Expert Teacher; Instructional Coach Math

Job Description

District Overview The Holyoke Public Schools are committed to ensuring a high-quality education for all. We have invested in recruiting and retaining diverse top-quality educators who inspire bold thinking, recognize student potential, and encourage all students to work towards their goals. In Holyoke, we are committed to becoming an anti-racist district by focusing on:

• Anti-Racism Training for All Staff Members
• Policy Review and Revision
• Facilitating School Visits Through an Equity Lens
• Establishing the Holyoke Race and Equity Team
• Establishing Equity Indicators for Accountability of HPS Employees, Students, and Partners

We know that students do their best when they pursue their passions, so we have designed multiple pathways where all students graduate prepared to excel in college, career, and community leadership. Holyoke Public Schools (HPS) serves 5,400 students (of which over 80% are Latinx) in 12 schools and employs nearly 1,500 people. The District was placed into receivership by the State of Massachusetts in Spring 2015, because of struggling performance, and has since implemented a Turnaround Plan that has led to expanded choice programs (such as dual language, STEM, and early college) and new opportunities for students to explore the arts, sports, sciences, and local and world cultures.

Since 2015, the District has experienced numerous accomplishments for instance:

• doubling access to PreK programming
• 10-point graduation rate increase
• 85 percent increase in access to early college programming
• 9-point increase (to 22%) in hiring teachers of color

Instructional Coach/Expert Teacher (IC/ET) are exceptional educators who are recognized as models of excellence. IC/ET have at least five years of relevant experience, possess deep expertise in their craft as an outstanding educator, and are able to support the continual development of all teachers. The IC/ET will collaborate/assist the District Academic Department and schools to support the district’s improvement, including but not limited to curriculum resource development, professional development facilitation, coaching staff, leading teacher collaboration, and participation in focus groups/additional training, etc.

The Instructional Coach/Expert Teacher will focus on enhancing student learning and achievement leading to improved school performance. In order to accomplish these goals, the Instructional Coach (Expert Teacher) will work with teachers and school administrators to enhance teachers’ ability to provide instruction that is engaging, academically rigorous, culturally responsive, builds off students’ funds of knowledge, and aligned to the district adopted curriculum.

The Instructional Coach (Expert Teacher) will focus his/her work on the implementation of school and district priorities and adopted curricula, using student performance data and classroom observations to guide their work. Using the structures of department/grade level team meetings, professional development time, and classroom based coaching, the Instructional Coach (Expert Teacher) will work with teachers in small groups and individually to support their improved practice.

The School-based Instructional Coach (Expert Teacher) may also be responsible for providing at least one cohort of students with explicit intervention to accelerate their learning and achievement. The Instructional Coach (Expert Teacher) will complete 10 extra work days beyond the teacher’s contract in order to support the district (5 days determined by the Executive Director of Academics- to occur primarily during our new teacher induction series) and school-based planning (5 days determined by the principal).

• Thoughtfully and deliberately cultivate collaborative relationships with teachers, administrators, and fellow Instructional Coaches (Expert Teachers) in order to effectively influence strong culturally responsive classroom practice.
• Work with the Academic Department and School leadership to ensure cohesive, district wide use of best practices in coaching, develop/coordinate vertically aligned curriculum, and support consistent…