City year

How it works

City Year places young adults in partner public schools as student success coaches and related roles. The year is timed to the school, not to 1 January. Training often begins in July or August, before students return. Service then follows the school’s term, with late days and occasional weekends, through the following spring and into early summer.

The school calendar, not the civic fiscal year

Many U.S. cities run a fiscal year that starts on 1 July. That is a budget calendar. City Year’s service year is a school calendar that happens to begin in the same season in many places. Do not treat “the city’s year” and “City Year” as one object. One is how a government books money. The other is how a corps member’s months are scheduled around classrooms.

A full-time student success coach role is built around a 1,700-hour service year, with a weekly load the organization describes as about 40 to 50 hours. Other listed roles use shorter hour totals across the same school year, including a 1,200-hour school-day track. The hour total is the term. The school calendar is the map those hours sit on.

Mid-year starts exist. For the 2026–2027 school year, City Year has listed October 2026, December 2026, and January 2027 as mid-year beginnings. Those members join a year already in motion. They still serve on the school’s remaining calendar. They do not get a private January-to-January year.

Summer: training and team assignment, often called a basic training period of weeks, not a school term. Autumn: the school year is underway; service follows the bell and after-school work. Winter: mid-year arrivals, if any, join existing teams.

Spring into early summer: the school calendar closes; the service term ends with it. If your planner still says January, you are on the civil year. City Year is already counting from the summer the school used.

What the year is not

It is not a four-year degree. It is not a two-week internship. Completing a full-time 1,700-hour term can make a member eligible for a Segal Education Award; the dollar figure is set for that service year by the federal program, not by a blog. Housing, stipend, and insurance are part of the service package and are spelled out in the offer for that site, not in a generic calendar.

Eligibility for a school-year corps is age-bounded and tied to a start date. For 2026–2027, City Year has stated members must be 18 to 25 as of 1 July 2026, with a high-school diploma or GED. That 1 July stamp is a gate on the year, not the first day of class.

A second year is a second school calendar, not a continuation of last June by default. Returning members re-enter a new term with a new start.