Job Description
FirstLine Schools: SELF-CONTAINED SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHER (DISCOVERY PLUS PROGRAM)
Reports to: School Director / Principal
FLSA Status: Exempt
Position Type: Full-Time
FirstLine’s Vision Of Teaching Excellence:
We develop teachers at FirstLine by focusing on excellence in teaching. To do so, we coach teachers and center professional development on our Vision of Excellence in Teaching rubric the components of which include:
- On Task (Maintaining high expectations and maximizing instructional time)
- Essential Content (Planning effectively)
- Cognitive Engagement (Maintaining High Academic Expectations and Building Thinking Skills)
- Demonstration of Learning (Leading Instruction, Checking for Understanding, Responding to Student Misunderstanding)
- Community of Learners (Establishing Expectations and Responding to Student Behaviors)
About Discovery Plus Specialized Program:
Since the 2020–2021 school year, FirstLine Schools has operated a specialized program at three of our schools for students with cognitive impairments in grades 3–8 whose cognitive functioning is 2.3 or more standard deviations below the mean and who have a demonstrated need in two or more of the following areas: Life Skills Support (e.g., toileting, play, social communication, feeding), Speech and Language Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Motor Skills Support (Physical Therapy and Adaptive Physical Education).The mission for our FirstLine Schools Discovery Plus Program is for all students to be provided with the skills to lead big, purposeful lives. Our vision for meeting our mission is by providing our students with rigorous academic curriculum, intentional teaching of transition/life skills, and a classroom environment with a robust level of supports and related services. Furthermore, we believe that our students with exceptionalities excel in mind, body, and spirit through intentional community collaboration that drives and responds to student data.
Position Summary:
FirstLine Schools is currently seeking talented, passionate Special Education Teachers to teach in self-contained setting for students with cognitive needs. At FirstLine Schools, we know that it is the effectiveness of our teachers that matters the most when it comes to impacting the success of our students. To ensure that we are an organization of excellent teachers, we expect our teachers to demonstrate effectiveness through our Vision of Teaching Excellence. Teachers will be responsible for implementing the teaching curriculum, ensuring the success of our students, and working with a team of teachers within the school and network community.
Special Education teachers are critical to helping our students who have IEPs meet their learning goals. As a teacher in a specialized program, you will regularly collaborate with a variety of related service providers, leaders, and paraprofessionals to make sure that students' needs are being met in and out of the classroom. Our Special Education teachers must be certified or working towards certification and work to ensure that our students have the necessary skills to meet the mission and vision of our Discovery Plus Program.
Position Responsibilities:
- Designs individualized lessons that lead to LA Connector standards mastery and are aligned to expectations/learning connectors for students with disabilities and end-of-year assessment
- Provides feedback to scholars by asking pertinent, scaffolded follow-up questions that affirm correctly understood content, clarify misunderstood content or extend scholars’ thinking
- Respond to student data and make adjustments to lessons as needed
- Implement assistive technology and other individualized student supports throughout school day
- Establishes effective classroom routines and manage students effectively using a variety of strategies to meet the unique needs of students in the Discovery Plus program
- Inspires and invests students in achieving their goals and in believing that goals are achieved through effort and not innate abilities
- Seeks out and constructively responds to feedback from and engages in problem-solving with others
- Ensures compliant IEP documentation for all students on caseload by facilitating IEP development, FBA/BIP development and implementation, transition planning, and maintaining other supporting documentation related to service delivery (logs, progress reports, Extended School Year, etc)
- Oversee a team of paraprofessionals and manage schedules to best meet the needs of students
- Collaborate closely with related service providers to implement push in and pull out services for students
- Attend weekly professional development with other self-contained teachers
- Join SELF’s Low-Incidence one-year Cohort
- Other duties as assigned
- 2 or more years of lead teaching (as the teacher of record) for students with cognitive needs
- Demonstrated success working with students in an urban, open admissions schoo
- A BA or BS
- A strong background in and command of content area
- Louisiana Teacher Certification (SPED) Completed or in progress (or be eligible to hold for our out-of-state applicants) in the specific disability/grade levels served, as necessary
- Experience using UNIQUE curriculum preferred
- Believe deeply in the mission and values of FirstLine Schools and Discovery Plus Program
- Believe in every student’s ability to achieve in a rigorous college or career prep curriculum
- Achieve results based on agreed-upon expectations
- Take personal responsibility
- Highly detail-oriented
- Open to learning and evolving with AI as a tool at work
- Collaborate effectively with a range of stakeholders
- Share a commitment to creating great schools in New Orleans
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
- Ability to embed and model the FirstLine Commitments: We Keep Learning, We Work Together, We Are Helpful, We Are the Safekeepers of our Community, We Share Joy, We Show Results!
The physical demands described here represent those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions. Occasional physical exertion is required, including exerting up to 20 pounds of force as needed to move objects.
About FirstLine Schools:
In 1998, FirstLine Schools started the first charter school in New Orleans. FirstLine now operates several (Pre)K-8th grade schools. Our mission is to create and inspire great, open-admissions public schools in New Orleans. Our staff is a diverse and talented group dedicated to our students’ success and to their own growth. Our schools are led by leaders who hold themselves accountable for student achievement and teacher development.
Salary is competitive and commensurate with experience. FirstLine Schools offers a comprehensive benefits package including a 403b plan.
FirstLine Schools is an equal employment opportunities (EEO) organization.
About FirstLine Schools
Mission & Vision
Our Mission
The mission of FirstLine Schools is to create and inspire great, open admissions public schools in New Orleans
Our Vision
Our schools will prepare students for college, fulfilling careers, and a healthy life by nurturing students in mind, body, and spirit.
Why FirstLine Schools?
We Believe In:
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Deeply Committing to Teacher Support and Growth
- FirstLine recruits and retains a diverse group of teachers who hold high expectations for their students and strive to create joyful classrooms where students are responsible for doing the majority of thinking, writing, and discussion in class.
- FirstLine teachers receive weekly coaching and lesson feedback from a school-based instructional coach and also participate in network-wide bi-weekly Professional Learning Time.
- FirstLine teachers are developed over their career using our “Vision of Excellence” classroom teaching rubric.
- FirstLine has instituted a teacher career pathway that focuses on our commitment to developing teacher skillfulness. Teachers have access to increased teacher leadership opportunities and compensation as they grow.
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Working to Becoming an Antiracist Organization
- FirstLine’s commitment to doing what is right for kids is rooted in doing the necessary work of deeply examining policies, procedures, and practices to ensure we are working toward dismantling the effects of systemic racism on our students.
- FirstLine partners with Overcoming Racism, an organization that seeks to build more equitable institutions through comprehensive race and equity training, which benefits all staff, and through us, our students, and their families.
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Focusing on Social / Emotional Learning and Community Building
- FirstLine is committed to training teachers in trauma-informed approaches that nurture supportive and caring relationships as the foundation of positive culture, enabling teachers to de-escalate behaviors and thus reduce suspensions.
- FirstLine’s signature program, Edible Schoolyard New Orleans (ESYNOLA), teaches children and adults to make healthy connections through food and the natural world. Hands-on garden and culinary / nutrition education classes have provided FirstLine students with social/emotional learning opportunities since we built the first school garden at Samuel J. Green School in 2006 immediately following Hurricane Katrina. Through this work, students learn respect for life, the power of personal choice, and the value of community.
- FirstLine is implementing the Valor Collegiate Academies’ social/emotional learning curriculum, involving staff and student individual personal storytelling and reflection work and community circles.
- We are committed to innovation, to constant assessment, and to making the thousands of small changes needed to keep improving our practice.
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Creating a Sense of Belonging
- FirstLine aims to create school environments that are nurturing and supportive for students, families, and staff of all races, socioeconomic status, and abilities to ensure inclusive, safe, and brave spaces where people can show up as their whole selves.
- At FirstLine, we live by these Commitments:
- I commit to my own and others’ development.
- I commit to listening and understanding.
- I commit to speaking with honesty and respect.
- I commit to doing what it takes to serve others.
- I commit to keeping myself and others safe in mind, body, and spirit.
- I commit to bringing my personal joy to our work.
- I commit to holding myself and others accountable.
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Striving for Academic Excellence
- FirstLine fosters a culture of academic excellence and intellectual curiosity through instruction that meets the learning needs of every student. A FirstLine education helps students develop the academic skills and character strengths needed to succeed in school and in life.
- We set expectations high for our students and develop teachers to have the will and skill to help them meet these expectations.
- FirstLine aspires to offer classes that are rigorous, engaging, and joyful, where students drive most of the thinking and discussion, and we coach and develop our teachers and leaders to get there.
- FirstLine utilizes culturally relevant curriculum that provides “windows and mirrors.” Our children are more engaged when they see themselves represented through a historically accurate socio-political lens that broadens students’ choices and develops them into justice-oriented, curious, creative global citizens.
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Cherishing Family and Community
- As New Orleans’ oldest homegrown charter school organization founded in 1998, FirstLine was created and always values its deep and long-standing partnerships with families and community-based organizations, churches, and local universities.
- FirstLine partners with Valor Collegiate Academies and Tulane University’s Safe Schools program, a National Institute of Justice initiative, to teach teachers how to incorporate social/emotional learning and trauma-informed practices in their instruction – encouraging relationship building and providing emotional support for students during class, which promotes learning.
- FirstLine engages artists, musicians, writers, and athletic educators to create a rich array of afterschool and summer programs and classes, all of which are free and open to all students.
- FirstLine maintains communication with our families and understands the challenges our families face economically, especially during a pandemic, and works to link families to community resources and social services, working in partnership with Communities in Schools and our team of mental health professionals.