Citizen Schools North Carolina

Citizen Schools is a leading national education initiative that uniquely mobilizes thousands of adult volunteers to help improve student achievement by teaching skill-building apprenticeships after-school. Our programs blend these real-world learning projects with rigorous academic and leadership development activities, preparing students in the middle grades for success in high school, college, the workforce, and civic life.

Apprenticeships at Citizen Schools give adults the opportunity to take what they do best in their professional careers or personal pursuits and use it to help middle-school students move to a long-term trajectory of success.

Volunteer Citizen Teachers enable young people to learn real-world skills by creating real-world projects. Lawyers turn their apprentices into prosecutors, artists cultivate young muralists, gardeners lead a team of twelve-year-old green thumbs.

"WOW!" is what people usually say when they encounter the results of the apprentices' work. So that is what we call the final product, presentation or performance at the end of each apprenticeship. Every WOW! showcases the students' learning for a public audience of family, school staff, and community leaders. Past WOW!s include a video on lead contamination, a prize-winning solar car, an arts festival, a naval warship design, a CD of local music, even a financial plan for a new business--all created by young people themselves.

The Citizen Teacher experience is richly rewarding--and hassle-free. The whole experience spans 13 weeks and between 30 and 40 hours.

Here is what it includes:

-Extensive training with Citizen Schools staff
-An on-site orientation and Apprenticeship Fair in the first week
-10 afternoons of instruction with apprentices culminating in a WOW!
-A final session for apprentices and Citizen Teachers to reflect on their journey