Head Start UPK Teacher Assistant Job Syracuse area,City of Syracuse New York USA,Education / Teaching

Location: City of Syracuse

Position Summary

Working in conjunction with a teacher aide, assist lead teacher with providing a safe and engaging learning environment in a classroom with up to 18 children ages three or four, ensuring that they are well supervised while in our care.

Qualifications

Experience working with preschoolers in a group setting.
Demonstrated formal education in a relevant field:
Level I.
High School Diploma or GED plus a Child Development Associate Credential (CDA) or equivalent formal education equal to 6 college credits in Early Childhood Education. Level II.
Completed two‑year college degree or equivalent with at least 18 college credits in Early Childhood Education (Must obtain a Preschool CDA within one year, or a relevant two‑year degree within two years of hire).

Job Responsibilities

Ensure that all children assigned to classroom are supervised at all times. Perform regular counts of children assigned to ensure that all are accounted for.

Assist in establishing and maintaining a safe, healthy, learning environment.

Assist in providing a safe environment to prevent and reduce injuries.
Assist in promoting good health and nutrition, and provide an environment that contributes to the prevention of illness.
Use space, materials and routines as resources for developing an interesting, secure, and enjoyable environment that encourages play, exploration, and learning.

Assist in advancing physical and intellectual competence.

Assist in providing a variety of equipment, activities and opportunities to promote the physical development of children.
Assist in providing activities and opportunities that encourage curiosity, exploration, and problem solving appropriate to the developmental levels and learning styles of children.
Actively communicate with children; provide opportunities and support for children to understand, acquire, and use verbal and nonverbal means of communicating thoughts and feelings.
Assist in providing opportunities that stimulate children to play with sound, rhythm, language, materials, space and ideas in individual ways and to express their creative abilities.

Assist in supporting social and emotional development and providing positive guidance.

Assist in providing physical and emotional security for each child and help each child to know, accept, and take pride in him‑or‑her‑self, and to develop a sense of independence.
Assist in helping each child feel accepted in the group, help children learn to communicate and get along with others, and encourage feelings of empathy and mutual respect among children and adults.
Assist in providing a supportive environment in which children can begin to learn and practice appropriate and acceptable behaviors as individuals and as a group.
Assist in supporting each child’s culture within the classroom.

Assist in establishing positive and productive relationships with families.

Assist in maintaining an open, friendly, and cooperative relationship with each child’s family, encourage their involvement in the program, and support the child’s relationship with his or her family, through parent‑teacher conferences and volunteering at the site/classroom.
Serve as a role model for Head Start parents and foster appropriate parent‑child interactions in the classroom and in the home.
Assist in extending classroom learning into the home through two educational home visits per year to assigned Head Start enrolled families, and through school‑to‑home activities that support the implementation of the Outcomes Framework.
Assist in providing parents with the knowledge of the Outcomes Framework through parent‑teacher conferences, home visits and parent committee meetings.

Assist in ensuring a well‑run, purposeful program, responsive to participant needs.

Assist in managing the classroom using available resources to ensure an effective operation. This includes skills in organiz

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