Jobs & Internships

Inquiry Facilitator - AI2

The Boston Plan for Excellence (BPE) is the city’s local education foundation, a private non-profit whose mission is to improve the learning of students in the Boston Public Schools (BPS).  It tests new ideas that hold promise for accelerating improvements in schools and works with the district to examine policies and practices to ensure their effectiveness. BPE’s goal is to improve outcomes for every student, particularly those with the greatest challenges. BPE focuses on building and sustaining teacher and leadership effectiveness and creating school conditions that lead to higher student achievement. We collaborate with BPS so that successful efforts can be replicated district wide.


Accelerating Improvement through Inquiry (AI2) is a structured process for schools to use data-driven inquiry to systematically accelerate student learning and support the BPS' Acceleration Agenda. Its goal is to help more students get on-track to learn, be promoted, and graduate. It has particular focus on BPS's eight student performance targets.

 

Inquiry Facilitators, in conjunction with Leadership Coaches, work with teams of teachers in schools to establish structures, processes, and habits of mind that support school-wide data use and a culture of inquiry. They help teacher leaders learn to facilitate cycles of data-driven inquiry with their content-area colleagues. Inquiry Facilitators coordinate and collaborate with Leadership Coaches to ensure that their guidance to principals strengthens teacher leaders, content teams, and the Instructional Leadership Team (ILT) and helps it in turn use data and results from content teams' inquiry to inform the work of their school.
 

Responsibilities

Inquiry Facilitators primarily work with designated teacher-leaders to build their capacity to conduct and lead inquiry in their content-area/grade-level teams and in their own classrooms. They must also work with the leadership coach, the principal, ILT, and others at each school to do the following:

  • Monitor each school's progress towards specific district performance targets
  • Help to establish and sustain the enabling conditions for inquiry: adequate common planning time, data-driven decision-making, norms of shared responsibility, two-way communication between content/grade teams and ILT, coherent use of professional development time, and aligned supervision
  • With BPS and BPE support, and with other inquiry facilitators and leadership coaches, co-construct program curriculum and co-instruct monthly cross-school seminars and annual "intensives" in addition to providing regular on-site support to help individual teacher-leaders, teams, and ILTs enact key assignments and tasks
  • Provide, with the support of a program associate, communication and coordination support to the AI2 initiative

 

Qualifications

  • Masters’ degree
  • At least five years' teaching experience in an urban school
  • Instructional- or change-coaching experience
  • Knowledge of curriculum and assessment, effective instructional practices, quantitative and qualitative data analysis, and action-research methods
  • Ability to communicate effectively and respectfully with principals, teachers, district staff, and colleagues
  • Ability to facilitate adult learning, make classroom observations, listen, question, act upon teachable moments, model a learning stance, and push from alongside
  • Ability to write clearly, succinctly and accurately
  • Excellent organizational, analytical, time-management, and presentation skills
  • Willingness and desire to work as a member of a team and be accountable for results

 

Preferred

  • Experience teaching students with disabilities or those in bilingual education or sheltered English immersion settings
  • Familiarity with BPS reform efforts
  • Prior experience as a school administrator
  • Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, Powerpoint)
  • Orientation toward results, systems thinking, job-embedded learning, collaborative, creative problem solving

 

This job description is intended to be general and will evolve over time. The description is subject to periodic updating. At management's discretion, the employee may be assigned different or additional duties from time to time.

 

Reports to:   Chief Program Officer

 

To Apply

If you are interested in this position, please email a resume and thoughtful cover letter, outling how your skills and experience meet the qualifications to jobs@bpe.org. Please send documents as Word or PDF files. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.


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Induction Coach (Special Education), Boston Teacher Residency

The Boston Teacher Residency (BTR) is the district-based teacher preparation program that places teaching preparation in the classrooms rather than in the academy. These aspiring teachers, called teacher residents, spend a full school year working with a mentor teacher in a BPS classroom four days per week.  Residents participate in a specialized curriculum tailored to BPS’s reform agenda on Fridays, after school, and in summer sessions before and after the school year.  They earn a Massachusetts Initial Teacher License in their primary academic content area, partial credit toward dual licensure in special education and/or English as a Second Language (ESL), and a master’s degree in education from UMASS/Boston. BTR continues to support its graduates for three more years, helping them develop from novice-teacher to teacher-leader with a goal of building a critical mass of like-minded, effective teachers equipped to bolster school and district improvement efforts.

The success of BTR is measured by the staying power and quality of its graduates, and ultimately, by their ability to support BPS students achieve high academic standards. A critical goal of the program is to retain quality teachers for the district. BTR has established a comprehensive and differentiated early career teacher induction program which is scaffolded for its first -, second -, and third-year graduates. In order to provide this high level of scaffolding and differentiated support, BTR seeks to recruit, hire, and train outstanding induction coaches to support program goals.

The induction coach will have primary responsibility for the induction of early career BTR teachers. Responsibilities include:

•    Communicate regularly with principals and/or headmasters to coordinate school-based induction efforts
•    Establish and maintain trusting, confidential, non-evaluative, and professional relationships with early career BTR teachers and school staff
•    Promote professional learning communities in BTR placement schools and identify school-based linkages (e.g., school-based mentoring support)
•    Develop the skills of early career teachers through use of instructional, collaborative, and facilitative coaching methods
•    Provide professional development opportunities to advance the teaching practice of early career teachers
•    Participate in professional development (i.e., New Teacher Center academies, BTR induction forums, and retreats), which focus on skills and strategies that support teacher development
•    Participate in quarterly forums which focus on graduate development and support, as well as seamless program alignment
•    Maintain up-to-date files on early career BTR teachers and submit documentation of work with teachers to program director
•    Actively contribute to the support of overall program goals by building personal leadership capacity and assuming leadership responsibilities
•    Conduct other activities as determined by the BTR induction director

 

Required Qualifications
•    Masters degree in education or related field
•    Minimum 3-5 years teaching experience in an urban K-12 district
•    Mentoring and/or  experience with supervision
•    Willingness to co-facilitate and/or lead professional development sessions
•    Ability to work effectively in a collaborative team environment
•    Excellent oral and written communication skills

Preferred Qualifications
•    Experience working with English Language Learners
•    Experience working with students with disabilities
•    Experience leading professional development sessions
•    Passion for social justice and educational equity
•    Sense of humor, a plus

Reports to: BTR Induction Director

To Apply
Please send resume and cover letter to jobs@bpe.org or you may mail your information at the address below.

Lynne Godfrey, Induction Director
Boston Teacher Residency
Boston Plan for Excellence
6 Beacon Street, Suite 615
Boston, MA 02108

For more information about BTR, please go to: www.bostonteacherresidency.org

 

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Induction Coach (Math/Science), Boston Teacher Residency

The Boston Teacher Residency (BTR) is the district-based teacher preparation program that places teaching preparation in the classrooms rather than in the academy. These aspiring teachers, called teacher residents, spend a full school year working with a mentor teacher in a BPS classroom four days per week.  Residents participate in a specialized curriculum tailored to BPS’s reform agenda on Fridays, after school, and in summer sessions before and after the school year.  They earn a Massachusetts Initial Teacher License in their primary academic content area, partial credit toward dual licensure in special education and/or English as a Second Language (ESL), and a master’s degree in education from UMASS/Boston. BTR continues to support its graduates for three more years, helping them develop from novice-teacher to teacher-leader with a goal of building a critical mass of like-minded, effective teachers equipped to bolster school and district improvement efforts.

The success of BTR is measured by the staying power and quality of its graduates, and ultimately, by their ability to support BPS students achieve high academic standards. A critical goal of the program is to retain quality teachers for the district. BTR has established a comprehensive and differentiated early career teacher induction program which is scaffolded for its first -, second -, and third-year graduates. In order to provide this high level of scaffolding and differentiated support, BTR seeks to recruit, hire, and train outstanding Induction Coaches to support program goals.

The induction coach will have primary responsibility for the induction of early career BTR teachers. Responsibilities include:
•    Communicate regularly with principals and/or headmasters to coordinate school-based induction efforts
•    Establish and maintain trusting, confidential, non-evaluative, and professional relationships with early career BTR teachers and school staff
•    Promote professional learning communities in BTR placement schools and identify school-based linkages (e.g., school-based mentoring support)
•    Develop the skills of early career teachers through use of instructional, collaborative, and facilitative coaching methods
•    Provide professional development opportunities to advance the teaching practice of early career teachers
•    Participate in professional development (i.e., New Teacher Center Academies, BTR Induction Forums, and Retreats), which focus on skills and strategies that support teacher development
•    Participate in quarterly forums which focus on graduate development and support, as well as seamless program alignment
•    Maintain up-to-date files on early career BTR teachers and submit documentation of work with teachers to program director
•    Actively contribute to the support of overall program goals by building personal leadership capacity and assuming leadership responsibilities
•    Conduct other activities as determined by the BTR induction director

Required Qualifications
•    Masters degree in education or related field
•    Minimum 3-5 years math/science teaching experience in an urban K-12 district
•    Mentoring and/or  experience with supervision
•    Willingness to co-facilitate and/or lead professional development sessions
•    Ability to work effectively in a collaborative team environment
•    Excellent oral and written communication skills

Preferred Qualifications
•    Experience working with a range of learners and learning styles
•    Experience leading professional development sessions
•    Familiarity with Massachusetts Mathematics and Science Curriculum Framework
•    Experience with analysis and the use of data to inform instruction
•    Passion for social justice and educational equity
•    Sense of humor, a plus

Reports to:    BTR Induction Director

To Apply
Please send resume and cover letter to jobs@bpe.org or you may mail your information at the address below.

Lynne Godfrey, Induction Director
Boston Teacher Residency
Boston Plan for Excellence
6 Beacon Street, Suite 615
Boston, MA 02108

For more information about BTR, please go to: www.bostonteacherresidency.org

Competitive salary and benefits

Boston Plan for Excellence/Boston Teacher Residency

is an equal opportunity employer.
Women and people of color are encouraged to apply