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Middle School Dean of Students (Lodestar 6-8) (2018-2019)

Employer
Lighthouse Community Charter School
Location
Oakland, CA, United States
Salary
Competitive

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Job Category
Administrator, Principal
Grade Level
Middle School

Middle School Dean of Students (Lodestar 6-8) (2018-2019)

Lodestar: A Lighthouse Community Public School

THE ORGANIZATION:

Social justice movements come in all shapes and sizes. Here at Lighthouse Community Public Schools, we are engaged in an educational movement that goes beyond our classrooms working to disrupt educational inequities by providing our students and families exceptional educational opportunities every day. Grounded in our core values of community, integrity, agency, love, and social justice rooted in EL Education Model , LCPS is a leader in fostering innovative schools achieving exceptional student outcomes where each child is at the center of their own learning. Our mission is to prepare diverse students for college, a career of their choice, and to be lifelong changemakers.

Founded in 2002, LCPS operates a high-achieving K-12 public charter school, and our K-8 sister site, Lodestar, that opened in Fall 2016; serving nearly 1,000 students in East Oakland. Lighthouse is a beacon for public education and our graduates fulfill the promise of a better, brighter Oakland. 95% of our graduates, almost all of whom are first-generation college students, are accepted into four-year colleges. We were named the Hart Vision Charter School of the Year in 2013, and the #1 high school for closing achievement for low-income Latino students in 2016. If the work we do here at LCPS appeals to your values regarding quality education for all then please join our movement! Learn more at www.lighthousecharter.org

About Lodestar-A New Way of Doing School

Lodestar is an innovative, new school that opened in East Oakland in Fall 2016. Lodestar staff and families are excited by the possibility of transforming the traditional model of education to be student-centered and experiential. Our teaching pedagogy is built around:

  • Design principles of agency and belonging
  • Students belonging to an educational community that provides personalized learning
  • Project-based learning expeditions using Making/Arts/Design
  • "Just right" instruction in math and literacy.

This model allows our teachers to specialize in delivering either project-based interdisciplinary learning or small-group, multi-age math or literacy instruction. We opened our doors in 2016 with K-2 and 6 grades and have been growing since. In Fall of 2019, we will open the high school with our first class of 9th graders rising from 8th grade, adding grades until we have our first class of graduates in Spring of 2023. Take a look at our work and watch our lab in action here !



THE OPPORTUNITY:

The Middle School Dean of Students at Lodestar- A Lighthouse Community Charter School enthusiastically serves as an architect and voice of student and school culture for our K-8 community. The Dean of Students is charged with creatively bringing our design principles of agency and belonging to life resulting in a community where students lead their own learning, are makers, work together and take care of each other. Using mostly preventive strategies, the Dean of Students will develop a student body who:

  • are upstanders for their community and interrupt harmful behaviors.
  • find solutions to their problems and realize that their actions result in restorative and logical responses.
  • repair harm between all parties involved in a hurtful incident; for the good of all parties and the school community.

The Middle School Dean of Students will also serve as a collaborative thought partner for teachers and staff to develop strategies to support community development, classroom management, and individualized responses to student needs.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES

The Middle School Dean of Students' primary charge is to foster the school-wide conditions for students to successfully build positive relationships and develop agency in managing their own behavior. To this end, the Dean of Students will:

Collaboratively Design and Implement a Responsive and Restorative Behavior Management System

  • Using principles of Responsive Classroom , Developmental Designs, and Restorative Justice , collaborate with the Leadership Team to design a responsive behavior system that clearly articulates the school-wide systems and supports students will use to build positive relationships and manage their own behavior.
  • Support teachers in the implementation of the school-wide behavior system by leading professional development workshops, conducting informal observations, and providing coaching on responsive and restorative practices.
  • When appropriate, provide direct preventive behavioral and relationship-based supports to cohorts of students or individual students who demonstrate the need.


Restoratively Manage Student Referrals
  • Effectively respond to student referrals with a restorative and responsive lens as well as appropriate behavior modification strategies; elevate critical behavior issues to the Principal/Assistant Principal.
  • Manage a system to collect, input, and analyze student behavior referrals; track student attendance data, and identify areas of concern.
  • Using individual student behavior referral data and knowledge of the whole child identify behavioral trends to share with the student's teaching team.
  • Using analysis of behavior referral data, identify potential revisions to improve behavior systems and additional necessary supports for teachers in implementing the system.
  • Observe target students or student sub-groups in the classroom in order to collaborate effectively with teachers to develop effective supports and behavior plans.



Collaboratively Design and Implement Individual Student Behavior and Social-Emotional Supports
  • Serve as a member of the COST team to share analysis of student behavior data, identify potential supports, and draft behavior plan in collaboration with the student's teacher and leadership team.
  • Collaborate with teachers to implement individual behavior plans; in some cases, serve as a direct behavioral support to students with a behavior plan, 504 plan, or IEP.
  • Support teachers with the tracking of student behavioral and relationship-based growth during the implementation of the behavior plan.


Collaboratively Build and Celebrate Positive School Culture

  • Collaborate with teachers and administrators to design and implement key whole-school activities to build and celebrate school culture, such as weekly community meetings, annual community-building trips, etc.

  • Support bridging and onboarding activities for new students and families during the summer before the start of the school year (for K-2 families and 6th grade students).

  • Develop student leadership pathways, student voice in community meetings, and opportunities for students to use their agency to build culture and community at Lodestar.

  • Identify ways to visually celebrate student achievement of character targets.

  • Lead a daily Crew of middle school students conducting student-led conferences on a quarterly basis for students in Crew.



Provide Additional Support for Families
  • Attend and participate in evening family meetings on a monthly/bi-monthly basis.

  • Collaborate with Family Liaison Staff to support teachers during home visits at the start of the school year and on-going.

  • Provide targeted pre-emptive support for families of students who are at risk (e.g. previously retained, acute stress or trauma, identified COST students)


Supervision of Lunch/Recess Staff
  • Hire, develop, supervise and evaluate a team of supervision staff members (recess or lunch) including at minimum monthly one-on-one check-ins and quarterly review sessions to set and evaluate progress towards goals.
  • Provide professional development for supervision staff including weekly team meetings and PD sessions during PDI weeks.


Other responsibilities as assigned by supervisor.

Core Competencies

We are looking for founders who exhibit competencies in our 5 tenets and the Lodestar agency mindset:

High Expectations for All

  • Asset-Based & Equity-Focused Urban Educator: Believes and demonstrates that every student can learn and commits to holding high expectations and an assets-based mindset even when students make mistakes.
  • Models Growth Mindset: Holds a growth-mindset for self, colleagues, and students demonstrated by self-reflection and the belief that everyone is a lifelong learner.


Deep Learning
  • Restorative Learning: Supports students to have agency to find solutions to mistakes and fix harm. Harm and mistakes done to the community are seen as learning opportunities to repair relationships for the good of all involved and the community.
  • Data Analyst: Transparently uses and analyzes student data to support students and identify school-wide patterns.


Serving the Whole Person & Engaging Families
  • Community Builder: Ensures a safe learning community that promotes a sense of belonging by building deep relationships, using restorative and responsive practices, addressing the whole person, embracing diversity and communicating effectively with students, families, colleagues, and community.
  • Community Member: Takes a humble and assets-based approach to working with and becoming a part of our community.


Professional Learning Community
  • Skilled Collaborator: Collaborates with empathy by listening to divergent perspectives and demonstrating mission-alignment, knowledge of child development and socio-emotional learning, and high levels of professionalism at all times.
  • Strategic Teammate: Works in a strategic manner autonomously and collaboratively despite complexity.


Agency Mindset
  • Models Agency: Exhibits persistence, creativity, flexibility, motivation to make change, and the ability to imagine new approaches and opportunities for impact.
  • Committed Founder: Brings passion to the founding of a new school as a dependable, organized, solutions-oriented, and optimistic founding team member committed to both starting up and staying for our kids.


MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
  • B.A. or B.S. required, Master's Degree a plus
  • 3+ years experience working with urban youth required
  • Experience with one or more of the following: restorative justice, responsive classroom, Expeditionary Learning and any other progressive positive behavior approaches a plus
  • Appropriate California Credential a plus
  • Experience working in a progressive and personalized school model a plus
  • Bilingual in Spanish a plus


SUPERVISION

This position reports to the Founding K-8 Principal.

TIME COMMITMENT

12-month full-time employee, 220 workdays. Position starts on July 1, 2018 with some opportunities for community engagement and onboarding prior to the start date with compensation available for work prior to start date.

Common Building Hours: The Middle School Dean of Students is expected to maintain hours of 8:00 - 5:00 pm.

OUR COMPENSATION PACKAGE

At Lighthouse Community Public Schools we take good care of our employees. We provide a competitive compensation and benefits package, including a competitive salary and generous health and retirement benefits (100% employee health coverage/50% for dependents; 8% employer-matching for retirement program; medical and dependent FSA).

TO APPLY

People of color and/or bilingual candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

Interested candidates should submit:

  • Resume
  • Cover letter describing your interest in this exciting position and why you are an optimal fit, including how your educational philosophy, approach to student learning and behavior, and expertise would contribute to the Lodestar founding team
  • 3 references with Name, Email, Phone Number and Title/nature of working relationship


Application submission screening and initial phone interviews will be completed on a rolling basis until filled. In-person interviews and performance tasks will take place on-site.

Lighthouse Community Charter School is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity at all levels.

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