Job Description

School One is a private high school in Providence enrolling up to 100 students in a college preparatory program infused with creativity. Our Mission Statement affirms, “At School One, we teach students to think, write, analyze, and create. As a community, we treat each other with care and respect. We appreciate each other’s differences as people and as learners.”

The Academic Support Program currently includes approximately 20 students with identified learning differences. While several students are referred by area public school districts due to RIDE Special Education certification, the great majority are private pay supported by need-based financial aid. During one period in the six-period academic schedule, students receive Academic Support services at one of two levels of individual attention based on demonstrated need.

The Special Education Coordinator is responsible for scheduling these three regular sessions, providing support to the students, collaborating with each student’s other teachers, coordinating communication with the family of each student receiving Academic Support, evaluating the applications of prospective students with diagnosed learning differences, and sharing learning-difference related professional development opportunities with teachers.

The school’s average class size is nine students. Most of our students receive need-based financial aid and are drawn to School One from the Boston suburbs to the Connecticut border.  We have recently welcomed international students from Qatar, Tanzania, Cambodia, India, and Spain. Students receive trimester narrative teacher comments but no grades. Our students are collaborative, creative, and curious; they embrace a welcoming school climate based on personal responsibility, trust, and cooperation.

This position’s responsibilities include:

Advising

• Serve as an advisor for no more than eight students, with two advisee group meetings per week
• Serve as the main communication link between the school and home and between the advisees and/or parents and teachers and administrators
• Run twice-weekly advising periods with advisees, assist them with academic scheduling, and review their narrative teacher comments with them at the end of each trimester, focusing on growth.
• Monitor student attendance, folders, graduation requirements and progress toward them
• Help advisees to formulate post-secondary plans and help them apply to college, art school, or other placements
• Attend and monitor advisee attendance at weekly General Meetings and other school events.

Teaching

• Teach three to four resource classes of roughly three to six students each
• Responsible for arriving in class by the beginning of the period and remaining in class throughout the period and responsible for keeping accurate records of student attendance, tardiness, and work completion
• Liaise with regular education teachers to learn expectations for students and provide supports in the resource classroom to help students meet teachers’ expectations
• Responsible for timely and carefully written evaluations and course descriptions
• Provide timely notice and educationally valuable, period-long activities for classes when absent.

Special Education Coordination

• Coordinate the development and implementation of Individual Education Plans (IEP’s) in accordance with student needs and state regulations
• Ensure that IEP goals are met by communicating relevant information to all teachers and helping them modify classroom materials and pedagogy as appropriate
• Provide consultation to regular education teachers on learning differences
• Supervise teachers’ and advisors’ use of a weekly monitoring process for identified students
• Collaborate with Admissions Coordinator to interview prospective students with identified learning differences, helping to evaluate whether they are likely to succeed at School One
• Collaborate with School One Counselor/Social Worker to coordinate social and emotional supports for identified students
• Ensure special education program complies with RIDE regulations via accurate record keeping, yearly reporting, and coordination of School One’s participation in the RIDE’s monitoring process
• Administer required state exams to identified students and assist with seeking appropriate testing accommodations for identified students via The College Board
• Serve as special education point person with school districts (LEA’s) and other key stakeholders
• Consult once per week during the summer about student applicants with identified learning differences.

Service to the School Community

• Maintain appropriate boundaries and uphold school rules per the Staff Handbook
• Teach physical education or health for 90 minutes per week during two trimesters
• Run one student Committee, 40 minutes per week.
• Occasionally help to organize events that enhance the students’ experience such as performances and exhibitions, dances and proms, R-Days, and trips
• Responsible for attendance at and participation in occasional afterschool events including Parents’ Nights, the Fall Festival, the prom, the Student Art Show, graduation, and a reasonable number of other school events and activities
• Take an active role in continually improving one’s own practice
• Participate in the staff goal-setting and self-evaluation process in a timely and productive way

Other reasonable duties may occasionally be assigned by the Head of School.

The above position may be filled by a RI-certified secondary special education teacher with an interest in pursuing RI Special Education Administrator certification. Professional development funds are available to support at least part of this process. The ideal candidate will already possess RI Special Education Administrator certification.

Compensation: This position comes with full individual health insurance and a 4% retirement match in addition to other benefits. Please be aware that School One salaries tend to be approximately 20% below comparable Rhode Island public school positions. That said, the average length of teacher tenure at School One is over ten years.

To express interest, please send a cover letter and resume to [email protected]

At School One, we believe that our staff should reflect the diverse community of students we serve. We encourage applicants from groups that have historically been underrepresented in the workplace, and we continuously strive to create an inclusive community for all. School One is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, age, sex, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, color, disability or veteran status.

About School One

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