Design Your Own Summer Professional Development Program

With a Fellow grant from the Fund for Teachers (FFT), PreK—12 educators with three years of classroom experience who work at eligible schools can custom design a summer experience that enriches their professional lives and helps them impact students on a daily basis.

Grant Fellows have completed a wide variety of self-designed learning experiences—from exploring active volcanoes in Hawaii to studying the effect of chemicals on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico; from a hands-on study of Beluga whales to a trek across Laos to learn about Hmong culture; from studying Islam through Morocco’s political, social, and economic development to sharpening Spanish skills in Guatemala. While all of the experiences are different, Fellows return to the classroom with a renewed passion for teaching and use their experiences to inspire students.

Grants fund up to $5,000 in expenses for individual teachers and $7,500 for teams of two or more. But here is the catch: due to limitations in funding and administrative partners, the grants are not available in all areas, or in all districts. For example, in California, all San Francisco Unified Schools are eligible, as are all public and private schools in the city of Los Angeles; whereas in Pennsylvania, one lone charter school in Philadelphia is eligible. To find out if you work in an eligible school or district, visit the Web site at www.fundforteachers.org.

The deadline for submitting the online application is January 16, 2007. All applicants will be notified by March 30, 2007.