AmeriCorps Program

Urban Teachers is an AmeriCorps Professional Corps program. AmeriCorps, a federal agency, brings people together to tackle the country’s most pressing challenges, through national service and volunteering.

Participants are invited to enroll as AmeriCorps members in their second and third years of Urban Teachers (as Year 1 and Year 2 Fellows). As AmeriCorps members, our participants serve their communities and carry out AmeriCorps’ core goals through their teaching.

Upon successful completion of a full-time term of service, members may be endorsed to receive the Segal Education Award, valued around $6,000. AmeriCorps members may also put their qualified student loans into forbearance and access separate funds to pay loan interest accrued during their term(s) of service. AmeriCorps financial benefits are dependent on congressional appropriations and Urban Teachers’ partnership with AmeriCorps. As such, the benefits are not guaranteed year to year.

AmeriCorps Member Requirements

During the AmeriCorps enrollment process, members must review and sign the terms, conditions and rules regarding participation. Please refer to the current AmeriCorps Member Service Agreement accessed through the Participant Portal. 

AmeriCorps Prohibited Activities

While charging time to the AmeriCorps program, accumulating service or training hours, or otherwise performing activities supported by the AmeriCorps program or CNCS, staff and members may not engage in the following activities (see 45 CFR § 2520.65): 

1. Attempting to influence legislation; 
2. Organizing or engaging in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes; 
3. Assisting, promoting, or deterring union organizing; 
4. Impairing existing contracts for services or collective bargaining agreements; 
5. Engaging in partisan political activities, or other activities designed to influence the outcome of an election to any public office; 
6. Participating in, or endorsing, events or activities that are likely to include advocacy for or against political parties, political platforms, political candidates, proposed legislation, or elected officials; 
7. Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization; 
8. Providing a direct benefit to— 
1. A business organized for profit; 
2. A labor union; 
3. A partisan political organization; 
4. A nonprofit organization that fails to comply with the restrictions contained in section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 related to engaging in political activities or substantial amount of lobbying except that nothing in these provisions shall be construed to prevent participants from engaging in advocacy activities undertaken at their own initiative; and 
5. An organization engaged in the religious activities described in paragraph C. 7. above, unless CNCS assistance is not used to support those religious activities; 
9. Conducting a voter registration drive or using CNCS funds to conduct a voter registration drive; 
10. Providing abortion services or referrals for receipt of such services; and 
11. Such other activities as CNCS may prohibit. 

In addition to the above activities, the below activities are additionally prohibited: 

Census Activities. AmeriCorps members and volunteers associated with AmeriCorps grants may not engage in census activities during service hours. Being a census taker during service hours is categorically prohibited. Census-related activities (e.g., promotion of the Census, education about the importance of the Census) do not align with AmeriCorps State and National objectives. What members and volunteers do on their own time is up to them, consistent with program policies about outside employment and activities. 

Election and Polling Activities. AmeriCorps members may not provide services for election or polling locations or in support of such activities.

AmeriCorps members may not engage in the above activities directly or indirectly by recruiting, training, or managing others for the primary purpose of engaging in one of the activities listed above. Individuals may exercise their rights as private citizens and may participate in the activities listed above on their initiative, on non-AmeriCorps time, and using non- CNCS funds. Individuals should not wear the AmeriCorps logo while engaging in any of the above activities on their personal time. 

If you have questions or concerns regarding the AmeriCorps Standards of Conduct or Prohibited Activities, please contact participant.national@urbanteachers.org.

Note: If a Baltimore participant has a complaint related to their AmeriCorps service, they should follow this grievance procedure.