Student Opportunities

At SUNY Oneonta, you’ll prepare for your future as an educator through real-world teaching experience in local school districts. We have well-established, collaborative partnerships with four regional school districts that provide our students with teaching and learning opportunities on-site in local classrooms. These experiences will enable you to learn first-hand how to successfully navigate a rapidly changing educational environment and develop teaching practices that engage all learners.

Three of our partnerships are with rural schools near Oneonta (the Milford, Sidney and Worcester central school districts). Through these partnerships, SUNY Oneonta preservice teachers, as part of their Methods Block courses (taken the semester before student teaching), are placed in elementary school classrooms in these districts, teaching children on-site weekly in collaboration with partnering teachers using a place-based, learn-by-doing, culturally relevant curricular approach to the content.

Our fourth program is a Residency Program in partnership with the Oneonta City School District. Our preservice teachers are invited to apply and, if accepted, spend both their Methods Block and student teaching semester in the school district.

Through partnerships with with the Otsego Northern Catskills Board of Cooperative Educational Services (ONC BOCES) and Delaware-Chenango-Madison-Otsego Board of Cooperative Educational Services (DCMO BOCES), Elementary Education students have the opportunity to substitute teach in the area school districts during the school year. This is a great way to get field experience with children at various ages and grade levels and get paid by the school district. Participating students will need to have their own transportation, or commute with classmates who are also ‘subbing’ in the same school district.

Many Elementary Education majors choose to continue their education at SUNY Oneonta after graduation. Many of the courses in our online Master’s in Literacy Education program, which leads to professional certification for all grades, are taught the same Elementary Education and Reading faculty you’ll get to know as an undergraduate student. SUNY Oneonta also offers master’s and advanced certificate programs in Educational Technology Specialist, School Counselor and Special Education.