Over a multi-year process, Fellows hone their school’s vision, develop their leadership skills, and train to found and lead an equitable, high-performing school that reflects and responds to the needs of their community. For more than two decades, the BES Fellowship has supported leaders who want to transform education in their communities. BES Fellows have built, grown, and sustained more than 185 high-performing schools across the U.S. to date.
The 2023 BES Fellowship application is now open! Last year, we announced three major shifts to our Fellowship and our selection process, aimed at creating an equitable, inclusive, and uplifting experience for Fellows as BES journeys toward becoming an anti-racist organization. We thank those of you who have provided feedback that has allowed us to reflect and grow.
NEW SCHOOL MODELS
Over the last two years, BES has embraced and began to train to new school models that are equitable, anti-racist, and locally responsive spaces. We’ve revised our beliefs about excellent schools and leaders, and redefined student outcomes to include multiple measures of student success.
We’re also supporting leaders who choose school models that place community input and student needs at the center of everything they do.
We’ve developed three distinct Fellowship tracks to serve more schools and more leaders in ways that are even more responsive to community need:
Build Track – the “traditional” Fellowship track focused on founding fresh-start public charter schools
Growth Track – Fellows found and lead the replication or expansion of an existing charter school
Autonomous School Track – Fellows found and lead a high-quality, autonomous in-district school
NEW INTERVIEW PROCESS
We have redefined our Fellowship competencies to include a stronger focus on community and diversity, equity, and inclusion, and have revamped our application and interview questions to reflect those shifts. We’ve created opportunities for deeper engagement with applicants via additional virtual interviews and a new virtual group case study aimed at providing candidates with more opportunities to articulate their vision for a school. Finally, we’re using a larger and more diverse group of interviewers to better reflect varying perspectives and mitigate bias.
WHAT TO DO NEXT
Whether you’re new to the BES Fellowship or have connected with us before, we encourage you to connect with a recruiter to hear more about changes to the BES Fellowship and selection process before you apply.
Fellowship applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. We urge serious candidates to submit an application today.