City Year Blog

City Year corps members gear up for a friendly basketball competition against their teachers at John Liechty Middle School.

Daniel Deiters, corps member,

A major part of having a successful corps year comes through developing a strong relationship with partner teachers. The first few months of the relationship are the most critical. The Sony John Liechty Middle School Team has been hard at work creating the best collaborative working environment possible for our students. Some of the numerous benefits of doing so are:

1. Teacher trusting corps members ability – When a teacher trusts your ability as a tutor, you are able to run more small groups and organize classroom pull outs for the students who seem to be struggling the most with the material.
2. Teacher supporting your cause – City Year isn’t always the coolest thing to some of the students we serve so having a teacher backing up the work you do definitely helps you gain respect in the classroom.
3. Strong teacher collaboration – A strong collaboration between the teacher and corps member creates a more effective learning environment. Through constant communication and support teachers and corps member can provide innovative intervention plans for their students.

Here at John Liechty we have found many ways to reach our teachers and strengthen the bonds we are forming. Some of the ways include:

1. Corps member vs. teacher competitions – We have used sports and friendly competition as one way to strengthen their relationships with their partner teachers. Just recently we competed in the 4^th annual Teacher /City Year basketball game and brought home City Year’s first win. The next game we’re planning on having is a Teacher/City Year Soccer game at the end of February.
2. Monthly Newsletter – Once a month a member on our team types up a team update to be sent out to all the staff at JLMS. The update is complete with information on all the projects our team is working on as well as announcements we may have for the teachers.
3. Teacher Appreciations – We try to have teacher appreciations on big holidays or whenever we feel our teachers need a little morale boost. For these appreciations, we’ll usually all pitch in to put on a stone soup for the teachers and have some sort of interactive activity to get to know our teachers a little better.

If you are joining us next year, incorporate some of these ideas into your service to better your own relationships with your staff and teachers!

To learn more about our service in Los Angeles click here.

To learn more about applying to City Year click here.

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