APPLICATIONS FOR THIS FELLOWSHIP ARE NOW CLOSED.
The FAO Schwarz Fellows at Reading Partners
New York City, New York
About the Fellowship Positions
Reading Partners will be recruiting two FAO Schwarz Fellows. Their direct service work will be the same while the special project work will be different.
As part of their direct service, both Fellows will serve as tutors, providing one-on-one instruction for 6-8 students in grades K-4 for their direct service work.
The special project for the Community Engagement Fellow will focus on the successful recruitment and engagement of volunteer partnerships.
For their special project, the “Powered by Reading Partners” Fellow will play a key role in partnership management and communications for the “Powered by Reading Partners” program team.
Candidates may apply for one or both of these opportunities.
The Fellowship program provides opportunities for new college graduates interested in social impact careers to be part of organizations that are deeply committed to social justice and equity. Through a combination of direct service and leadership challenges, professional development and mentoring, Fellows gain first-hand experience leading change and learn how effective nonprofits create lasting and measurable progress.
Reading Partners’ mission is to help children become lifelong readers by empowering communities to provide individualized instruction with measurable results.
Direct Service
The FAO Schwarz Fellow will serve as a tutor, providing one-on-one instruction to 6-8 students, providing between 12-15 sessions a week. The Fellow will support real changes in student achievement that are measurable over time.
The Fellows will:
- Be matched with students in grades K-4.
- Provide each student they are matched with with 45 minute sessions twice per week using Reading Partners easy-to-use curriculum.
Special Project
Community Engagement Fellow
One of the two Fellowships is for the role of Community Engagement Fellow.
The Fellow will serve as a valuable member of the community engagement team and play a key role in supporting the successful recruitment and engagement of multi-hour volunteer partnerships. These partnerships provide more than 20 percent of tutoring sessions annually. The Fellow will work in partnership with members of the community engagement and program teams.
The Fellow will:
- Liaise with external multi-hour volunteer program stakeholders, managing all partnership logistics, including recruitment or renewal of partners and ongoing communications.
- Interview, onboard and support the hiring of all multi-hour volunteers.
- Work in partnership with the program team to match multi-hour volunteers with students based on their provided availability and required hours and the tutoring center schedule.
Special Project
"Powered by Reading Partners" Fellow
One of the two Fellowships is for the role of “Powered by Reading Partners” Fellow.
The Fellow will serve as a valuable member of the program team, playing a key role in supporting the “Powered by Reading Partners” program model management in New York City. They will work in partnership with members of the program team to manage all research and communications responsibilities and create and co-facilitate training and coaching sessions.
The Fellow will:
- Be responsible for operational tasks associated with the "Powered by Reading Partners" model, including prospective partnership research and outreach. Other operational tasks include meeting scheduling, note taking during meetings, collateral creation, and ongoing communication through drafting of newsletters.
- Create a scope and sequence of start-up and ongoing training and coaching sessions.
- Work with partners to customize and schedule their individualized training and coaching calendar.
- Co-facilitate training and coaching sessions for formal "Powered by Reading Partners" partners.
LOCATION New York City, New York
WEB readingpartners.org/new-york-city
FOUNDED 1999
STAFF 15 full-time staff, 35 Ameri-Corps members
How to Apply
Applicants must be college seniors at accredited four-year colleges or universities at the time of application and be eligible to work in the United States for the duration of the two-year Fellowship.
The deadline to apply is February 5, 2024, at 9:00 pm ET. Host organizations will select applicants for interviews and make their decisions by the end of April 2024. Fellowships begin in the summer of 2024.
Learn more about Reading Partners by visiting their website
A Closer Look
About Reading Partners
Reading Partners is a national nonprofit organization, founded in 1999, that serves 12 regions across the country. Reading Partners has been a part of the New York educational landscape since 2011, when we first began placing community volunteers in public schools to help kids master basic reading skills. In the 2022-23 school year, Reading Partners New York City (RPNYC) enrolled 1,239 students across 24 reading centers.
Reading Partners provides an innovative, effective, and community-based literacy solution. As a rigorous, nationally recognized Tier 2 reading intervention backed by gold-standard research, Reading Partners helps systematically disadvantaged students develop critical literacy skills through one-on-one literacy tutoring led by trained volunteers. Volunteers follow our research-based curriculum that is based on the science of reading. Student-tutor pairs work for 45 minutes twice per week, using an individualized reading plan alongside ongoing student skill assessments. Our program helps young readers develop mastery of foundational reading skills appropriate for their grade level and helps students improve their rate of literacy-skill development.
Impact
Our Impact
Reading Partners’ overarching goal is to help close the reading achievement gap by producing measurable improvement in reading skills. In the 2022-23 school year:
+ Reading Partners NYC enrolled 1,221 K-4 students at 19 school and community partners.
+ Reading Partners recruited, trained, and deployed 1,041 volunteer tutors.
+ 81% of all Reading Partners students met or exceeded their primary, individualized end-of year literacy growth goal.
+ 84% of all K-2 students developed mastery of grade-appropriate foundational literacy skills, putting them on track to read at or above grade level by the end of 3rd grades.
+ 74% of 3rd and 4th grade students demonstrated growth in reading scores compared to a national group of peer students in the same grade.
In one of the largest studies of its kind with a sample size of more than 1,200 students, gold-standard research conducted by MDRC found that Reading Partners’ program model has a positive impact on three core indicators of literacy proficiency.
The study found Reading Partners:
1) ensures quality-controlled, consistent program implementation and is replicated with high fidelity;
2) delivers high-impact, one-on-one reading instruction using a standardized curriculum that aligns with common core state standards; and
3) acts as a resource multiplier to deliver affordable, high-value resources to schools and students (Tepper-Jacob, Armstrong, and Altuna-Willard, 2015).
Reading Partners tracks students’ reading proficiency by grade level using Renaissance Learning’s STAR Early Literacy (for Kindergarten-second grade) and STAR Reading (for third grade and up) assessments. The results of these reliable and valid assessments provide a rigorous, dynamic, and skill-specific picture of each student’s growth and progress. The STAR assessments are administered at the beginning of the school year, at mid-year, and at year-end.
Policies
NONDISCRIMINATION POLICY
Reading Partners is an Equal Opportunity Employer with a strong commitment to diversity in the workplace.
Compensation
Fellows who start their Fellowship during the summer of 2024 will receive total compensation of approximately $90,000 plus benefits over the two-year Fellowship.
+ $42,000 in year one (includes $2,000 start of Fellowship bonus)
+ $48,000 in year two (includes $3,000 end of Fellowship bonus)
+ Health insurance coverage (100%—approximate value $12,000/year)*
+ Monthly subway pass (approximate value $1,200/year)
+ Professional development & leadership training
* Fellows are responsible for co-pays and expenses not covered by insurance.
Typical Work Schedule
Reading Partners staff utilize a hybrid working schedule.
Typical staff are in our office at 75 Broad Street 3 days a week and work remotely 2 days a week. Given that the Fellows will also report to partner schools for tutoring, the schedule will be determined in partnership with their manager.