Join this summer’s Freedom Schools Literacy Academy by becoming a Servant Leader Apprentice.
Through participation in FSLA, you will be eligible to apply for our Future Teachers of Excellence Fellowship.
Applications for 2025 Summer FSLA are currently closed. Stay tuned for future opportunities!
We are seeking highly-motivated self-starters who are interested in developing professionally as future teachers and receptive to feedback. As an SLA, you will be responsible for leading a classroom of up to 10 scholars.
You will receive professional development, training, cycles of feedback, and individualized coaching, equipping you with black pedagogical understandings and instructional skills. SLAs develop lesson plans aligned to the curriculum, analyze data to drive scholar outcomes, co-lead social action projects with scholars, and support Junior Servant Leaders in their professional development (for in-person FSLA).
Ideal applicants are college-aged individuals committed to racial justice, educational equity and Black excellence in teaching and learning.
Applications for 2025 Summer FSLA are currently closed. Stay tuned for future opportunities!
I learned the importance of leading by example and teaching with justice.
A lot of times the system causes our sisters and brothers to be forlorn and out of pocket, but that’s not their fault. If you give them the tools, they will rise to the challenge. They want to succeed.
I want to be what I had growing up as an educator, so I want to instill that sense of pride and expansive knowledge.
I want to see more Black teachers!
My ultimate vision is to have more Black educators in cities that may not be predominantly Black.
I think it is important for Black youth to pursue a career in the education industry because I see it as an investment for the future of our people.
Working with the Center for Black Educator Development pushed me to expand my views on literacy and inspired me to take a course on literacy when I returned to school.
Overall, being an SLA has increased my passion about the education of Black children and pushes me to do well in my own life in order to contribute to the well-being of my community.
I see Freedom Schools Literacy Academy as an opportunity that is a door that leads to a corridor of more doors.
CENTER NEWS
The 8th Annual National Black Men in Education Convening (#BMEC2025) is coming to Philadelphia this November 20-22.
This year's theme: Power to the Pupil: History, Hip Hop, & the Future of Teaching & Learning
#BMEC2025 will be an electric and transformative event.