Pathways Coordinator

Grade Level: 9-12

Full Time Start Date: July 1, 2019

A NEW, INCLUSIVE VISION FOR COMMERCE: WHO WE ARE

In the fall of 2017, the High School of Commerce ("Commerce") entered into a year-long redesign process - bold, substantive and inclusive in nature - all to operationalize the community's articulated desire for a more personalized Commerce experience that fostered college and career success. This redesign process - fundamentally student-centered, with existing educators and students serving as the lead drivers of the work - engaged in an extensive, nationwide discovery of the emerging and established approaches to realizing impressive results for students. This discovery lead the redesign team to put together a plan to launch a redesigned High School of Commerce, starting with a 9th Grade Pathways Program for 2018-19 and growing in each successive year.

A VALUES-ALIGNED TEAM: WHO YOU ARE

Commerce is now seeking values-aligned individuals to serve as Pathways Coordinators committed to equitable instruction and strong cultural foundations for all learners. The essential responsibilities for these roles will be guided by the following two values:

AGENCY: We believe that each and every Commerce student should be empowered to pursue their fullest academic and personal potential. We believe a students' agency to become their best academic and non-academic selves should be organized around rigorous personalized pathways - a four-year arc that prioritizes career interest exploration in a student's 9th/10th grade years and application/deepening of individual career interest in their 11th/12th grade years. With student-driven personalized pathways, a student will own the setting and the attaining of their short-, mid- and long-term academic, college, career and life goals.

RELATIONSHIP: We believe that each and every Commerce student thrives in a positive, welcoming learning environment that emphasizes intentional and proactive relationship-building. Supported through an explicit and universal culture of restorative justice - prioritizing growth and atonement over punishment and separation - a student will recognize the value of and play a leading role in developing interdependent relationships, with all members of the Commerce community working collaboratively in pursuit of this vision.

Therefore, all candidates interested in pathways team roles in the redesigned Commerce should be prepared to articulate how they have lived, or aspire to live, these values of agency and relationship in realizing the following:

Transformational Change with Your Students:

Providing access for students to new and tangible academic/non-academic heights, so that all of your students see themselves as empowered, goal-oriented learners.

Transformational Change with Your Mindset and Practices:

Demonstrating openness to growing your professional mindset and instructional practices in a deliberate and adaptable manner, so that you see yourself as an empowered, goal-oriented professional.

Transformational Change with Your Peers:

Exercising leadership and responsibility to peers in the pursuit of a common goal, with you seeing yourself as an empowered, goal-oriented collaborator.

CAPACITY-BUILDING, RESULTS-ORIENTED ROLES: WHAT YOU WILL DO

Pathways Coordinators at Commerce are practitioners who believe in the values of agency and relationship, and who are committed to the three types of transformational change noted above. Commerce is prepared - considering the centrality of these positions to the success of the school's redesign - to invest substantially in the capacity of coordinators to receive the training, coaching, and resources/infrastructure necessary to thrive.

To that end, Pathways Coordinators will engage in extensive professional learning, both as part of the larger school, with strategic departments, and in small groups.

The experience of Pathways Coordinators at Commerce will be unlike any other role in the following ways:

Explicit focus on ensuring equitable access to high-quality college and career opportunities for all learners and the deep cultural foundations to allow all students limitless growth

Work with intimate cohorts of teachers and students organized in community-centered "houses"

Extensive time and support for coaching, collaborating, and innovating instructional and cultural practices with teachers and peers

Extended time for ongoing collaboration within and across vertical and horizontal teams

Opportunities to develop meaningful relationships with staff and students through restorative justice practices, student- and staff-developed "X-Blocks" and celebratory events

Position Responsibilities

Design, curate, and deliver highly engaging experiences for students to help them explore the career opportunities, related skills, job market, income potential, routes to learning, and credentialing and/or obtaining degrees in the industry, and to allow them to gain hands-on exposure to the exciting work in the field (e.g., constructing and programming a robot, engaging with guest speakers from various medical fields, visiting a factory floor, designing a website to simulate the tasks of a type of IT professional)

Provide opportunities for students to correlate these experiences with their own interests, skills, and plans for the future in order to determine which of three college and career pathways they will pursue during their time at the high school (Healthcare, IT, or Manufacturing)

Coordinate these experiences and self-reflections with the work of other leaders and practitioners in the school working to ensure provision of early college, credentialing, and work-based learning opportunities across the three pathways

Maintain autonomy for decision-making around guest speaker selection, development of industry-related partnerships, and development of materials, programs, and experiences directly related to the pathways

Desired Qualifications

Experience, talents, or knowledge related to one of three college and career pathways preferred:

Healthcare (e.g., exploration of college/career paths for nurses, EMTs, medical assistants, pharmacy specialists, technologists, therapists, medical records technicians, veterinary specialists, medical equipment designers, etc.)

IT (e.g., exploration of college/career paths for analysts, programmers, scientists, engineers, designers, technicians, cyber security specialists, developers, managers, robotics engineers, etc.)

Advanced and Traditional Manufacturing (e.g., exploration of college/career paths for data analytics, communications systems, engineering design, robotics/programming technology, etc., related to any manufacturing industry such as food/beverage, textiles/apparel, computers/electronics, wood/paper/printing, automotive/machinery)

Bachelor's degree, Associate's degree, Master's degree, and/or industry-related credentials from an accredited institution preferred

Experience teaching students or adults preferred

Bilingual in English and Spanish preferred

Benefits

SEZP offers a competitive salary commensurate with qualifications and experience. Salaries for Pathways Coordinators start at $45,000. Pathways Coordinators in SEZP qualify for benefits (personal/sick days, health insurance, etc.) offered to other employees in the Springfield Public Schools.

Positions will be filled on a rolling basis; applicants are encouraged to apply immediately. Please contact sezp@springfieldempowerment.org with any questions.



Primary Location: Commerce HS
Salary Range: Per Year
Shift Type: FT - Full Year

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Email: sezp@springfieldempowerment.org