Elementary Grades Director

At the Learning Community, we believe that literacy empowers each individual to have a voice, assume community responsibility, and take social action. We grow teacher leaders, student leaders, and community leaders. To accomplish this purpose, we seek a collaborative, skilled, instructional leader to serve as our Elementary School Director. This role is a vital leadership role in the organization that works closely with the Head of School, Director team, and other leaders in the building to create the conditions for Elementary students to thrive and teachers to have the support they need to do their best work.

Day to Day Responsibilities:

This role is the first point of contact for Elementary teachers, staff, and families on internal policy and operational issues, discipline questions, and day-to-day problem-solving. They manage the entire Elementary team, including teachers and the Elementary logistics role. Areas of responsibility include, but aren't limited to:

• Creating a culture of feedback, learning, and improvement within the Elementary team in partnership with teachers, the social-emotional team, and instructional coaches.

• Building strong relationships, trust, and collaboration within the Elementary team and across teams with other departments and staff that collaborate to serve Elementary students.

• Modeling a warm-demander approach with Elementary students, families, peers, and those you manage: support and care, paired with high expectations and insisting people show up at their best.

• Subject matter & instructional expertise: Deep understanding of curriculum and instructional best practices vertically aligning curriculum across a school. Understands and can recognize, name and coach into best practices in classroom management, subject area instructional strategy.

• Envisioning a comprehensive academic program and conveying that vision to the team across grade levels, mirroring back where we are and where we are headed, conveying an understanding of progress and momentum.

• Building and keeping parent engagement and trust through clear, honest, and accurate communication, positive phone calls, updates about student progress and behavior, planning and facilitating opportunities to engage with teachers and the school, and being responsive to concerns.

• Taking on, assisting with, or managing projects and goals that will impact student and teacher success in the Elementary like annual planning, open houses, parent-teacher conferences, Elementary grades components of school-wide events, and one-off projects as delegated by the Head of School. Similarly, assisting with school-wide and Elementary-Grade responsibilities and events as needed (ranging from arrival/dismissal duties, an advisory period each day, and to whole-team planning meetings, professional development days, and the LC Summer Institute in August).

• Ensuring high-quality, equitable instruction and capable teachers in all Elementary classrooms in partnership with instructional coaches. Ensuring data-driven instructional decisions and improvement in all coaching, feedback, and professional development work.

• Building a culture of teacher leadership by creating the conditions for critical thinking, teacher input, innovation, and risk-taking to better serve students. As the Elementary Grades Director, you hold the vision and reflect and celebrate collective progress toward the Elementary and school goals. Your leadership actions help the team recognize momentum, progress toward goal attainment, acknowledge the struggle, and problem-solve to overcome challenges.

• Driving strong collaboration across the team and strong implementation of school-wide goals and initiatives in the Elementary grades. Responsible for two-way communication and management that produces smooth collaboration within the Elementary team and amongst the Elementary team, Middle-Grades team and other departments.

• Strong emotional intelligence and communication skills - especially in conflict or for trickier decisions. The Learning Community aspires to be a space where we are all self-aware and others aware, speak the truth directly to each other, fix mistakes quickly, and own and repair any harm if it happens - whether with leaders, team members, students, or families. We aim to communicate in a way that builds trust, makes decisions and organizational changes clear, and builds with our community - not just for them. Our Elementary Grades Director is expected to have deep skills in these areas and is also expected to demonstrate a commitment to growing in their ability to work effectively with others across lines of difference and power.

• Responding to requests from the Department of Education, ensuring school meets requirements as laid out by RIDE, filing of all mandated reports to RIDE for the Elementary Grades.

Minimum Qualifications:

To be considered for this position, applicants must have strong teaching experience in similar contexts to the Learning Community, must have experience leading and/or coaching teachers, and must be U.S. citizens or residents or have work visas. Experience working with and implementing curriculum across grade levels is highly preferred. In addition, they must demonstrate:

• Professionalism, keeping commitments, and follow-through: You deliver high-quality, thorough, work on time, every time, or communicate proactively with lead time if you'll miss a commitment or need support. You do what you promise when you promise it.

• Building strong and productive relationships with our students, families, and team: You build trust with students, families, and staff and use that trust and those relationships to advance your work and our mission. When there's conflict, you work through issues while preserving trust, and build solutions that prevent similar situations in the future.

• Intentional, inclusive, and relational communication: You think about the message you're sending in your written or spoken communication and tailor that message to your audience to get the best possible result. You seek to communicate to drive action, build credibility, and protect trust - and take the time to learn your key stakeholders so you can communicate in a way that speaks to them. Where possible, you think about communicating inclusively in a way that doesn't alienate or offend those with different backgrounds, lived experiences, or identities than you.

• Strong problem-solving skills, judgment, and resilience: As a staff in an urban school setting, things don't always go to plan: a lesson fails with students, a key teacher goes on sick leave, a facilities issue happens, a parent expresses feedback roughly, a policy you don't love gets introduced - it happens. Leaders that thrive at the Learning Community are excellent at rebounding from setbacks, shaking off mistakes, and learning and problem-solving to meet their goals. They bring creativity, problem-solving, and an adaptable approach to most challenges while keeping student safety and respect for our students, parents, and school community front and center in their choices.

• Staying organized, managing up + across, and using time well: Your role will ensure we don't drop balls on the areas of work assigned to you - which means you need to track tasks well, use your time wisely, and follow up with those whose help you need to get the work done if they aren't getting you what you need.

Salary, Benefits and Other Details:

Workday. This position is a full-time, administrative role based at the Learning Community Charter School in Central Falls, Rhode Island. All instructional leaders are expected to work 7:30 am -3:30 pm and to be available to their team once the kids go home and to families on a flexible schedule (honoring the fact that our families work different shifts and are available at different times of day).

Salary. For this role, our budgeted compensation range is $95,000-110,000 commensurate with experience.

Vacation and Benefits. In addition, we are proud to currently offer:

• Medical Insurance: 95% paid by LC regardless of plan type (single, family, etc.) $8k-$20k value, depending on type of coverage.

• 401k Retirement: No waiting period for voluntary contributions; 7% base salary match after 1 year of work. 3 years of work to be fully vested.

• Life Insurance: $50k life insurance plan free of charge while they are employed by LC.

• Time off: 8 weeks of vacation throughout the year; 12 paid holidays; 13 paid sick days/2 paid personal days per year.

• Optional Insurance: Vision/Dental/Life/Short Term Disability-100% employee paid.