The Rising Fellows Program is a pipeline to the BES Fellowship. It is specifically designed to prepare a select cohort of leaders for the BES Fellowship and school founding in the future. Rising Fellows will benefit from insights that can only be gained while working at a gap-closing charter school, developing no excuses leadership, and visiting excellent schools. Consequently, Rising Fellows will be uniquely prepared to excel in the selection process for the BES Fellowship.

Rising Fellows will develop no excuses leadership through training led by BES staff and other national experts on teacher feedback and coaching, decision-making, difficult conversations, teacher and staff hiring, developing leader voice, planning and assessment, finance, operations, community and board building. They will apply the training in the day-to-day work of an operating charter school.

Achievement Prep (Washington, DC)
Boston Preparatory Charter Public School (Boston, MA)
Columbus Collegiate Academy (Columbus, OH)
Democracy Preparatory Public Schools (Harlem, NY)
Freedom Preparatory Academy (Memphis, TN)
Phoenix Collegiate Academy (Phoenix, AZ)
South Bronx Classical Charter School (New York, NY)

Rising Fellows as a cohort will visit and analyze 5-10 additional urban charter schools across the country. The visits will link together trainings and work at the school.

Outstanding candidates are driven to found a charter school; are entrepreneurial, high capacity, highly flexible and urgent; and demonstrate a commitment to urban education. Candidates who are a fit for the Rising Fellows Program will benefit from an additional year of training and development around leadership in a no-excuses charter school or may have limited first-hand knowledge of strong charter schools.

Rising Fellows want to found their own schools. They are dramatically more prepared to enter the BES Fellowship after the year of work and training.

Applications are reviewed on a rolling and urgent basis and follow the same deadline schedule as the Fellowship. Candidates for the BES Fellowship and Rising Fellows Program are encouraged to apply immediately.

Once the Application is complete, selected candidates will participate in a series of phone interviews and in-person interview. Successful applicants will be offered entry to the BES Fellowship or Rising Fellows Program at the conclusion of the selection process. We expect that future cohorts of the BES Fellowship will comprise both school founders who are accepted directly into the BES Fellowship and alumni of the Rising Fellows Program.

Those offered entry to the Rising Fellows Program will meet with leaders from BES schools about customized positions on staff.

Answers can be found in the FAQ under Rising Fellows Program or by contacting the BES Talent Team.