Middle School Elective Teacher

Job Description

The Elective's Teacher at KIPP St. Louis is an exemplary educator who drives strong student outcomes through high-quality, standards-aligned instruction. This role is open to teachers across all grade levels and content areas who demonstrate deep content expertise and a commitment to ensuring all students achieve at high levels. Electives Teachers design and deliver rigorous lessons, use data to inform instructional decisions, and continuously monitor student progress toward ambitious goals.

They also contribute to a collaborative team environment by engaging in shared planning, reflecting on practice, and supporting collective improvement across classrooms. Ultimately, the Elective's Teacher plays a critical role in ensuring consistently strong teaching and learning experiences for all students.

• Direct Manager:
  Principal

• Direct Reports:
  None

• Key Collaborators:
  Assistant Principal, Instructional Coach, Teachers, and Regional Support

• Plan and deliver instruction where all students engage in grade-level standards, texts, and rigorous tasks daily

• Internalize curriculum to ensure alignment to standards, pacing, and high-quality outcomes

• Design and execute tasks that require students to analyze, justify, and apply learning

• Provide scaffolds that increase access without lowering rigor, including modeling, guided practice, and strategic supports

• Anticipate misconceptions and plan targeted supports to ensure all students can access grade-level content

Instruction consistently ensures that all students engage in grade-level standards, tasks, and content aligned to curriculum and pacing, with scaffolds that maintain rigor. Student work demonstrates analysis, justification, and application, resulting in increased access and success with grade-level learning.

• Design lessons where students do the majority of the thinking, talking, reading, writing, and problem-solving

• Facilitate structured academic discourse that requires students to explain, justify, and build on ideas using academic language

• Use questioning and task design to promote analysis, reasoning, and cognitive lift

• Create opportunities for students to make connections, defend thinking, and engage in meaningful dialogue

• Ensure engagement reflects cognitive work, not just participation or compliance

Students consistently do the cognitive work of the lesson, engaging in meaningful discourse, reasoning, writing, and problem-solving. Engagement is driven by rigorous thinking, with students independently explaining, justifying, and building on ideas using academic language.

• Establish and maintain a classroom environment grounded in high expectations, strong routines, and productive struggle

• Implement systems that maximize instructional time and ensure students remain focused, accountable, and independent

• Create a safe and structured environment where students take academic risks and persist through challenging work

• Reinforce consistent expectations for behavior and learning aligned to school-wide systems

• Build strong relationships with students and families to support both academic and cultural outcomes

The classroom reflects high expectations, strong routines, and maximized instructional time, resulting in a focused and productive learning environment. Students demonstrate independence, persistence, and productive struggle, taking academic risks within a safe and structured culture.

• Embed frequent checks for understanding into daily instruction to assess student thinking in real time

• Analyze student responses and adjust instruction immediately to address misconceptions and advance learning

• Provide clear, timely, and actionable feedback that enables students to improve their work

• Monitor student progress toward learning goals and ensure students understand success criteria

• Implement data-driven cycles, including reteach and intervention, to accelerate student achievement

Instruction is continuously informed by frequent checks for…