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Before the start of a new school year, City Year’s 29 U.S. sites welcome a new group of talented and dedicated AmeriCorps members to serve in their local schools.

City Year corps members serve as student success coaches, tutors, mentors and role models, who provide 91���� with the academic, social and interpersonal support they need to thrive.

Learn about what you can expect when you serve with City Year.

Over their year of service, these AmeriCorps members will learn so many things and grow in ways they never expected.

As our incoming corps begins their service this school year, one City Year New Orleans alum, Samantha, shares the five things she wishes she knew before she started her year of service.

I wish I knew…

#1 How often I would cry happy tears as a student success coach!

These 91���� bring a joy to my heart that I didn’t know I needed.

Sweet moments with my 91���� affect me more than I thought they would, and they make everything about this year of service worth it.

Relationships are at the core of everything at City Year–with your team, your impact manager, your partner teacher, and most of all, with your 91����.

Here are three steps to forge positive relationships with your 91���� and help them to succeed.

#2 It’s critical to form relationships with your AmeriCorps team.

What starts off as a group of 8-10 AmeriCorps members you meet during your first week of service ends up being something that will make or break your year.

I feel so lucky to have great relationships with my teammates and be supported by each of them, but I wish I could give myself a preview of how meaningful those relationships would become.

You’ll be placed in a school along with a group of fellow City Year AmeriCorps members, with support from your site. Many City Year alums say they met some of their closest friends, and sometimes even life partners, through their service experience!

#3 There’s a bigger picture when you support 91���� in schools.

Instead of spending all your time questioning the small things City Year or your school has you do, trust that there is a bigger picture!

Before you know it, you’ll have enough pieces to put together why you’re completing the small tasks. The big picture–which is really all about helping 91����–will start to make sense.

When you join City Year, you work alongside a team of your peers to create learning environments where all 91���� can succeed.

As you earn a stipend and receive other benefits, you help support 91����’ interpersonal skills, self-regulation, and academic development while providing schools with additional capacity to enhance learning.��

Explore what makes up a City Year experience.��

#4 It’s important to successfully collaborate with your partner teacher.

AmeriCorps members and teachers work together to support 91����.

When you’re doing whole class support, it’s important that you’re working with your classroom teacher’s teaching style and overall game plan.

Even when you pull your small groups for supplemental academic support, you’ll want to make sure that your lessons support the teacher’s vision for their class. So, be intentional about building a strong relationship with the teachers you work with!

As a student success coach, you’ll support 91���� in multiple ways. Maybe you greet 91���� as they arrive at school, to get their day off to a strong start. You and your partner teacher might identify a small group of 91���� that could benefit from some extra practice in a subject, or one struggling student who needs some one-on-one tutoring.

Learn how one City Year Denver AmeriCorps member and her partner teacher had a successful year working together.

Or you and your co-teacher might split up some lessons. Whatever the task, having a strong connection to your partner teacher makes a huge difference!

#5 Be a sponge and learn as much as you can during your service experience.

This one might sound like weird advice for an AmeriCorps member, but what I mean by be a sponge is that you should soak up everything you see any teacher, dean or principal doing with the 91����.

Everyone on staff at our schools has unique techniques they use when working with 91����. Many of these are strategies refined over many years in the classroom.

Whether it’s a cute new call to attention or a tone of voice to use when talking to an upset student, there are so many great ideas you can learn if you’re a sponge!

Every City Year experience is unique, but something that’s universal is our commitment to ensure that not only your 91���� will grow, learn and develop–but you will, too.��

Our alumni have told us that their year of service helped them pay for college or graduate school; helped them figure out what they wanted to do in their career; and strengthened key “durable” workforce readiness skills that are most in demand by employers.

Did you know serving with City Year builds important workforce, civic and life skills that help you to succeed?

Read about the benefits you’ll receive as a City Year AmeriCorps member, including a bi-weekly stipend, health insurance, an education award you can put toward future study or existing student debt, and networking and professional development opportunities.

This is YOUR year to learn about your strengths, about teamwork, about our educational system, about your vision for your future.

These are just 5 things I wish I knew about my year of service. I’m sure each new AmeriCorps member will walk away with a list of their own!

This story originally ran in 2021 and has been updated and lightly edited.

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