CommunityShare National Educator Fellowship

REAL-WORLD LEARNING | COMMUNITY | TRANSFORMATION

Are you a PreK-12 educator looking for ways to:

  • Increase student engagement through real-world learning driven by your students’ voices, curiosities, and aspirations
  • Collaborate with your community to create meaningful and impactful projects
  • Elevate student work by giving students opportunities to make a real difference in their community
  • Build relationships and networks of support to strengthen student success and community well-being
  • Find a supportive community of educators looking to grow and reinvigorate their practice
  • Design career-connected learning experiences that develop durable skills and portrait of a graduate competencies

If your answer to any of these questions is YES, this fellowship is for you!

Applications are now open for our Spring Virtual Cohort. The deadline is January 16, 2026.

Apply Now
OUR APPROACH
Join a supportive community of educators re-imagining education

The CommunityShare National Educator Fellowship is a 5-month professional learning journey that equips you to design and lead powerful Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) experiences. Through this fellowship, you’ll learn how to make learning more relevant, connected, and meaningful for your learners by partnering with the strengths and expertise in your local community. Learn more about our Community-Engaged Learning Framework. You’ll gain strategies, tools, and support to ignite student engagement, strengthen community connections, and grow as a local education leader.

Throughout the journey, you’ll experience:
Community-Engaged Learning Deep Dives

In four interactive virtual sessions across two weeks, you will develop an existing or new project or unit into a community-engaged learning experience. Fellows will learn to:

  • Design community-engaged, real-world learning experiences that align with your learning goals and standards, with student and community assets and aspirations
  • Conduct listening campaigns to engage student voices in project planning
  • Identify and map relevant community partners
  • Develop tools for effective communication and co-creation with partners
  • Design opportunities for students to apply academic skills to real-world issues and contribute to their community
Monthly Community of Practice & 1:1 Coaching

You’ll have opportunities to workshop your CEL project, share ideas, solve challenges, and explore topics like co-planning with community partners alongside a group of peers.

And, you’ll gain personalized guidance and support as you design your own CEL projects.

Seed Funding

Opportunity to apply for a mini-grant of up to $750 to bring your project to life.

Celebration of Learning & Professional Learning Credit

Showcase your projects and receive a certificate of completion and 20 hours of professional learning credit.

Apply Now

What our Teacher Fellows Say

  • Know that this is a work in progress and that there are no right or wrong ways to complete tasks in your project. Be bold, be brave and let your kids take the reigns. You will be pleasantly surprised with what they come up with.

    Melissa Calderon

  • Community Share opens the door for both teachers, community partners, and students. It gives teachers the ability to do a project that they wouldn't have been able to do without the community partner. It shows the students what working in the real world looks like. 

    Aimee Katz

  • The Educator Fellowship provides the critical resources and infrastructure to support engaging, relevant, real-world learning. Magic happens when students are able to work with community partners and teachers to solve real-world problems.

    Educator Fellow

  • These meetings are the best meetings that I attend all year long. It feels like a mixture of teacher therapy, an inspiring dose of sharing, and professional development all in one.

    Educator Fellow

  • I am believing in myself as an educator – moving from I can’t do it to seeing the photos of what we’ve done and then saying we did it. I was about to quit my project but became inspired by others in the group.

    Educator Fellow

  • Students learned about careers where they can implement math skills such as ecology and landscape architecture. They learned to collaborate with others and they experienced how community resources can support and enrich their learning.”

    Educator Fellow

  • I’ve been doing community projects throughout my career. But CommunityShare opened up a whole avenue of resources for me. I’ve been doing this for a long time, but I was an island - I was doing it on my own. Now, I’m not doing it on my own. I have a whole community of people that are connected to me.

    Dave Cullison

  • These meetings are the best meetings that I attend all year long. It feels like a mixture of teacher therapy, an inspiring dose of sharing, and professional development all in one.

    Educator Fellow

  • I am believing in myself as an educator – moving from I can’t do it, to seeing the photos of what we’ve done and then saying we did it. I was about to quit my project but became inspired by others in the group.

    Educator Fellow

  • I’ve been doing community projects throughout my career. But CommunityShare opened up a whole avenue of resources for me. I’ve been doing this for a long time, but I was an island - I was doing it on my own. Now, I’m not doing it on my own. I have a whole community of people that are connected to me.

    Dave Cullison

  • My students were very motivated by their CommunityShare project in ways that improved reading and academic achievement. At the start of the school year, 12% of my students were performing above grade level, by the end 94% were performing above grade level.

    Mercedes Pemberton-Negrete

Fellowship Timeline – Spring 2026

January 16, 2026
Application Deadline

January – February
Community-Engaged Learning Deep Dive (4 sessions)

January-May
Ongoing support, collaboration, and 1:1 coaching.

June 10 2026
Exhibition Day!

JOIN US
Are you a PK-12 educator who believes in the power of real-world learning and community?

Requirements
PreK-12 Educator
2+ Years Teaching Experience

Cost: $500
FREE for Educators within a CommunityShare Network*
*See if you’re within a CommunityShare Network

Scholarships are available (cost shouldn’t be a barrier). Contact us for more information.

We have 25 spaces available in our cohort, and applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, so don’t wait to apply! You’ll hear from us within a week of submission.

Apply Now
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

If you don’t see your question answered here, drop us a line and we’ll get back to you as quickly as possible.

Contact Us
Do I have to be an educator in a CommunityShare network in order to participate in the CommunityShare Educator Fellowship?

No! This fellowship is open to all PK-12 educators interested in community-engaged learning. However, CommunityShare educators can participate for FREE and it only takes a few minutes to sign up.

Become a CommunityShare Educator

Should I have a community partner or project idea in mind before the CommunityShare Educator Fellowship begins?

Nope! Ideally, project ideas and community partnerships originate with your students. We will explore how to create the conditions for students and community partners to co-design with you.

What is the time commitment like between the CEL Deep Dive and Presentation of Learning Day?

We often learn the most from each other. Therefore, active contribution to our virtual conversations is essential to this experience for the whole cohort. This may take anywhere from 15 minutes to 1 hour per week, but we promise it’s worth it. Fellows also have access to up to two hours of individual coaching which can be scheduled in four 30-minute sessions, as needed. Plus, you can opt into a monthly virtual check-in with other Fellows. 

Does the CommunityShare Educator Fellowship offer grants to cover the costs of community-engaged learning projects?

We take a systemic approach as it applies to grants and funding. Currently, educator fellows can apply for up to $750 in mini seed grants to bring your project to life. We also support each fellow in identifying relevant and sustainable funding options/sources and writing grants as needed.

What happens during the CEL Deep Dive?
The CEL Deep Dive is a two-week intensive at the start of the Fellowship that builds our community, shared vision, and momentum. To  support and inspire each other in designing community-engaged learning experiences, we will:
  • Utilize storytelling, reflection, and futuring strategies to reveal our aspirations and set personal learning goals.
  • Design and implement listening campaigns to root our instructional design in student curiosities.
  • Learn strategies to expand and diversify potential community partnerships and build student social capital.
  • Develop tools and practices for effectively communicating and co-creating with community partners.
  • Apply a framework of authentic contribution to our performance tasks, enhancing the depth and quality of student learning.
  • Learn strategies and access resources to secure grants for CEL experiences

In Spring 2026, our Deep Dive will take place online over the following dates:

  • Saturday, January 24th: 11:00 AM – 4:00 PM EST
  • Wednesday, January 28th: 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EST
  • Saturday, January 31st: 11:00 AM – 4:00 PM EST
  • Wednesday, February 4th: 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EST