Job Description
FirstLine Schools: FRONT OFFICE ADMINISTRATOR
Reports to: School Leadership
FLSA Status: Exempt
Position Type: Full Time
Position Summary:
The Front Office Administrator is responsible for building a welcoming environment for families, staff, and visitors. The FOA manages the school’s image through the front office. In addition, the FOA is responsible for inventory, data management, and administrative assistance.
Position Responsibilities:
Receptionist
- Creates and maintains a welcoming and efficient front office that emphasizes organization, professionalism, courtesy, flexibility, and teamwork
- Greets and announces all school visitors appropriately
- Assists guests in utilizing the LobbyGuard system
- Checks the LobbyGuard system for any “VOID” issues with visitors
- Uses proper telephone etiquette and directs calls appropriately to school staff
- Provides needed assistance to and communicates effectively with leadership and school staff
- Is attentive, patient, and fair with students
- Treats parents and other visitors as valued and respected customers
- Supports school leadership with parent and community meetings by arranging meetings, follow up communications, etc.
- Leads on obtaining feedback post-meetings in order to continuously improve
Grade Level Experiences and Staff Events
- Coordinates grade level experiences including planning, purchasing, etc.
- Coordinates staff events, i.e. teacher appreciation week
Inventory and Facilities Management
- Provides health and medical nursing support (form collection from students)
- Manages staff communications
- Manages student/family communications
- Coordinates student entrance/exit procedures and student tracking
- Coordinates purchasing and procurement
- Manages petty cash and small sum accounting for sports, etc.
- Oversees business office form processing and management
- Oversees field trip preparations and processing
- Supports school safety procedures
- Oversees logs and transportation tracking support (School Operations Manager leads on this)
Student Records
- Leads on the collection of all student documentation
- Supports enrollment paperwork process and communicate with parents around enrollment
- Manages student records for new students, withdrawals etc.
Compliance / Data Management
- Works with Data Manager to ensure integrity of student demographic dat
- Collaborates with Data Manager to ensure effective implementation and use of site data systems
- Anticipates, identifies, and resolves various technology obstacles to ensure success of overall data collection and analysis
- Works with school personnel to maintain integrity and accuracy of student cumulative file
- Supports site based and network staff to develop and collect staff, student, and parent survey data
- Supports the Guidance Counselor and other school personnel to ensure student paperwork is collected for effective and efficient scheduling
Education & Experience:
- High school diploma/Associate’s or Bachelor’s degree
- Familiarity with office equipment such as computers, fax machines, calculators, and photocopiers, as well as word processing and spreadsheet programs
- Passion for improving educational opportunities for urban students and for building a strong, mission-driven organization
- High level of proficiency in Microsoft Word and Excel
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
- Takes initiative and is solution-oriented
- Excellent computer skills including school databases
- Commitment to FirstLine Schools’ mission, vision and growth
Desired Qualities & Characteristics:
- 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!
Physical Requirements:
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.
Supervises:
No
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
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.