Middle School Instructional Coach *Resume Drop*

Thank you for your interest in joining our Maureen Joy Charter School family!

*Please note: This role will be open to internal candidates only until April 19th, 2024*

We will contact applicants with next steps following that date.

The Opportunity:

The instructional coach is a key player in adult learning. The experience of an instructional coach is one that is colored by differentiated support to teachers through joyful, open, and empowering teacher-leader partnerships, collaborative content-building experiences, and transformational coaching. 

Your work will lead to the development of high skilled teachers, which is defined as individual who:

- Possesses deep content knowledge.

- Thoroughly understands the curriculum they implement.

- Facilitates meaningful and high quality learning experiences with students.

- Continuously deepens practice through analyzing, reflecting upon, and responding to academic and cultural data to enhance learning and classroom culture.

Who You Are:

As an Instructional Coach, you are a member of the Instructional Leadership Team, a tight group of coaches who collaborate to promulgate a standard of instructional excellence across campus.  You work together to establish and maintain a seamless K-8 instructional program that allows students to acquire skills, understandings, and experiences that progressively build toward ambitious outcomes as budding mathematicians, scientists, historians, literaries, and artists.

With teaching and learning so central to your work, you remain a study of your craft.  You continue to learn coaching strategies, deepen your understanding of others, and reflect on your own practice.  You understand what authentic learning looks like, and while you persistently push teachers to create these types of learning experiences with students, you engage in your own continual development, because you endeavor to do the same with them.  In a sense, you are a teacher of teachers, and like a teacher you commit to developing your proficiency with our learning models and frameworks first so that you are ready to support teachers when they are learning and ultimately teaching students.

Minimum Qualifications

• A Bachelor’s Degree or higher from an accredited college or university.
• At least 5 years of teaching experience preferred.
• Preferred demonstration of effective to highly effective instruction as indicated by student results.

The Strongest Candidates Will Have

• Belief. Hold the belief that all young people, regardless of their economic or social demographics, deserve a quality education and can create a fulfilling future whether through college/university, specialized skill, or service.
• Mindset. Hold a growth mindset about adult learners, believing that they can and desire to continuously hone their craft.
• Expertise. Have a strong teaching background with depth of content knowledge in the areas you coach.
• Culture. Demonstrate an ability to develop a positive, achievement-oriented, supportive, and collaborative culture of high expectations that motivates and inspires scholars to learn at college-preparatory levels.
• Social Justice . Desire to be a part of Joy’s social justice mission, integrating anti-racist, student-centered instruction, and working in systemically underserved communities in Durham.
• Relationship-Building. Have strong interpersonal, communication, and relationship-building skills with both young people and adults.

In This Role, You Will Get to

• Foster a culture of instructional excellence in which teachers are committed to their craft: You will model and lead teachers in the continual effort of developing their content knowledge and pedagogical proficiency so that they meet the diverse needs of our student population.
• Carry the instructional vision at a personal level.  You partner directly with teachers as they grapple with concepts and plan instruction.  As a result of your partnership, they learn to make student-focused decisions that reflect our instructional principles and beliefs.
• Partner with a team of highly effective educators.   While coaching often happens in 1:1 settings, much of your experience will include growing through rich discussions, planning, problem-solving, learning, and practice with peers who are passionate about learning and have shown as much in classrooms with students.

Other Essential Responsibilities

• An Instructional Coach’s essential responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

Teacher Development: Preparation

• Facilitate unit and lesson internalization and the individual and team levels to develop teachers’ abilities to engage in intentional long-range planning and deliver effective, outcome aligned lessons.
• Partner with teachers to develop their content knowledge based upon their respective instructional responsibilities such that they achieve strong command of the content in planning and teaching.
• Review lesson plans and materials to provide positive reinforcement and instructive feedback.

Teacher Development: Facilitating Learning

• Conduct regular  informal observations of teachers focusing on various practices (e.g. procedures, engagement strategies, instructional strategies).
• Gather observational data to inform O3s, both trends and bite-sized action steps. Document in Schoolmint.
• Provide live instructional support (model, participation, guidance).
• Identify trends among teachers to inform team/department/school-wide strengths and needs.
• Co-teach and modeling to provide teachers opportunities to observe and reflect up exemplars.
• Arrange opportunities for teachers to observe peers to reflect upon peer models.

Teacher Development: Data Consciousness

• Plan and facilitate data meetings with individuals and teams to inform instructional decisions (strategies for upcoming lessons, re-teaching, spiraling).
• Engage teachers regularly in coaching conversations (O3s) to discuss and plan action steps related to student lesson data, routines and procedures, lesson preparation, and student learning to ensure teachers receive consistent guidance and support.

Growth and Performance: Teacher Observations

• Conduct regular formal observation cycles using TNTP rubric according to provided observation calendar.
• Leverage informal observation data, use observation results to: Evaluate teacher growth and performance, identify individual growth emphases, and set goals.
• Identify broader school trends among teachers.
• Propose and develop individual teacher support plans focused upon specific areas of need as indicated by teachers’ observational and performance data.

Curriculum and Assessments

• Partner with teachers to develop and manage scope and sequences throughout the school year.
• Continuously deepen own knowledge of curriculum (purpose, standards, etc) to support teachers in maintaining fidelity.
• Collaborate with the Elementary/Middle School Director to design assessment strategy and corresponding calendar.
• Design and/or modify assessments so that they are aligned with the curriculum and the assessment calendar.
• Create and manage data structures that support gathering, organizing, and analyzing student assessment data (weekly, unit, and benchmark).
• Provide guidelines and support to teachers for grading assignments and assessments (timelines, rubrics/criteria/exemplars, feedback on grading).

Formal Professional Development Sessions

• Partner with the Elementary/Middle School Director and members of the Instructional Leadership Team to plan and facilitate professional development (Staff Orientation, school calendar) aimed at:
• Advancing school goals
• Deepening content knowledge
• Progressing toward department performance outcomes
• Ascending through school and department-level phases of the year
• Responding to instructional needs as evinced by observational and evaluation data

Instructional Leadership

• Partner with coaches and teachers to cultivate alignment between teachers and grade levels with the content vision and pedagogical approach.
• Partner with the larger coaching team to drive instructional development and outcomes by:
• Conducting co-observations
• Participating in  K-8 ILT Meetings
• Participating in content meetings
• Analyzing instructional data trends (walkthroughs, observations, actions steps, evaluations, etc) to make instructional decisions.

Grade Level Partnership

• Attend grade level team meetings as a partner in initiatives, planning, and problem-solving.
• Partner with Team Leads and Elementary/Middle School Director to develop Student Orientation
• Support and participate in grade level and school-level events.
• Support grade levels by modeling and participating in key culturally impactful times of day (e.g. major transitions, lunch, recess, homeroom, etc).
• Support grade level culture by modeling and reinforcing guidance and expectations related to school culture building systems.

Disclaimer: