Positions Report to: Director, School Culture & Family Engagement
Start/End Date: 2024 - 2025 School Year
Hours: 8:00 am – 4:30 pm + some out of school time responsibilities
Compensation: $80,000 - $101,342. East Harlem Scholars Academies also offers a comprehensive benefits package.
FLSA Status: Exempt
Who We Are
East Harlem Scholars Academies are community-based Pre-K to 12 public charter schools operated by East Harlem Tutorial Program (EHTP). EHTP began in 1958 as a children's reading group and has since grown into a multi-site after-school program for traditional public school students and a network of public charter schools focused on significantly increasing the college graduation rate in East Harlem. We are on track to serve at least 25% of East Harlem students by 2025, with enrollment for this year at approximately 2200 students in our schools and after school programs. In 2020, 99% of our seniors were accepted to college, and our current scholars in college are on-track to graduate at eight times the national average of their peers.
At EHTP we also aim to serve as an agent of change and thoughtfully contribute to the national fight for racial equity. Through our organization-wide commitment to anti-racism work, we prepare our scholars to effect change, challenge the status quo, and thrive in the world around them. As staff members, we face our own racial identities and conscious and unconscious biases. With this in mind, all of our professional development, curriculum, organizational materials, and processes are designed with a goal of racial justice. Read our racial equity statement here.
We ground all of our work in racial equity, in our core values, and in our four guiding pursuits: the Revolutionary Pursuit of Love, the Radical Pursuit of Knowledge, the Responsive Pursuit of Healing, and in the Relentless Pursuit of Results. These pursuits inform and are reflected in our current four key strategic priorities: to increase high-impact, high-quality academic curriculum, programming content, staff capacity, and coaching; to embrace and advance our use of technology; to deepen our embodiment of ethical and equitable radical humanity; and to efficiently operationalize teaching, learning, community, and care.
For more information about Scholars Academies, please visit us at www.eastharlemscholars.org.
About The Opportunity
We believe that a strong school culture is born through positive and consistent behavior management that fosters student success and engages family members as full educational partners in our work. As a member of the Culture Team, the Lower School Dean of Students will play a critical role in the success of East Harlem Scholars Academy High School by supporting the implementation and refinement of policies and programs that promote positive student behavior. As a Dean of Students with Scholars Academies you will be student facing the majority of the day. You will work closely with the culture team to internalize, and in some cases, develop a cohesive, positive school culture; track and measure student progress; and engage in reflection and continuous improvement. As a team we will work together to prepare students with the skills, strength of character, and emotional well-being to excel academically, lead in their communities, and realize their best possible selves.
What You Will Accomplish
Student Behavior
- Develop, update, and maintain systems and policies for behavior management strategies and school-wide procedures (i.e. transitions, bathroom usage, etc.)
- Implement existing behavior management systems and create meaningful incentives to reward good behavior and effective logical consequences to support positive behavior development
- Analyze school-wide trends in attendance, behavior, class transitions, and communicate these trends to staff and lead initiatives to address challenges
- Work with teachers to create individualized plans for scholars with behavioral challenges; partner with teachers to provide extra interventions
School Culture & Family Engagement
- Encourage supportive classroom communities
- Collaborate with the Director of School Culture, Upper School Dean of Students, teachers, and culture associates to provide long-term support to scholars with significant behavioral and emotional needs
- Collaborate with administrators, specialists and other colleagues in designing, reviewing, and executing lessons, including participating in collaborative planning and teaching, as appropriate, peer review of standards-aligned learning experience
- Support the school-wide behavior system by serving as first responder to immediate behavior management concerns
- Lead efforts for a successful return to class for students who have been temporarily removed due to behavior concerns, following established protocol
- Provide support and training to teachers and school leaders in appropriate behavior methodologies and effective crisis management strategies
- Support documentation of relevant information and collection of data regarding student behavior, as needed
- Build relationships with students who need behavioral support, checking in with students daily
- Build relationships with families and serve as point person for behavior updates and behavior intervention plans
- Manage logistics and operations for staff members who are taking part in out of office duties
A Breakdown of the Role
- Morning arrival, lunch duty, hallway duty, and dismissal
- Conducting classroom observations
- Humbly accept and implement feedback
- Daily caregiver outreach logged into Dean's List, our HS data tracking system
- Uplift and use the Student/Staff Handbook
- Maintain accurate records for suspensions, reflections, and caregiver meetings
- Decrease tardy and absentee data
- Plan school events and weekly school joy
- Own planning for advisory programming
- Creating and facilitating Professional Development
- Coaching stakeholders: students, caregivers, and staff
- Hosting community meetings and events
- Hosting community workshops
- Conducting caregiver meetings
- Conducting suspension meetings
- Investigating breaches in our school community
- Data tracking
- Collaboration across school departments
- Planning school trips, wellness days, and filed days
- Submit weekly and monthly reports to the Leadership Team
- Reports to the Director of School Culture & Family Engagement
What Qualifies You
- You hold yourself to high professional and ethical standards
- You enjoy and/or have experience working with diverse populations of students and communities
- You believe that every student can and will learn when provided with a quality education
- You have demonstrated success in raising the achievement levels of students who historically have not had equitable access to education opportunities
- You are willing to be flexible in your role and adapt to school and student needs
- You are committed to continuous improvement and learning through professional development
- You have a minimum of three years of experience in relevant educational positions
- You have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and appropriate NYS certifications (preferred)
Please note that many do not meet 100% of the desired qualifications. If much of this describes you, we encourage you to still apply.
Areas of Leadership
- Embodiment and effective modeling of our core values for students to exhibit and practice them
- Sets ambitious goals based on backwards planning, demonstrating locus of control, and aligned with an overall vision for student success, content to be learned, personal knowledge of students, and overall instructional context
- Demonstrates deep knowledge of content and effective pedagogy, evidenced by clear and objective-driven instruction and meaningful student engagement through active learning practices
- Sets clear expectations and institutes routines so as to establish and maintains a purposeful, supportive, and fun environment for learning, in which students feel safe, valued, and respected by adults and their peers
- Builds a classroom community where restorative practices are actively modeled and used to navigate student and community challenges
- Serves as Advisor to 10-15 students, motivating students across academic skill levels and cultivating students’ social-emotional awareness and well-being
- Demonstrates a Team First mindset, through proactive contributions to the community, and advances his/her practice through reflection, development opportunities, participation in the professional community, and actively engaging families and community members
Thank you for taking the time to submit an application.
