Choosing a School for Student Teaching

Here are a few ideas for you to think about as you try to decide which twelve schools to apply to for your 14-week student teaching experience.

  1. Consider the type of environment you’d like: Urban or suburban? Private or parochial? Public or magnet? I will ask you some questions about your own educational experiences and the kinds of things you would like to learn, in order to help you make some of these decisions.
  2. Think about location. Consult a map of Chicago Public Schools on-line.
  3. Remember that you cannot student teach at the high school from which you graduated.
  4. If you have a few school names in mind, look up that school’s webpage at the Chicago Public Schools website and its evaluations at the CPS Office of Research, Evaluation and Accountability.
  5. Contact the schools you have in mind. Explain that you are a UIC teacher education student looking for potential Student Teaching sites. Ask if you can visit one day for an hour. On that day, check in at the main office, get a Visitor’s Pass, and spend some time in the building. It would be ideal if you can contact the Foreign Language Department Chair and get permission to visit a French class. Remember to make your visit as brief and unobtrusive as possible, and remember to thank the person very much for their time.
  6. Sometimes CPS offers guided bus tours of several schools in the district.