K-5 Special Education Coordinator

K-5 Special Education Coordinator

Philadelphia Performing Arts: A String Theory Charter School seeks a K-5 Special Education Coordinator to join the teaching team at our East and West campuses (South Broad Street). At our East and West campuses, students in grades K-5 engage in a unique educational environment designed to grow the next generation of creative leaders, and where students experience high-quality enrichment classes in the arts and sciences alongside a creative, technology-infused, standards-based academic curriculum. Our faculty are caring, passionate, professional educators that believe every student has specific intelligences that must be nurtured and that all students should have an equal opportunity to achieve their own innate potential.

Join our team and work alongside educators in a school that values collaboration and innovation! We know the importance of cultivating a supportive work culture, and educators are encouraged to share ideas and experiences in the field. Our teachers are given 90 minutes each week to meet as teams and have access to the latest Apple technology and resources to compliment lesson plans, presentations, and more. Our Special Education team provides a supportive environment for creating methods to lead students towards academic and functional success. Candidates with past experience at private and parochial schools will be given credit for those years of teaching as we welcome all qualified, passionate educators to apply to our open positions today!

Responsibilities of Special Education Coordinator include but are not limited to:

• Ensure all students, including students with IEPs, make high and achievable academic progress each year, with regular and systematic monitoring and documentation of progress.

• Lead systematic improvement and expansion of the LEA’s continuum of special education services, including building the knowledge, skills, and mindsets of colleagues and staff

• Serve as “owner” and “facilitator” of all aspects of the special education and 504 processes (i.e. overseeing the writing and implementing rigorous, standards-driven IEPs, including "SMART" goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound), managing legal documents and files related to students’ IEPs and 504 plans, ensuring all services are in compliance with mandates, coordinating annual IEP review process and initial IEPs, collaborating with and leading team of related service providers at the school, etc.)

• Manage a strong, professional relationship with the school district, agencies, IU

• Participate in the Response to Intervention (RTI) process (i.e. determining which scholars need intervention, assigning them to specific interventions, tracking progress within interventions, etc.)

• Manage the “Child Find” process for incoming students with IEPs

• Manage the initial referral process, simultaneously identifying students with potential disabilities

• Build and maintain strong family partnerships, including but not limited to explaining the special education process, regular communication with parents regarding their student's progress and/or documentation of attempts to communicate with parents.

• Collect and analyze special education data trends and proactively problem solve ways to better serve all students

• Collect and analyze current data from all other relevant records keepers including, but not limited to, discipline records and attendance records, to determine the existence of any need for intervention, support and/or reevaluation.

• Ensure complete and comprehensive collection of records and data for consideration by the IEP team and/or the school psychologist, such as records from the prior LEA and/or outside medical or mental health service providers.

• As may be appropriate, even proactively, facilitate consideration of a Positive Behavior Support Plan, or an updated plan, developed upon a Functional Behavior Assessment for which a Permission to Evaluate has been secured, as well as oversee creation of a well-written behavior plan that addresses a student's current behaviors in the present school year, or which may arise later in the school year.

• Design and deliver high impact professional development for special education team and all teachers

• Coordinate IEP program services and ensure all teachers know their special education responsibilities

• Partner with other school leaders to coordinate testing accommodations

• Oversee all related services.

Benefits:

• Access to consistent coaching in instruction and technology integration

• Access to best-in-class technology resources and a physical framework designed with innovative learning in mind

• Excellent health benefits (for both you and your family), retirement benefits, and more!

   

Please visit our website at www.stringtheoryschools.org/join-our-team to learn about the application process. Send all required materials to employment@stringtheoryschools.org.