSE's Independent School Teaching Residency (ISTR) puts the employment in its eligibility rules: to enroll, a student must be hired into a fellow position by a partner school and stay employed there for both years of the program.

The core of the job is teaching.

At Pingree School, an independent day school in Massachusetts, fellows teach, coach and advise students, and the fellowship adds mentorship and weekly seminars around that work.

The setting shapes the rest of the job.

Penn ISTR runs two tracks, a Boarding School Teaching Residency and a Day School Teaching Residency, so a boarding-campus fellowship and a day-campus fellowship carry different lives around the classroom.

Faith-based corps such as ACE place fellows in Catholic schools, and charter networks run the year in their own schools.

Charter networks give the early-career year their own structure and titles.

Uncommon Schools posts Apprentice Teacher and Relay Resident roles for people with limited or no teaching experience, with two to three weeks of training before each school year and ongoing coaching after it.

Mentorship is designed into the model rather than left to chance.

Pingree pairs its fellows with weekly seminars, Penn ISTR adds weekly meetings with a school-based mentor during the fellowship, and residencies as the National Center for Teacher Residencies defines them place the resident alongside an effective mentor teacher for a full academic year.

You will see this year under several titles: teaching fellow, teacher resident and apprentice teacher are the names the programs above use for versions of the same first job.

The duties in the posting, not the title, tell you what the job actually looks like.

Fellowship and residency describe two overlapping structures with different engines: one is a school job, the other is a preparation pathway into a credential.

Faith-based service corps are a third version, pairing teaching with a graduate degree.

• Independent-school fellowships: a job at one school. You are hired by the school. In Penn's model, the application runs through the school too. Penn GSE says fellowship positions at its partner schools are usually posted between December and February, applicants apply to the partner schools directly, and the schools then send their fellow recommendations to Penn in the spring. Some fellowships carry a degree with them: Penn ISTR is a two-year, part-time, hybrid M.S.Ed. that starts in summer.
• Charter residencies: a credential pathway with financial support. The National Center for Teacher Residencies defines a teacher residency as a full academic year spent co-teaching with an effective mentor teacher, with financial support such as stipends or tuition assistance, aimed at producing state-certified teachers. The Higher Education Act, at 20 USC 1021(22), defines a teaching residency program in the same shape: one academic year teaching alongside a mentor who is the teacher of record, with concurrent coursework from a partner institution.
• Faith-based service corps: teaching plus a graduate degree. Notre Dame's ACE Teaching Fellows is a two-year program in which fellows teach in Catholic schools while earning a tuition-free M.Ed. The University Consortium for Catholic Education lists 13 member programs; in 2025-26 they placed 381 teachers in 310 Catholic schools across more than 50 (arch)dioceses.

The charter side is regional, not national.

KIPP runs its residencies by region, and they differ in length, partner university and pay: KIPP SoCal's residency is one year with a $45,000 stipend, and KIPP Atlanta's runs two years with a commitment to two more years of lead teaching afterward.

There is no single national KIPP residency.

The practical difference for you: a fellowship is a school job that sometimes adds a master's, a residency is a certification pathway that comes with financial support, such as a stipend, and a service corps pairs teaching with a graduate program.

Certification sits at the destination of the residency models, and it can ride along with a fellowship too, since ACE teachers are eligible for teaching licensure when they finish.

These programs are built for people starting out.

Penn GSE says ISTR suits people with less than 2 years of teaching experience, and Achievement First describes its Teacher-in-Residence program as a one-year pathway to lead teacher for people with little or no teaching experience.

In the residency and corps models, certification is the destination rather than the entry ticket.

Residencies as NCTR defines them aim to produce state-certified teachers, and Achievement First requires uncertified residents to be on the path to a state teaching certificate.

Teach For America describes itself as "not specifically a certification or graduate education program."

In most regions, corps members work toward certification while teaching and pay for the coursework and exams themselves.

With limited exceptions, they must pass at least one certification test to be eligible to teach.

TFA corps members are employees of the schools where they teach, not of TFA: they are hired as employees of the school, district or charter organization and receive the same salary and benefits as other first-year teachers.

TFA reported 4,100 corps members teaching nearly 300,000 students in the 2024-25 school year.

Some programs name a second purpose directly: bringing in educators from groups underrepresented in independent schools.

Pingree's fellowship seeks candidates from underrepresented groups in independent schools, and the Independent School Teaching Fellows Program of Greater Philadelphia was created in 2016 at William Penn Charter School to recruit aspiring educators from underrepresented identities, particularly educators of color.

Its partner schools include Community Partnership School, Friends' Central, Agnes Irwin, Springside Chestnut Hill Academy and Penn Charter.

Programs publish their own entry bars, so read them early.

KIPP Atlanta's Teaching Residency asks for a bachelor's degree with a GPA of 3.0 or higher.

If you would rather begin in a support role first, the neighboring teaching assistant career guide covers that job.

Program rules decide what comes next, so read them before you sign.

KIPP Atlanta's rule runs forward: residents commit to two additional years of lead teaching at KIPP Atlanta after completing the residency.

Penn ISTR's rule binds during the program: fellows stay employed at their partner school for both years.

Credentials are the clearest exit asset.

ACE teachers are eligible for teaching licensure on completion, and residencies are built to end in state certification.

Degree-bearing fellowships leave you with a graduate credential as well: ISTR fellows finish with an M.S.Ed., and ACE fellows finish with a tuition-free M.Ed.

Role moves are the third pattern: Achievement First frames its one-year residency explicitly as a pathway to lead teacher.

The program pages we read publish their rules, not placement or retention figures.

What happens after your own fellowship depends on the program, the school and the certification rules in your state, so ask each program what its recent fellows went on to do.

Start from the calendar.

Penn GSE says fellowship positions at its partner schools are usually posted between December and February, that applicants apply to the partner schools directly, and that schools send their recommendations to the program in the spring.

Service programs and charter regions set their own dates.

For ACE 34, the cohort starting in summer 2027, Notre Dame lists a fall application deadline of November 3, 2026 and a spring deadline of January 19, 2027, with the M.Ed. summer session beginning May 28, 2027.

KIPP's Northern California region posted its 2027-28 Teacher Residency in East San Jose at a $55,000 stipend for a 12-month year, with a November 6, 2026 application deadline.

Read the money as each program's own published figure for its own year.

Pingree lists an annual fellowship stipend of $40,000 — the school's own rounded figure — with employee health plan eligibility and on-campus housing, and KIPP SoCal advertised a $45,000 residency stipend alongside $23,290 in tuition for its 2025-26 cohort.

Compare programs by their own numbers rather than by an average, because none of these figures describes any employer other than the one that published it.

Where to look: independent schools post fellowships on their own career pages, charter networks and residency programs post by region, and Catholic service programs recruit through their universities.

You can also browse teaching fellow jobs at private and charter schools on SchoolHires.

Hiring rather than applying?

Post a teaching fellow job on SchoolHires.

Career information, not legal or certification advice — confirm program terms, deadlines and certification requirements with each school, each program and your state education agency.