Relay Graduate School of Education (San Antonio)

You’ll learn the basics of how to build relationships with students, families and colleagues; you’ll apply proven strategies for establishing a positive and productive classroom culture; you’ll learn teaching strategies specific to the grade levels and subject areas that you teach and you’ll develop skills in lesson planning and assessment design. You will also develop foundational knowledge and skills in data-driven instruction. In most states, you will need to pass certification exams by the time you complete the first year of the program in order to be eligible to begin the second year of the program.

Practice with a focus on the concrete and specific teaching skills that maximize impact in the classroom is a cornerstone of the residency experience. You’ll participate in weekly practice sessions, each lasting 3-4 hours, that complement and support your master’s coursework. You will be released from your teaching responsibilities each week to join Relay faculty and other residents for deliberate practice sessions.

The Relay Teaching Residency provides you with a carefully structured, gradual transition into teaching as your skills and effectiveness increase during your first year as a teacher-in-residence. As the school year progresses, you will teach more often and take on more responsibilities in the classroom. By late spring, you should be ready to teach at least one period a day and demonstrate overall readiness for lead teaching the following year. If you show early promise, your partner school may accelerate the transition to lead teaching during the first year.

The Resident Advisor is an experienced teacher at your campus who mentors and supports you during the first year of the program. The Resident Advisor is meant to provide a window into teaching, and into the curriculum and culture of your partner school. In this role, the Resident Advisor fulfills several responsibilities to assist your development, including modeling and co-teaching, curriculum and lesson-planning, and communication with Relay.

When you are employed as a fully-licensed lead teacher, you’ll broaden your knowledge by focusing on unit planning and incorporating literacy across content areas. You will learn specific techniques to build rigorous and joyful classrooms — including principles for culturally responsive teaching that will enable you to create a supportive environment for students of all backgrounds.  Additionally, you will prepare for the Master's Defense, a capstone project in which you will analyze student performance and character growth and reflect on your own development as a teacher.

Over the course of the two-year program, you will learn how to understand and intentionally respond to differences among the learners in your classroom. You will also develop skills to identify and implement accommodations that align with individual students’ needs. In particular, you will learn how to use Universal Design for Learning to accommodate learner variability during whole-group instruction.

Relay offers a Special Education Certification program for teachers who would like to further build their skills to support students with exceptional needs after completing the M.A.T. program. Learn more about Special Education Certification.

Relay seeks Residents who exemplify their core values: working with urgency to serve students, understanding that this work requires grit, taking personal responsibility for their students’ success, doing this work with respect, showing a genuine curiosity to learn others’ perspectives, and knowing that without teamwork, we'll never succeed. Relay is committed to ensuring that programs are affordable for teachers, especially those teaching in high-needs public schools. The cost to residents for the two-year master’s degree and certification Relay Teaching Residency program (after AmeriCorps Segal awards and Relay institutional aid) is $6,500. Payment plans are available for all students, and Relay also offers federal student loans. Relay is particularly interested in applicants who graduated from schools in the San Antonio area and who want to teach at their alma mater or at other local schools. 

Applicants for Relay Teaching Residency must meet the following requirements:

• Hold a bachelor's degree from an accredited institution of higher education
• Have a cumulative undergraduate grade point average of 2.75 or higher on a 4.0 scale
• Able to successfully pass a background check
• Be a United States citizen or have authorization to work in the United States
• Will need to be able to pass appropriate state tests (e.g. TexEs, Praxis).

Relay believes practice is the most promising pathway to excellent teaching. Practice with a focus on the concrete and specific teaching skills that maximize impact in the classroom is a cornerstone of the Residency experience. Residents participate in weekly practice sessions to develop and refine their teaching skills. The Relay Teaching Residency also provides residents with a carefully structured, gradual on-ramp to teaching as their skills and effectiveness increase during the first year. As they develop their skills and the school year progresses, Residents teach more often and take on more responsibilities in the classroom. By late spring of their first year in the program, Residents should be ready to teach at least one period a day and demonstrate overall readiness for full-time teaching the following year.

Relay is committed to expanding educational access for all students. As a student at Relay, you will learn how to effectively teach learners from a broad range of cultural, linguistic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Since Relay primarily serves public school students from historically underserved communities, it places a strong emphasis on building a staff, faculty and graduate student body that reflects the lived experiences and backgrounds of those students. The organization works to recruit, develop, support and retain individuals from a wide variety of cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.

In their first year, teaching residents immerse themselves in their schools, working directly with students under the close supervision of a mentor teacher, called a Resident Advisor. Relay has each partner school provide each Resident with a Resident Advisor on campus. The Resident Advisor is an experienced teacher at the Resident’s campus who mentors and supports the Resident during the first year of the program. The Resident Advisor is meant to provide a window into teaching, and into the curriculum and culture of the partner school. In this role, the Resident Advisor fulfills several responsibilities to assist Residents’ development, including modeling and co-teaching, curriculum and lesson-planning and communication with Relay.

Relay’s program model emphasizes frequent practice, coupled with feedback from peers and professors. All applicants must demonstrate a willingness to learn, strong receptivity to feedback, and a commitment to continual improvement. Relay is committed to using real-time experiences, practice and feedback to become the place where a new generation of continuously improving, results-focused individuals can fulfill their destiny in the world’s greatest profession.