[2024 - 2025] KIPP Durham Middle Master Exceptional Children Teacher ($25,000 salary boost, certification required)

Organizational Overview

Teaching is the absolute hardest profession in the world. Full stop. No contest. Next question. 

Turnaround teaching is a whole other level of hard. The reality of too many of our country’s schools—especially those serving low-income and other marginalized communities coming out of a global health crisis and with a century of systemic under-investment—is that the academic achievement of their students doesn’t match their students' brilliance, and their student culture does not create an environment where each and every student is seen, valued, and loved.  

KIPP Durham Middle School on the east side of Durham, North Carolina, has been one such school. Every 6-8-Grade student in our classrooms today is brilliant, but our efforts over the past decade have not successfully harnessed that collective brainpower to get exceptional results on North Carolina’s state middle school exams in reading, math, and science, the benchmarks that ensure they are on track towards being academically prepared to lead the choice-filled lives they envision for themselves.

KIPP North Carolina, in partnership with the leaders and national resources of the KIPP Foundation, is seeking to change that reality. 

For the 2024-25 school year (and for the next two school years after that), we are assembling a dream team of 18 exceptional professionals—master teachers, instructional leaders, operational leaders, special education experts, and other supporters of learning—who are eager to “re-found” our Durham middle school to create a dynamic and engaging middle school learning environment that maximizes our 160 students’ limitless potentials. 

The Exceptional Children (EC) Lead Teacher we are looking to join the KIPP Durham Middle School team will be a master educator who has a track record of affecting rapid, dramatic student learning improvements for their students. While we founded the school in 2015, we are treating 2024-25 as a re-founding school year, an endeavor that requires a staff with a founder’s mentality around doing what it takes, making it happen, sweating the small stuff, and creating a reimagined reality for our students.

CRUCIAL COMPETENCIES

Our one “re-founding” EC Lead Teacher will blow the following four crucial competencies* out of the water:

Driving for Results : Our EC Lead Teacher will have a strong desire to achieve outstanding student learning results and the task-oriented actions required for success. Our EC Lead Teacher will set high goals for themselves and their students, making persistent, well-planned efforts to achieve these goals despite barriers and resistance; holding others accountable for doing their part to achieve results; and putting in all the extra effort necessary to ensure success. 

Influencing for Results : Our EC Lead Teacher will motivate others—students, staff colleagues, and families—and influence their thinking and behavior to obtain outstanding student learning results. Our EC Lead Teacher will understand that they cannot accomplish change alone, but instead must influence the work of others. They will use a variety of influencing moves—inspiring students, nurturing ridiculously joyful AND rigorous classroom and schoolwide cultures, grasping and responding to unspoken student needs and motivations, and simultaneously supporting and prodding colleagues to collaborate on the path to schoolwide success—as the situation requires. The relationships they will form are for the purpose of influencing others to enhance student learning, not just for the purpose of personal bonding. 

Problem-Solving : Our EC Lead Teacher will be LASER FOCUSED on planning, organizing, and delivering high quality, differentiated instruction, AND they will continually analyze data to determine student learning needs and next steps for intervention blocks during the day, on select weekend academies, and during summers (while running summer academies during select weeks and participating in summer teacher professional development sessions during other select weeks).

Personal Effectiveness : Our EC Lead Teacher will exhibit flexibility and optimism when faced with stressful, uncomfortable, and unfamiliar situations; maintain confidence in themselves and a willingness to keep improving despite the many challenges of their role; actively embrace the constant changes needed to ensure student learning in high-challenge situations; and hold and maintain a strong belief in the human potential for learning and improvement, despite significant societal pressures to settle for less. Our teachers will see themselves as not just a classroom teacher, but a SCHOOLWIDE teacher oriented around solutions and being proactive in their engagements. 

ESSENTIAL DUTIES

Preparing and Delivering Instruction

• Teach pull-out, push-in, small group, and one-on-one instruction and implement strategies to differentiate instruction for all learners in your classroom
• Modify, differentiate, and teach an inclusive curriculum to students in their care 
• Collaborate with families and regional EC colleagues to develop 504 and Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) that offer appropriate accommodations and modifications
• Create an inclusive and safe environment where students feel empowered to become self-guided learners
• Collaborate with general education teachers, school leaders, and families to analyze and respond to trends in student work samples and assessments and ensure compliance with IEPs
• Gather academic growth data and write goals to prepare for annual IEP meetings
• Practice—and then practice some more—lesson delivery to execute curricula at an exceptionally high level
• Use assessment data (i-Ready data, IA data, EOG data, DIBELS data, curricular data, exit tickets, student quizzes and work) to drive instruction, make hard pivots when necessary, and make individualized learning plans for every student in their care
• Set clear, high expectations, and hold students accountable for performance—all of which requires taking personal responsibility and doing everything required to reach challenging goals
• Embrace and incorporate the gift of feedback from wherever it comes—colleagues, principal, assistant principal, regional coaches, students, wherever—in the spirit of Pursuing Excellence, one of KIPP NC core values
• Do all the operational things that support great instruction, like maintaining an accurate and timely gradebook, keeping records, and completing tasks for data tracking systems

Building Positive Classroom and Schoolwide Cultures

• Develop positive relationships with students, families, teachers, and staff through regular positive phone calls to families, routine curbside check-ins with families at arrival and dismissal, and attendance at all school events, including Back-to-School Night, family conferences, report card conferences, and all other school celebrations
• Leverage those relationships to induce behaviors and instructional habits from students that are significantly different from those previously exhibited; pinpoint and tap the needs, wants, and underlying motivations of students
• Participate fully in the daily routines of a school that form the foundation of culture, like arrival/dismissal, advisory/circle time, lunch, hallway transitions, and the 1,000 other moments that make up a day
• Embody, nurture, and build KIPP NC’s core values (Pursuing Excellence, Building Knowledge, Fighting Injustice, Sparking Joy, and Rising Together) and the school’s student and staff cultures
• Assume personal responsibility for student achievement, all the students in the school, and the success of staff colleagues
• Create and maintain a joyful classroom space that exudes love, builds a sense of belonging, and celebrates learning, which includes displaying current student work and grade level/content- appropriate and identity-affirming decorations

Exemplifying a Growth Mindset

• Collaborate with leaders and coaches to identify areas of strength and areas of growth for professional development throughout the year, some of which will be leader-led, and some of which will happen in the quiet after-school moments in classrooms with colleagues in the routine preparation for the next day
• Attend practice clinics to hone and sharpen pedagogical skills and lesson delivery
• Participate in Teacher Work Days, Regional Data Days, and Professional Development meetings after school; satiate their hunger to learn and grow as a professional

Taking Care of Yourself 

• Use the many benefits the organization offers employees (health benefits, generous school holidays, etc.) to relieve stress after the workday is done or over school breaks and holidays, as the job of turning a school around is tough—teachers will experience stress and emotional challenges associated with all the essential duties enumerated above, and self-care will be a priority

QUALIFICATIONS

The following are required of the KIPP Durham Middle EC Lead Teacher:

• A deep commitment to the mission of KIPP NC and an unwavering belief in the potential of all our students
• An unwavering commitment to anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and liberation
• A deep commitment to both racial equity and improving the lives of kids from economically marginalized communities
• 3+ years of teaching experience in K-12; experience in teaching in a high performing charter school and/or schools with a high population of students with free and reduced lunch
• Demonstrated success in raising the achievement levels of economically marginalized students
• Must have EC General Curriculum certification or ability to seek reciprocity for Special Education/EC within the first 6 months of being hired in North Carolina  
• A Bachelor’s degree in a relevant content area
• Pass Criminal Background Check
• Fluency in Spanish is preferred

Additional Notes

• Hours are Monday-Friday, 7:30 AM – 5:00 PM (these are work hours for teachers, not school hours for students)
• Some Saturday/weekend commitments will be required for additional tutoring and intervention work with students
• Durham Middle staff will be expected to help run summer academies in the Summers of 2025, 2026, and 2027

Total Benefits

All KIPP Durham Middle teachers will be paid on the KIPP Durham 2024-25 Compensation Model (linked to model) and paid according to their years of relevant experience and educational attainment.

In addition, the KIPP Durham Middle EC Lead Teacher will receive:

• A $25,000 salary boost to recognize their investment in KIPP Durham Middle’s re-founding
• Opportunity to earn supplements for a relevant PhD, additional licensure endorsements, National Board Certification, and teaching in high needs areas (these supplements are in perpetuity and in addition to base salary)
• Health Insurance: State Health Plan with low premiums for individuals and deep discounts for spouses, dependents, and families
• Paid Parental Leave: 8 weeks of 100% paid maternity leave and 4 weeks of 100% paid paternity leave
• Paid Time Off + Sick Leave: 5 days of PTO and 6 sick days every year
• Retirement: An optional 403b with a generous employer match with immediate vesting
• Relocation Assistance: If you need to move 200 miles or more to the Triangle to take this opportunity, KIPP North Carolina will provide you with up to $5,000 to support your moving expenses. This will be determined based on the distance of your move.

Important Note: This incredible opportunity to magnetize a Dream Team staff to Durham Middle starting in the 2024-25 school year is made possible by the national KIPP Foundation. Their commitment to KIPP NC is for three school years (2024-25, 2025-26, and 2026-27). After those three years, we will reassess our approach and resource allocation model. We are asking all successful candidates in this role to commit to the entirety of those three years (with a TBD for 2027-28 and beyond!). 

*We are forever indebted to Public Impact, a North Carolina-based non-profit organization dedicated to an excellent education for all students and excellent careers for all educators through its national Opportunity Culture initiative, for this language and framework.