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📣 Application Now Open

 

Thank you for your interest in the PATH Rising Teacher Internship, the Alliance for Catholic Education's (ACE) summer teaching internship for undergraduate students. Our application for Summer 2026 are now OPEN! We encourage you to begin your application today or reach out to our team with any questions you may have.

Summer 206 Application Timeline

Early Application Deadline: November 3, 2025

Spring Application Deadline: January 20, 2026

PATH Rising Summer: May 25 - July 10, 2026

Program Overview

The PATH Rising Teacher Internship is a summer opportunity for college students who are discerning a vocation in education and service. Interns live in intentional community, grow in faith, and gain hands-on classroom and ministry experience while supporting Catholic schools in the Diocese of Tucson that partner with Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) Teaching Fellows.

PATH Rising Teachers are highly talented undergraduate students of all academic backgrounds who work alongside licensed professional educators as their instructional coaches. PATH Rising Teachers spend two weeks training and preparing prior to the middle and high school students' arrival and two days wrapping up after. For five weeks of programming with the students, each day incorporates core academic class time, electives, skits, small groups, physical activity, and opportunities for prayer. 

As a PATH Rising Teacher, you will: Be exposed to all aspects of work as an educator. Plan and teach of a five-week English, literature, math or science block. Participate in an intensive two-week teacher training and ongoing support of an Instructional Coach. Lead a creative elective based on your interests and the interests of the students. Create a joy-filled summer camp atmosphere. Lead greetings, activities, and skits that build a joyful, curious, and welcoming college-going culture. Chaperone summer field trips to colleges, service projects, and team-building activities.

Program Benefits

  • An opportunity to teach, mentor, and accompany some amazing middle school scholars
  • Over 100 hours of training and professional development
  • Ongoing observation, feedback, assistance, and support from an Instructional Coach
  • A community built on a faith-driven desire to seek educational equity
  • Participation in ACE’s first teaching internship
  • A $3,500 stipend (and housing, if needed)
  • The opportunity to get to know a city and community on a deeper level
  • Leadership roles for events and committees- truly, you’ll be empowered to help shape the program for years to come!

Who We Look For

PATH Rising Teacher '24

Entering is 9th year, PATH seeks Rising Teachers who are current high school seniors through current college juniors who can serve as: 

  • Leaders with passion for their subject area, faith, justice, and community.
  • Change agents looking to be a part of a solution to the injustice in our educational system.
  • Transformational educators (from all academic backgrounds) motivated to serve as faith-filled role models for their students. 
  • Humble learners and community members eager to engage and honor others they encounter. 

A (Very Full) Day in the Life

The early morning sounds of the alarm clock are an immediate reminder that you’ve signed up for more than a summer job… you’ve signed up for a lifestyle. After getting ready quickly and grabbing your costume and materials for an experiment on the way out the door, you’re headed over to the host high school campus to set up your classroom. (For some, that commute may be as short as walking across the campus from our on-site community housing!)

At 7:00a sharp, all Rising Teachers begin the day together in prayer before discussing any updates and reminders for the day. Topics range from changes in the script for the daily "M&M" skit to reminders about opportunities to notice and shout out our kids when they actively live out our root beliefs. Finally, members of the Spirit & Service committee share that we'll be greeting the kids at the bus this morning with a tunnel of joy!

Grateful that you spent time the night before writing ideas on little slips of paper for your "case files", you quickly set up the classroom so that your rising 7th grade PATHfinders will feel like they are in a briefing meeting for an investigation of figurative language usage, making sure that each handout is appropriately marked with numbers for easing grouping during class.

path welcomeThe bus arrives, the children are joyfully welcomed back to campus through a tunnel of their teachers, and all the PATH Team and PATHfinders head to the cafeteria for breakfast and bonding built through discussion prompts such as "Which breakfast item is most like you and why?"

After our high school LITs (Leaders in Training) quickly help clean and move the tables while the PATHfinders reset in the hall, everyone heads back into the cafeteria for the first assembly piece of the day - “Raise the Roof”. You are helping lead assemblies this week, so you cue the song "Count on Me" as the PATHfinders walk back in. Once the impromptu dancing and singing calms down, your colleague explains the rules to "Rock, Paper, Scissors Super Bowl" before the playing and cheering begins. In the end, a showdown between two kids with raucous cheering from classmates wraps the game, and another colleague leads a large group discussion in the value of supporting each other, challenging everyone to focus on that today, because we are better together.

Right after Raise the Roof you jump right into Writing Class with the rising 7th graders.  After a brief warm-up and review of examples of figurative language in the Josiah Queen song "Garden in Manhattan", you introduce the mystery in which the clues are all coded in figurative language. "Our class", you explain to your energetic crew, "has been contracted to help figure out what the actual message is!" After your teaching assistant passes out the graphic organizer, you send the PATHfinders into their groups, and they begin working and debating the clues they've discovered, communally making sense of the figurative language they come across. You and your TA circulate around the room throughout this work time, and class ends in a joyous uproar as the group celebrates their shared solving of the mystery while you and your TA share a knowing smile, recognizing the little moments of growth in making sense of this important literary device. Finally, your TA takes the kids to their next class while you tidy up the files that were used for the activity.

The next period is a planning period, so you and your Instructional Coach (IC) discuss how the lesson activity went. You both dive into what went well and what could be improved for about 20 minutes, and then you open up tomorrow's slideshow to make some tweaks based on you IC’s advice about thoughtful questions to kickstart student thinking.

After the kids have a brief snack break, you take a brief moment to affirm one of the PATHfinders whom you observed being particularly supportive of classmates who took a little longer to grasp the activity during first period.

After your the Writing Rising Teacher introduces the illustrative writing activity she planned for today's class, you play your TA role by gathering with groups of 3 in the back of the classroom for miniature workshops on the stories they've been building, and you beam with pride as a couple of PATHfinders excitedly share that they have worked some figurative language into their writing!

You then lead the class to the science lab for their final class of the morning, and you make sure to celebrate the group for dancing a little to the hallway music during passing time.

Back in the PATH Cave (our faculty room), you find the morning's graphic organizers waiting for you in a pile on your desk, and you take the first half of your planning period to provide written feedback on each paper.

After taking a bit of a productivity pause to talk with your friend about how powerful it is to see how much confidence the kids have gained since the beginning of the summer (and how you're finally figuring out what it takes to get some of the kids who tend to be quieter to participate in class discussion a bit more), you switch gears and head to the theater to make sure all of the props needed for the afternoon's skit are ready to go.

Next is lunch, and it is filled with lively conversations about the adventures of the morning’s classes, broken up from time to time by dance breaks as some of the LITs teach our younger participants our own little line dance for "High Hopes".

You, your LIT teaching assistant, and a mixture of 10 rising 6th - 8th graders gather around the piano for a rousing round of "improv singing" in which each participant is challenged to make up a line on the spot, building comfort and confidence in their voice. Then you all review and practice the song you've been working on for the Summer Farewell Fiesta coming up in a couple of weeks.

Transitioning into Physical Activity Time (PATime), you organize a big game of soccer in the gym, making sure to highlight when a LIT enthusiastically cheers on a rising 6th grader when she gets an assist.

You exit the gym a bit earlier than the other Rising Teachers to head to the theater and provide some last-minute reminders to the other actors of the day.

Then everyone heads to the theater for Make it Meaningful (M&M), where you perform in a skit as a comical character in need of a little support from friends on your path to college.

Quickly changing out of your goofy costume, you hustle to the chapel for the next portion of today's assembly time.

God in All Things is time for prayer, and you sit with a group of rising 8th graders as everyone follows the lead of your colleague who facilitates a reflection on intercessory prayer and the power of praying for each other, culminating in an opportunity to participate in "prayer partners"- a spiritual exercise you get to participate in with one of the kids from the earlier soccer match.

The time in the chapel is punctuated with some shout-outs, and you take the opportunity to publicly acknowledge the rising 7th grader who intentionally chose to encourage classmates earlier in the day, leading the whole group in a "Typewriter" prop!

As the day with the PATHfinders begins to wind down, you sit at a table in the courtyard with your Bring it Back (BnB) group around you. The small group time kicks off with you and your LIT facilitating a small thought exercise, recalling times when you really benefitted from being cheered on by friends, and the middle schoolers follow your lead, sharing what it feels like to know you are supported. The LIT in your group closes by pointing out how important it is to keep that going beyond 8th grade as they get ready for high school. Before you know it, it's time to hustle to the bus!

After waving goodbye to the bus, you head back inside for a committee meeting to continue preparations for the Summer Farewell Fiesta. You share the progress you've made on the invitation and weigh in on the draft of the run of show for the big celebration.

After a few more finishing touches on tomorrow's lesson and sending forward your Farewell Fiesta invitation for final approval, you catch up on the Rising Teacher group text and remember that everyone is gathering for Mass at one of the PATH partner parishes followed by dinner at a local restaurant run by one of our PATH families. 

Somehow, you still have time to go for an evening walk and catch up on the phone with a friend from college. It's fun to listen to your friend's stories from the day, and you can tell that your friend is blown away by the varied, fun, and formative day that you've had. You hang up the phone exhausted yet excited for another full day tomorrow.

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