Teacher T3 Coach
Job Description
Overview of Teach Plus
Mission. The mission of Teach Plus is to empower excellent, experienced teachers to take leadership over key policy and practice issues that affect their students’ success.
Programs. Teach Plus programs are designed to place highly effective teachers at the center of improvements in schools as leaders of their peers and outside schools influencing policy decisions that affect their classrooms. The programs develop excellent teachers into leaders who achieve change and mobilize others in their school, district, state, and across the nation to bring change to scale.
Impact. Teach Plus ensures that effective teachers have influence beyond their classrooms as:
- a key voice in legislation in local, district, state, and federal policy
- change agents in transforming student learning across a school
- leaders of other teachers in improving practice
- a grounded perspective in the media and on research
- Position Description
Teach Plus’ T3 Initiative is an innovative program that recruits, develops, and supports effective, experienced teachers to serve as T3 Teacher Leaders in low-performing and turnaround schools. This program was designed by teachers and demonstrates that chronically low-performing schools can be turned around and that excellent teachers are the key lever to do so.
T3 Teacher Leaders work together as teams of high-performing educators with administrators that understand the power of shared leadership. T3 Teacher Leaders, with the support of their principal and T3 Initiative Coach, serve in leadership roles leading teams of their peers in collaborative inquiry or leading school-wide initiatives that help facilitate and support the work of all teachers in the school to significantly increase student achievement.
The T3 Coach position is a critical school-based leadership opportunity for a skilled coach who is looking to support school reform driven by teacher leaders. Teach Plus has identified five attributes that effective teacher leaders use to improve student outcomes across their schools.
The Coach will support Teacher Leaders in developing capacity to be:
- Purpose-driven instructional leaders
- Skillful facilitators of adult learning
- School wide change agents
- Evidence-based decision makers
- Ongoing learners
Specifically, the T3 Philadelphia Coach is responsible for:
Ongoing In-School Support
- Foster High Functioning, High Impact Teacher-Leader led teams.
- Observe and strategically contribute in weekly Teacher Leader-led team meetings and professional development.
- Ensure that the primary work of each team is to improve teaching and learning for all students through use of calendared evidence-based inquiry cycles.
- Ensure that teacher leader initiative work is based in evidence and achieves desired impact on instructional practice and student learning.
- Coach and Develop Teacher Leaders. Plan and facilitate school-based T3 teacher leader cohort meetings. Meet weekly with each Teacher Leader to plan for upcoming team meetings, debrief previous meetings, and engage in leadership coaching and feedback.
- Support School Leadership: Serve as part of school leadership team. Meet regularly with principal and school administration to ensure program fidelity.
Out of School Support
- With support of Teach Plus staff, T3 Coaches collaborate across the Philadelphia T3 network to provide the following out-of-school support for the T3 Teacher Leaders across the district:
- Plan for and deliver portions of the Summer Institute, a multi-day hands-on training for T3 Teacher Leaders across the Philadelphia T3 network.
- Plan for and deliver regional professional development sessions for Teacher Leaders across the T3 network.
Coach Professional Learning
Teach Plus invests heavily in the development of the coaching team, supporting travel to ensure that coaches learn from and with each other in the following ways:
- Comprehensive Leadership Orientation
- Approximately three Coach meetings (travel may be necessary)
- Consistent feedback and support through one-on-one meetings with the Instructional Practice Director and National Coaching Manager
III. Qualifications
To be successful in this role, ideal candidates should have:
- 6+ years in the education field, with preference given to candidates who have both a teaching background and experience coaching teachers and school leaders in an urban environment
- Preference given to leaders who have led instructionally transformational work in the urban context
- Literacy and/or Math Data aexperience
- A relentless focus on data, including analysis and using it to inform instruction and make decisions
- Experience in leadership development and facilitation of inquiry with teachers and/or school leaders
- Start Date and Term
The tentative start date for this position is July 2017. Please note that T3’s expansion to Philadelphia is contingent upon final contract approval and funding. T3 Coaches may be eligible for renewal on an annual basis on July 1, 2018 based on performance and needs of the organization.
