Associate's Degree: T.E.A.C.H. Requirements for Teachers, Assistants and Home-Care Providers


To apply for a T.E.A.C.H. scholarship, you must:

• Be sponsored by a licensed child-care center or be the licensed operator of a home child-care business.

• Be working in a center or operating a family child-care home for at least 30 hours per week.

• Earn less than $20 an hour.

• Be enrolled in the Early Childhood Education/Child Development degree program at the Community College of Rhode Island.

The children you serve must be age birth to five (preschool). You must agree to work for your current employer or keep your child-care home open for one year after the completion of a contract. Within each annual contract period you must complete a minimum of nine and no more than 15 credits of coursework.

If you have already earned an associate’s or bachelor’s degree in something other than early childhood education (ECE), you can apply for a T.E.A.C.H. associate's model scholarship to enroll in ECE coursework at CCRI for general purposes or to pursue Pre-K-Grade 2 teacher certification, but you will not be required to earn a degree..

We’re currently accepting applications for the summer and fall semesters at CCRI.

There are two scholarship models for center-based educators pursuing an associate's degree (AT-1 and AT-2). They differ only in whether your sponsoring center chooses to acknowledge your education with a bonus or a raise. Under the AT-1 model, centers agree to a 1.5 percent raise over and beyond what the participant would normally receive. Under the AT-2 model, centers agree to pay the participant a bonus of $200. (In both models, the participant receives an additional $600 bonus from T.E.A.C.H.)

You can click here to preview an application for center-based teachers/assistants. (Right click, then click "save link as." See explanation below.*) Applications for home-care providers will be posted soon. Before completing the application, be sure to contact Maura Pearce at mpearce@provplan.org or call her at (401) 490-9960 to make sure you’re eligible and to learn more about the program. Center-based educators must be sponsored by their center.

Click below to see details on costs for sponsoring centers and home-based programs. Those pages also explain the costs that scholarship recipients can expect.

Associate's Degree: Costs for Center-based Teachers/Assistants and Sponsoring Centers

Associate's Degree: Costs for Home-Care Providers/Businesses

The Associate's Degree Model: A Handout Detailing Requirements, Costs and T.E.A.C.H. Benefits

Contact Information

*To ensure that the formatting of the application form stays intact, please download it by doing a "right click" with the mouse, then click "save link as" and save it to your desktop. You can then open the file and print it. It is very important that the formatting of the original document does not change when you print it.

If you are unable to print an application in its original format, please email Venita Parham at vparham@provplan.org to request a hard copy. Be sure to include your full name and address, and specify what application form (bachelor's or associate's) you need. Also note whether you are a home-based provider, center-based teacher, or a director. In the subject line, please write "Request for application."