School Culture Specialist

School Culture Specialist

Grade Level:PreK-8

Start Date: Immediate Start

Locations: Dorchester, MA

About UP Education Network

UP Education Network manages and operates two schools in Boston, MA. We serve over 1,200 elementary and middle school students. UP is invited by local school districts to restart chronically underperforming district schools as UP Academies. Each UP Academy shares the same mission: to ensure that students acquire the knowledge, skills, and strength of character necessary to succeed on the path to college and to achieve their full potential. 

Role

The School Culture Specialist will work with the school’s School Culture Team to ensure that students demonstrate dramatic student achievement gains and internalize the school’s values. The School Culture Specialist will help lead the school’s efforts to create a positive, structured, consistent, caring, and disciplined school culture. 

Specific Responsibilities

•          Maintain and further develop a joyful, structured, achievement-oriented school culture based on UP Academy’s vision of excellence

•          With the School Culture Team, build systems and procedures which protect the sanctity of instructional time and reinforce a positive school culture

•          Provide proactive, daily support to teachers and students to maintain high behavioral expectations

•          Serve as a point person for discipline and culture issues and maintain systems of efficiency in the Dean of Student’s Office

•          Run a weekly small-group advisory for middle school students focused on high school readiness and life skills

•          Assist teachers, students, and families in the effective creation and implementation of individual behavior plans

•          Reinforce the effective use of a school-wide behavior plan

•          Ensure that the physical environment of the school reinforces school culture and facilitates student achievement

•          Be highly present and visible during school hours

•          Model the school’s values and the standard for professional behavior. 

Qualifications

•          A strong belief in UP Education Network’s core values: Students, Community, Humility, Resilience, and Humor

•          Bachelor’s degree is preferred

•          Current authorization to work in the United States – A candidate must have such authorization by his or her first day of employment

Compensation and Benefits

Your salary is commensurate with experience; UP Academy follows the salary scales of each UP Academy’s host school district.  As an employee of UP Academy and your respective school district, you will receive the same access to personal and sick days, health insurance, and dental insurance as others within your union. 

Working at UP Education Network

We know that great staff members directly lead to the success of our students.  At UP, your career is shaped by:

• Opportunities for immediate impact: UP offers a chance to bring best practices found in high-performing schools to students previously enrolled in struggling schools, and to rapidly unlock the potential of these students
• Talented, mission-driven colleagues: Our staff is enthusiastic, dedicated, and willing to do “whatever it takes” to put every student on the path to college
• Collaboration and teamwork: Staff members collaborate and work closely together on grade-level or content area teams, using data to track student performance as well as guide instructional practice
• Consistent professional growth and development: Members of our staff typically have bi-weekly check-in meetings with their managers where they receive targeted coaching and support and the entire staff participates in weekly professional development sessions during the school year, kick-started by extensive training in August.  

We encourage applicants of diverse backgrounds to apply for any open position in which they feel qualified. We believe that we have a responsibility to recruit, retain, develop, and reward a diverse and talented staff. Our students must be exposed on a daily basis to a diverse group of powerful role models - in their teachers, their school leaders, and their supporters in the network office. With this in mind, we are committed to recruiting the most talented individuals from the widest possible range of backgrounds to join our creative, mission-driven team.