Principal or Vice Principal Assistant Principal of Humanities
Job Description
The Assistant Principal of Humanities is an experienced teacher and leader with at least five years teaching experience and three years of leadership experience. This position supports MESA’s Humanities Department and is a school-level administrative position.
- Are you a passionate, and talented teacher and leader?
- Do you love working in urban schools?
- Are you looking for a high school culture that strikes the perfect balance of structure and freedom, where academic rigor drives all other aspects of school life, and where positive reinforcement for hard work and effort is the norm?
- Do you constantly strive to improve your craft through coaching, incorporation of data, and whatever other resources you can find?
- Do you thrive in the company of equally committed, driven, and gifted teachers and professionals?
MESA Charter High School might be the right place for you!
Math, Engineering, and Science Academy (MESA) Charter High School is a new high school in Bushwick, Brooklyn. On August 19, 2013, we opened our doors, and we now have 460 students in grades 9-12. Our students come from more than forty different middle schools, including public, parochial, and charter schools. Some are advanced students coming from magnet schools; others are beginning English Language Learners. What they all have in common is a desire to succeed. MESA students come to school every day, ready to work—we have a 95% attendance rate and a 96% punctuality rate, both significantly higher than other high schools in our district! When it comes to regents pass rates, MESA outperforms our peers by a rate of 30-40%!
Some key aspects of MESA’s design are:
- Smart teaching—MESA uses a standards-based grading system, which makes data understandable and accessible. This enables teachers to create targeted, focused instruction, and helps students understand and track their own progres MESA teachers love data (or at least aren’t afraid of it!).
- Smart support—MESA teachers have a minimum of rote administrative duties in order to better focus on planning, instruction, and assessment. Teachers receive ongoing coaching and feedback. MESA is committed to collaboratively developing and growing its teachers. Dedicated time for professional development and collaborative planning is built into the calendar.
- Smart scheduling—MESA’s school day starts and ends later than most DOE schools, as research indicates that a late start helps high-school students succeed.
- Smart culture—MESA provides students with a separate effort grade each week, which will lead to rewards for students. MESA also emphasizes positive reinforcement for student effort and performance. All MESA teachers lead an Advisory, and serve as Advisor to 10-13 students.
- Smart relationships—MESA believes that all parents want their children to succeed, and enlists them as partners through phone calls, workshops, and frequent contact. More than 85% of MESA parents attended parent-teacher conferences, a number generally unheard of in unscreened urban high schools
- Smart calendar—MESA’s calendar has187 days of instruction, as well as dedicated PD and grading days. MESA’s calendar and earlier start allow for “Intersession,” during which students receive enrichment, skill remediation, or Regents preparation.
Job Responsibilities
- Teach one section of ELA, Writing Seminar, or Social Studies. The class may be taught individually or collaboratively with another teacher.
- Provide curricular oversight of the humanities department. This includes systems and quality control of lesson plan submissions, scopes and sequences, strategic Regents supports, and analysis of benchmark data.
- Support teachers and maintain a consistent “pulse” on teacher performance across the humanities department in all three domains of the MESA Teaching and Learning Framework.
- Collaborate with principal to guide staff-wide professional development and faculty supports.
- Provide direct coaching and support to humanities department leaders to highlight long-term literacy growth goals for students, as well as short-term instructional adjustments in the classroom.
- Guide the humanities departments to establish a vertical alignment and interdisciplinary vision for skills and competency goals for students over the four-year course sequence at MESA. This includes conversations about developmentally appropriate scaffolds and literacy supports for each grade as well teacher actions to bridge skills to the next grade level.
- Design and maintain a sustainable means of assessing student reading levels and an effective means of boosting reading levels and literacy skills for students in all grade levels. This includes establishing clear, quantitative, and measurable goals for teachers and both long-term and short-term goals for literacy.
- Lead professional development and support teachers through Common Core ELA shifts by leveraging department meeting time and individual check-ins with teachers and department leaders. This includes guiding teachers with integrating literacy into the curriculum.
- Build relationships with all students. MESA teachers believe that rapport is key to student engagement and motivation.
- Collaborate with principal to manage all aspects of Summer Institute, setting up teacher supports, and building staff morale.
- Take a lead on or play a major supporting role in all school-wide administrative initiatives at MESA. These may include but are not limited to: Summer Institute, Summer VISTA, student office hours, after school conferences, student and staff recruitment initiatives, staff wide PD and PD days, school-wide or external facing events, and any other administrative responsibilities as assigned by the principal or executive director.
- Strategize and create support plans for struggling teachers utilizing the MESA Teaching and Learning Framework.
- Utilize teacher and student performance data to support academically at- risk students. This will include coordinating aspects of advisory conferences.
- Coordinate positive and productive partnerships between co-teachers and guide teachers with effective planning time. This may also include off site check-ins with teachers.
- Create a positive academic culture within the school. This includes academic awards and celebration, positive student check-ins, and positive family communication.
- Conduct and coordinate all diagnostic, interim benchmarks, mock Regents, and Regents testing. This includes quality control and Regents-alignment analysis and working closely with humanities department leaders.
- Analyze all testing data to guide humanities teachers with instructional decisions and adjustments.
- Communicate regularly with parents about both positive and negative interactions with students, making a minimum of two positive contacts (phone, email, or text message) with parents per week.
Qualifications: (1) Minimum bachelor’s degree in subject area to be taught, master’s degree preferred; (2) Minimum of five years teaching experience and three years leadership experience in an urban public high school or charter school setting; (3) Proven track-record of high achievement in the classroom and commitment to accountability; (4) Belief in and alignment with MESA’s core beliefs and educational philosophy; (5) Valid New York State Certification strongly preferred; (6) Spanish-speaker a plus.
Salary: Highly competitive, commensurate with experience.
