BES Fellowship: At a Glance
Training & School Design: (1-2 years)
Fellows take part in one of two tracks:
BUILD TRACK
Fellows spend one year designing a school model in response to community needs and grounded in learnings from excellent schools. Character and Equity Fellows, available in Arizona only, engage in additional opportunities to inform how character and equity will be core to the school model.
COMMUNITY CO-DESIGN TRACK
Community Co-Design Fellows spend two years co-designing a school alongside a community co-design team.
Fellows participate in 300+ training hours (450+ for Community Co-Design Fellowship), study 20+ exemplar schools nationwide, complete a minimum of two residencies at excellent and equitable schools, write and submit their charter application, and build a founding board. Over the course of the training and school design phase, Fellows, with the support of BES, commit to raising startup funds for the school. These funds are used, upon authorization to support the launch of the school, including paying the salary of the school founder and other staff.
In many regions, BES collaborates with local education champion organizations to support Fellows to design and found new schools.
Follow On Support | Planning and Implementation: (3 years)
Once approved, BES provides leaders with Follow On Support during the planning year and through year two of operations to ensure that schools start strong and stay strong. Participants receive 80-100 hours of customized support per year, including coaching in the areas of school leadership, governance, finance, and facilities; site visits to the school; artifact review; access to resources; virtual training; and an in-person session that includes training, peer-to-peer consultancies, school visits, and community building.
While Follow On Support is a paid program, for alumni of the BES Fellowship, BES subsidizes the cost of Follow On Support and works to make sure the program is accessible to all alumni.