Middle School English Teacher

Job Title: Middle School English Teacher

Supervisor: Principal or designee

Start Date: August 14, 2024 - June 30, 2025

Hours: Monday through Friday 8:00am-4:45pm Duration: 11 months

Salary: Is commensurate with the candidate's years of relevant experience

Description: The English Teacher is responsible for planning, organizing and implementing an appropriate instructional program in a learning environment that guides and encourages students to meet and exceed standards for the assigned grade level/courses.

Responsibilities include (but not limited to):

Planning and Preparation for Learning

• Knowledge - Demonstrates subject area expertise and a cutting-edge grasp of child development and how students learn.

• Standards - Develops a well-honed game plan for the year that is tightly aligned with state standards and assessments.

• Units - Plans all expeditions backwards, aligned with high standards, state assessments, and all Bloom’s levels; documents and shares all lessons with supervisor at a minimum of two (2) weeks in advance.

• Assessments - Plans diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments to closely monitor student learning.

• Anticipation - Anticipates students’ misconceptions and confusions and develops multiple strategies to overcome them.

• Lessons - Designs lessons with clear, measurable goals closely aligned with standards and expedition outcomes.

• Engagement - Designs highly relevant lessons that will motivate all students and engage them in active learning

• Materials - Designs lessons that use an effective mix of high-quality, multicultural learning materials and technology.

• Differentiation - Designs lessons that break down complex tasks and address all learning needs, styles, and interests.

• Environment - Artfully uses room arrangement, materials, and displays to maximize student learning of all material, focusing on learning targets and student work.

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Classroom Management

• Expectations - Is direct, specific, consistent, and tenacious in communicating and enforcing high expectations.

• Relationships - Shows warmth, caring, respect, and fairness for all students and builds strong relationships.

• Respect - Wins all students’ respect and creates a climate in which disruption of learning is unthinkable.

• Social-emotional - Implements a program that successfully develops positive interactions and social-emotional skills.

• Routines - Successfully inculcates class routines up front so that students maintain them throughout the year.

• Responsibility - Successfully develops students’ self-discipline, self-confidence, and a sense of responsibility.

• Repertoire - Has a highly effective discipline repertoire and can capture and hold students’ attention any time.

• Efficiency - Skillfully uses coherence, momentum, and transitions so that every minute of the classroom time produces learning.

• Prevention - Is alert, poised, dynamic, and self-assured and nips virtually all discipline problems in the bud.

• Incentives - Gets students to buy into a highly effective system of incentives linked to intrinsic rewards.

Delivery of Instruction

• Expectations - Exudes high expectations and determination and convinces all students that they will master the material.

• Mindset - Actively inculcates a “growth” mindset: take risks, learn from mistakes, through effective effort you can and will achieve at high levels.

• Goals - Shows students exactly what’s expected by posting learning targets, essential questions, rubrics, and exemplars.

• Connections - Hooks all students’ interest and makes connections into prior knowledge, experience, and reading.

• Clarity - Always presents material clearly and explicitly, with well-chosen examples and vivid and appropriate language.

• Repertoire - Orchestrates highly effective strategies, materials, and groupings to involve and motivate all students.

• Engagement - Engages all students in focused work in which they are active learners and problem solvers.

• Differentiation - Successfully reaches all students by skillfully differentiating and scaffolding.

• Nimbleness - Deftly adapts lessons and units to exploit teachable moments and correct misunderstandings.

• Application - Consistently has all students summarize and internalize what they learn and apply it to real-life situations.

Monitoring, Assessment and Follow-Up

• Criteria - Posts and reviews clear criteria for proficient work, including rubrics and exemplars, and all students internalize them.

• Diagnosis - Gives students a well-constructed diagnostic assessment up front, and uses the information to fine-tune instruction.

• On-the-Spot - Continuously uses a variety of effective methods to check for understanding; immediately unscrambles confusion and clarifies.

• Self-Assessment - Sets ambitious goals with students, continually self-assesses, and takes responsibility for improving performance.

• Recognition - Frequently posts students’ work with rubrics and commentary to celebrate progress and motivate direct effort.

• Interims - Works with colleagues to use interim assessment data, fine-tune teaching, re-teach, and help struggling students.

• Tenacity - Relentlessly follows up with struggling students with personal attention (time and support) so they all reach proficiency.

• Support - Makes sure that students who need specialized diagnosis and help receive appropriate services immediately.

• Analysis - Works with colleagues to analyze chart data, draw action conclusions, and leverage student growth.

• Reflection - Constantly reflects on what worked and what didn’t to continuously improve instruction.

Family and Community Outreach

• Respect - Shows great sensitivity and respect for family and community culture, values, and beliefs.

• Belief - Shows each parent/guardian an in-depth knowledge of their child and a strong belief they will meet or exceed standards.

• Expectations - Gives parents/guardians clear, user-friendly learning and behavior expectations and exemplars of proficient work.

• Communication - Makes sure that parents/guardians hear positive news about their children first and immediately flags any problems.

• Involving - Frequently involves parents/guardians in supporting and enriching the curriculum for their children as it unfolds.

• Assignments - Assigns highly-engaging assignments, gets close to 100% return, and provides rich feedback.

• Responsiveness - Deals immediately and successfully with parent/guardian concerns and makes parent/guardian feel welcome at any time.

• Reporting - In conferences, report cards, and informal talks, gives parents/guardians detailed feedback on their children’s progress.

• Outreach - Is successful in contacting and working with all parent/guardians, including those who are hard to reach.

• Resources - Successfully enlists classroom volunteers and extra resources from homes and the community to enrich the curriculum.

Professional Responsibilities

• Attendance & Punctuality - Has perfect or near-perfect attendance and punctuality

• Language - In professional contexts, speaks and writes appropriately, succinctly, and eloquently.

• Reliability - Carries out assignments conscientiously and punctually, keeps meticulous records, and is never late.

• Professionalism - Presents as a consummate professional and always observes appropriate boundaries.

• Judgment - Is invariably ethical, honest, and forthright, uses impeccable judgment, and respects confidentiality.

• Above-and-beyond - Is an important member of teacher teams and committees and frequently attends after-school activities.

• Leadership - Frequently contributes valuable ideas and expertise and instills in others a desire to improve students' results.

• Openness - Actively seeks out feedback and suggestions and uses them to improve performance.

• Collaboration