Literacy Specialist_Goshen ES

Job Description for Literacy Support Coach

Job Title: GEOGIA LITERACY COACH (HB 1193)

FLSA Status: Exempt

Reports To: School Principal

Employment Duration: 190 Days (10 months)

Education: Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university in Elementary Education, Special Education, or a related field required. Master’s degree preferred. Advanced preparation in instructional coaching through completion of Coaching Endorsement, Teacher Leader Endorsement, or an independent training program OR 3 years of instructional leadership experience including curriculum design, professional development, and implementation support at the school or district level preferred.

Certification or Licensure: Meets Georgia state certification requirements for teaching at level 4 or higher. Advanced preparation in reading/literacy through completion of Reading Endorsement, Teacher Leader Endorsement, or an independent training program approved by the International Dyslexia Association.

Skills:

• Reading processes, acquisition, assessment, and instruction.
• Systematic explicit instructional processes.
• Instructional coaching approaches and strategies for teaching adult learners.
• Scientific reading research and its application to effective classroom instruction, structure, and intervention practices.
• Georgia Standards for Excellence in English Language Arts, Social Studies, Science as well as new Georgia K-12 ELA Standards.
• Multi-Tiered Systems of Support.
• Data analysis and application.

Work Experience: A minimum of five years of successful teaching at the elementary level including evidence-based word recognition and comprehension instruction.

This position is responsible for working in Elementary schools to support Georgia’s literacy legislation and provide appropriate services to schools so that there can be a cohesive, sustained, intensive, and classroom-focused approach that is rigorous, engaging, and relevant. Georgia Literacy coaches are required to spend 70% of the school day in classrooms working directly with students and teachers. School-Based Literacy Coaches will provide a non-threatening, open, professional, and collaborative work relationship with principals, other academic coaches, and K-3 teachers.

They will be required to effectively identify the needs of assigned schools to prioritize, schedule, organize, and provide technical assistance so that students in assigned schools achieve grade‑level reading by the end of third grade.

Responsibilities Include:

• Assist principals and other leadership in assigned schools with aligning school wide systems, processes, and resources to structured literacy as defined by HB 1193 Georgia Literacy Coach.
• Assist school administrators and other leadership with providing regular and user‑friendly data reports to their respective districts and other stakeholders.
• Assist K‑3 teachers in addressing grade‑specific curriculum by developing an effective school‑wide literacy plan and providing strategies for monitoring the plan’s implementation.
• Collaborate with Regional Structured Literacy Support Coaches to design and conduct professional development to meet the varied needs of K‑3 teachers.
• Facilitate and lead structured coaching cycles with teachers, fostering a collaborative and growth‑oriented environment that includes goal setting, modeling, lesson observation, constructive feedback, and reflective discussions to enhance literacy instruction and student outcomes.
• Provide clear, practical, timely, and candid written, oral feedback to teachers about their instruction.
• Conference with teachers identified for additional support to create, implement, and monitor goals and plans for improving practice.
• Meet regularly with the principal, other school‑based coaches, and K‑3 teachers to review data and make recommendations for adjustments in instructional practices.
• Maintain an organized system for documenting coaching services.

Work Environment / Physical Demands:

• Employees must occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds.
• Employees are regularly required to talk, hear, walk, stand, and sit.
• The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate.
• Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions.
• The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to talk and hear. The employee is frequently required to walk, stand, and sit.

This description may be changed at any time. This job description in no way states or implies that these are the only duties to be performed by the employee. The employee will be required to follow any other instruction and to perform any other related duties as assigned by the Board. Richmond County Schools reserves the right to update, revise or change this job description and related duties at any time.