Teacher Middle School Teacher (All Subjects)
Job Description
Intrepid College Prep is a growing network of public “no-excuses” college preparatory charter schools founded to address two interrelated achievement gaps – the academic achievement gap and intergenerational wealth gaps in the communities we serve.
Join our team at our flagship middle school, Opportunity Academy, which educates 420 students in grades 5-8 in the Antioch community. Opportunity Academy offers an extended school day and extended school year coupled with a highly structured and high support model for student achievement. We continue to draw upon the early successes of Opportunity Academy, recently named a 2015 Tennessee Reward School for Progress. Our school model consists of urgency, rigor, and joy for college preparation, financial literacy, and ethical leadership.
We make three commitments to every student – admission to selective colleges, preparedness to engage the world as a financially literate young professional, and the cultivation of positive leadership skills.
The work is demanding – it is a tremendous investment of time, energy and smarts but the return on investment is extraordinarily high.
Teach Middle School Subjects at Opportunity Academy
Opportunity Academy provides a liberal arts education, including the study of Literacy, Math, Science, in a disciplined academic environment. Curriculum in all core subjects is aligned to the TN Core standards. Our instructional vision calls for rich, text-dependent questioning and discussion, explaining the “why” across content areas, and supporting answers with thorough evidence. In order to create rigorous academic discourse geared toward critical thinking and exploring connections and misconceptions, teachers have more than three weeks of summer professional development to strengthen content knowledge and practice lesson delivery in a manner that protects a low ratio of teacher talk to student talk in the classroom. The kind of learning activities in which students will engage can be described as cooperative group investigations, partner collaboration, or individual work (depending on the topic and assignment). All of which are designed to help students understand and explain the key concepts presented in all courses, incorporating reasoning skills, analysis, communication skills and real world applications.
Eligibility Requirements
• Tennessee Certification in the appropriate content area, with track record of data-driven achievement.
Middle School Teacher Duties and Responsibilities
• Implement all aspects of our Literacy and Numeracy curriculum
• Collaborate with leaders and teachers over expanded summer professional development to create rigorous, standards-aligned curriculum including scope and sequence, long-term plan, unit plans.
• Collaborate weekly with leaders and teachers to develop interim, midterm, and final assessments
• Share teaching strategies, visit peer classrooms and analyze academic achievement data on a daily basis to develop best practice pedagogy
• Demonstrated experience or willingness to engage in a community where teaching is public (i.e. engaging in classroom visits, publication and critique of curriculum, observation and feedback cycles).
• Work with our ELL and Reading Specialists to support tremendous academic growth for ELL students and readers.
• Collaborate with Prepster Support Team weekly to develop a plan to meet the needs of all learners
• Serve as an Advisor for 12-15 students, including developing relationships with families, monitoring each student’s academic progress and fulfillment of requirements in the Pre-Collegiate Training program
• Availability to participate in after school and Saturday tutoring programs.
• Availability and willingness to engage in a limited number of evening/weekend student recruitment and parent outreach events
• Have structured planning time (minimum of 100 minutes) built into the school day to plan the highest quality lessons
Successful Middle School teacher candidates possess the following characteristics:
• Intelligent, committed, gritty educators ready for challenge and the dogged pursuit of academic excellence.
• Dedication to educational success for students of color and low-income youth
• Demonstrated evidence of the ability to reflect and articulate the lessons learned from past experience
• Demonstrated evidence of strong content knowledge in middle school content area taught and ability to articulate the importance of literacy in a well-rounded middle school education
• Experience with or demonstrated desire in leading Socratic Seminars and utilizing the Harkness Method
• Demonstrated ability to formulate higher-order, open-ended questions to lead students in scholarly conversation
• Demonstrated ability to articulate the criteria for exemplary student work
• Demonstrated ability to help students overcome conceptual difficulties in a specific content area
• Demonstrated evidence of excellent classroom management skills and ability to cultivate a rigorous classroom climate
• Minimum of two years teaching experience in an urban public school or charter school setting preferred, but not required.
• Highest commitment to improving curriculum and instruction through collaboration, best practices, regular assessment and data analysis
• Effective communication skills with students, parents, and colleagues
• Holds a B.A./B.S. degree with a minimum G.P.A. of 3.0
• Degree in subject area intended to teach (preferred)
• Speaks Spanish or has experience working with bilingual students (preferred)
• Belief in and alignment with Intrepid College Prep’s core beliefs and educational philosophy are nonnegotiable.
The position will begin in July 2017.
Compensation
We offer a generous compensation package. All staff members are equipped with the tools needed to succeed, including a dedicated work space, laptop computer, email, high-speed internet access, and all necessary supplies. Compensation is highly competitive; teachers are eligible to participate in the MNPS Retirement
System.
Commitment to Diversity
Intrepid College Prep is an equal opportunity employer. As an equal opportunity employer, we hire without consideration to race, religion, creed, color, national origin, age, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status or disability.
