POSITION OVERVIEW: Lead Teacher, Grades PK-5 (Full Time) - Reiche Elementary, 25-26 SY
Located in the West End, Howard C. Reiche Community School provides a challenging curriculum for its diverse student population, in which over 22 nations are represented and 29 languages are spoken. Reiche is the first teacher-led and teacher-governed school in the state of Maine. Instead of a traditional principal, Lead Teachers, four committees, and a Leadership Team collaborate with parents to ensure our vision and values are reflected in our school community.
The time allocation for this role is split between serving as a Lead Teacher in the building and as a classroom teacher (classroom assignment TBD based on candidate experience and needs in the building). This position also receives a Teacher Leader stipend for extended school-day and work-year responsibilities.
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES:
+ Vision - Develops, advocates, and enacts a shared mission, vision, and core values of high-quality education that promotes the attainment of our achievement, equity and whole student goals for each student and is grounded in the Reiche teacher led model.
+ Diversity, Equity and Belonging Champion - Demonstrates commitment to the PPS vision of equity by internalizing the district’s Diversity, Equity and Belonging priorities and policies.
- Shows courage in leading for equity of educational opportunity and culturally and linguistically responsive practices.
- Models cultural humility and the ability to recognize, respond to, and redress inequities.
+ Culture and Community Builder - Build and cultivate healthy, positive and respectful relationships across the school community; include families and community members to positively impact school goals
- Models ongoing self-awareness, self-reflection, and a mindset of continuous learning and development.
- Promotes a positive and safe learning environment which embraces mutual respect and empowers all members of the learning community.
+ Distributed Leadership and Collaboration - Builds and distributes leadership across the school community by building a diverse, high performing team, growing teacher leadership and shared ownership over the vision for teaching and learning, and delegating responsibilities effectively in order to prioritize instructional leadership.
- Collaborates effectively with other lead teachers as a team.
- Leads with interpersonal and communication skills, social-emotional insight, and understanding of all students’ and staff members’ backgrounds and cultures.
+ Instructional Leader - Develop, articulate, communicate, and employ a shared vision of instructional excellence (based on PPS’ instructional vision) to guide and define decisions and strategic planning.
- Ensure that curriculum, instruction, and assessments are aligned to outcomes that produce high quality grade-level learning, interdisciplinary and critical thinking, and social-emotional learning.
- Build school-based instructional leadership teams and implement professional development and leadership coaching to enhance instructional skills and implementation of best practices.
+ Data-Driven and Goal-Based Instructional Strategist - Ensure that academic decision-making and school-wide improvement goals are driven by the analysis of comprehensive, relevant, accurate, and available data.
- Manage with a goals-based approach, setting ambitious and measurable school- and classroom-level goals that will result in meaningful growth for students that can change the trajectory of their lives.
- Create and maintain a school-wide culture of ongoing accountability checks to gauge progress towards data-driven goals.
- Develop disciplined data gathering, monitoring, analysis and reporting routines to ensure the accessibility and timely integration of data into efforts to drive school improvement and student achievement.
- Track academic outcomes by student sub-groups, with a focus on closing opportunity gaps (i.e., academic, school culture and climate).
+ Talent Manager - Cultivate and engage candidates, and serve as an enthusiastic and effective school ambassador to promote school and attract effective and diverse staff.
- Select, hire, and retain high percentages of strong staff and make tough and timely decisions about exiting poor performers; employ a strategy of differentiated retention to prioritize retention of high-performing staff; ensure alignment with district hiring resources, tools, and guidance.
- Serve as a regular presence in classrooms to monitor and improve instructional effectiveness; share actionable, honest, and ongoing feedback with teachers designed to improve their instructional performance, embodying a coaching mindset.
- Accurately evaluate teacher performance against PPS teacher evaluation tool; communicate feedback that yields actionable change in teacher performance; create and monitor the effectiveness of systems for teacher improvement at the school level, ensuring that evaluations systems are instructive as well as evaluative.
+ Operations Expert - Manages school operations and resources to promote each student’s academic success and emotional and physical well-being and safety.
- Facilitates effectively the transitions in leadership and systems to support the teacher led model.
EDUCATION, TRAINING, AND EXPERIENCE:
- Masters degree from an accredited college or university in education or a closely related field preferred.
- Five years of successful experience working with diverse elementary school students required.
- Other combinations of applicable education, training, and experience which provide the knowledge, abilities, and skills necessary to perform effectively in the position may be considered.
CERTIFICATE AND LICENSE REQUIREMENTS:
- [Required] Maine State fingerprint (CHRC) authorization (more info)
- [Required] Maine State teaching certificate with one of the following endorsements (more info):
- 020 General Elementary (K-6)
- 029 General Elementary (PK-3)
- 020 General Elementary (K-8)
- [Preferred] Maine State 045 Assistant Building Administrator certificate (more info)
SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS: Attendance at evening and weekend student activities, Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) meetings or other community events and functions, as required.
EMPLOYMENT DETAILS:
- School-year position
- Full time, 1.0 FTE
- Permanent
- Not eligible for overtime
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Portland Public Schools is committed to maintaining a work and learning environment free from discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, pregnancy, gender, sexual orientation, marital/civil union status, ancestry, place of birth, age, citizenship status, veteran status, political affiliation or disability, as defined and required by state and federal laws.