For 35 years, DREAM has empowered communities through education and building pathways where opportunity was limited. Today, as schools nationwide face a severe teacher shortage, DREAM’s Teaching Fellowship extends that mission by growing educators from within the communities DREAM serves.
The fellowship puts DREAM’s founding belief into action: our communities already hold the talent, commitment, and leadership needed to transform young people’s lives. Through a selective, yearlong program, DREAM prepares Legends (DREAM alumni) and current or former part-time staff to become full-time teachers at DREAM. Fellows spend the year learning on the job in DREAM classrooms while receiving coaching, mentorship, and professional development designed to help them build the skills and confidence to lead their own classrooms. The model is intentionally hands-on, giving aspiring teachers both practical experience and consistent support as they step into the profession.
And it’s working. Since its founding, 100% of those who have successfully completed the fellowship are still teaching with us. Here are two of their stories.
Jenia comes home
Jenia Reyes, a DREAM alum, didn’t set out to be a teacher. After college came years of searching — working as an assistant advisor and later at COVID testing sites. “I was really trying to figure out what was next for me,” she says.
Then Ana Rader, DREAM’s Director of Seasonal and Fellowship Recruitment, reached out to DREAM alumni and invited them to come back and teach the students who now sat where they once had. “DREAM had such a big impact on me when I was growing up,” she says. “It helped me imagine a bigger future for myself.
So the opportunity to come back and give that same kind of support to kids in my community felt really meaningful.”
The fellowship year stretched her. “You have to get uncomfortable to get comfortable,” she says. “There was a lot of, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing.’”
But over time, she began to see the difference she could make. One of the clearest examples was Cherie, a brilliant fifth-grader who was guarded with most teachers, but not with Jenia. She sought Jenia out to process difficult emotions, working through conflicts, and tackling the academic challenges she wouldn’t bring to anyone else. “That was the first time I thought, I am making a difference.”
Years later, as Cherie prepares to move on to high school, she still calls Jenia her best friend. Jenia thinks this is because when an alumna like herself returns to teach in their own community, they can build trust with students in ways that are grounded in shared experience and deep understanding. Today, Jenia is in her fourth year at DREAM, teaching third-grade, and proving that DREAM’s investment in its own community pays dividends for generations.
Shenice finds her place
Shenice Mobley always knew she wanted to teach. She first worked at DREAM in 2022 as a summer youth worker, assisting with sports and academics and building relationships with young people and families. Then she went on to attend Colgate, where she enrolled in a five-year program and worked as a substitute teacher.
During this time, she received a number of emails from DREAM about the Teaching Fellowship opportunity. But she wasn’t sure the fellowship was the right fit for her, assuming she was already 
on the path she needed. But as she explored her options, DREAM began to stand out. Not just for the opportunity itself, but for what she saw in the people: a team that seemed to genuinely value who she was, not just what she could do in a classroom.
After presenting her model lesson to DREAM during her interview, Shenice braced herself. Having spent years navigating predominantly white academic and professional spaces, she was used to second-guessing how she came across. “Before the panel of DREAM leaders spoke, I was wondering, ‘Was I too loud?’”
DREAM leaders’ feedback was on a specific teaching practice for Shenice to work on — not her presence or how she carried herself. Just a tactical, specific thing to work on. “That’s when I realized I was making a great choice,” she said. “They saw me for who I am.”
That affirmation shapes the way Shenice teaches, knowing that both students and adults show up in different ways. In her sixth-grade math classroom, she pays close attention to the students who go quiet. One sixth-grader in her class barely spoke for months. Shenice kept showing up for her anyway: re-explaining material, calling on her gently, making it safe to not know the answer. That student is now in seventh grade and still comes back to Shenice to say thank you.
Jenia and Shenice show the value of the Teaching Fellowship: it meets aspiring educators where they are and gives them the support to thrive in the classroom.
This year, the DREAM teaching fellowship has expanded its model so that those in pursuit of a bachelor’s degree can apply. Applications for SY 2027-28 will open in January 2027. If you have questions or are interested, email Ana Rader, DREAM’s Director of Seasonal and Fellowship Recruitment.
Learn more:
Growing Teachers from Within: The DREAM Teaching Fellowship
More Great Seats 4 Kids”: A SUNY Charter Schools Institute Podcast
