Pre K Inclusion Teacher

Briya is committed to promoting diversity, equity and inclusion within our organization and the communities we serve. We embrace diversity of experiences, ideas, and individuals, and seek to bring diverse candidates to the table.

Position Summary:

The Pre-K Inclusion Teacher is part of the early childhood education team at Briya Public Charter School a leading two-generation education program serving parents and their young children. Briya is a Tier One Public Charter School, consistently achieving the highest educational outcomes through its innovative, family-centric programming.

Briya's early childhood program serves children from six weeks through pre-kindergarten. In Briya's dual-language Pre-K classes, children learn through an inquiry-based curriculum. Briya teachers draw inspiration from the pedagogical principles of Reggio Emilia and offer culturally sustaining education for emergent multilingual children. This involves collaborative work and daily play-based assessment of children in inclusive bilingual classrooms. While children attend the early childhood program, their parents attend classes comprised of three highly integrated areas of study: English, child development, and digital literacy. Briya also offers workforce development programs for advanced students to pursue career-ready certifications.

Briya has a strategic partnership with Mary's Center, a Federally Qualified Health Center, further strengthening student families with comprehensive medical, dental, and social services. At three of its four campuses, Briya is co-located with Mary's Center.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

The Pre-K Special Education Teacher position is an in-person full time position between 30-40 hours a week. This position may include, but is not limited to, the following tasks and responsibilities:

Curriculum and Instruction

• Provide specialized instruction and curriculum modifications for preschool aged children with special needs in a bilingual inclusion model in two Pre-K classrooms. Support children's concept and skill development through thoughtful, playful and engaging instruction.
• Create individual plans for assigned students and share strategies and developments with general education teachers. Develop plans in a reflective and responsive manner so that experiences build upon children's emerging interests, ideas, skills, languages, cultures. Modify plans as necessary to accommodate teachable moments and opportunities.
• Carry out learning experiences across developmental areas and content areas and prepare special materials that support concept and skill development in an intentional and individualized way.
• Follow a bilingual planned language approach and utilize evidence-based strategies to help emergent multilingual children build a strong foundation in oral and written language. Utilize research-based strategies and involve families to acknowledge and strengthen children's home language.
• Use evidence-based strategies to establish caring connections with children, use co-regulation to help them regulate their emotions, and support their overall social emotional development.
• Consult regularly with teaching team to review student progress, share ideas and resources, and involve families in student learning and progress towards goals.
• Help to prepare progress reports and learning portfolios for family conferences.
• Plan curricular experiences and modifications for students with IEPS who are the MTSS program.
• Maintain collaborative and productive relationships with all classroom staff including Teacher Assistants and Dedicated Aides.
• Document strategies for individualizing weekly lessons plans for children with special needs on weekly planning forms in ways that are responsive to children's varying needs, skills, abilities and interests. Adapt and modify instruction for diverse learning styles as well as for the unique cultural and linguistic characteristics of preschool students, using evidence-based strategies to support young emergent multilinguals.
• Utilize and contribute to the Briya MTSS/RTI processes, strategies, and materials.
• Share information and strategies with other teachers, therapists, supervisors, parents and other member of multi-disciplinary team as needed.
• Support teaching team to create and maintain an indoor and outdoor learning environment that is organized, comfortable, safe, non-commercial, non-stereotypic, facilitates multi-sensory learning, and responsive to children's diverse and changing interests, abilities, and needs. Help teachers to modify areas or materials to promote universal design for learning principles and utilize principles the Reggio Emilia approach, and Anti-Bias Education.
• Utilize effective and proactive strategies to ensure excellent attendance and retention outcomes for Pre-K students.

Assessment

• Plan and implement specialized instruction that advances children's IEP goals and monitor their progress through data collection that includes observation, assessment, and seeking input from families and the instructional team.
• Demonstrate strong knowledge and implementation of assessment practices; principally through Teaching Strategies GOLD to engage in ongoing cycles of documentation and reflection across content areas. This includes:
  
  
  
  • Taking and entering objective observations
  • Linking observations to curriculum and setting preliminary checkpoint levels
  • Using performance data to guide planning and instruction
  • Completing progress checkpoints in consultation with co-teacher according to checkpoint due dates
  • Use portfolios and information about children's progress in GOLD during family conferences to build strong parent-teacher collaboration.
  
  
  
  

Family Engagement

• Demonstrate understanding of and competence for two generation education by engaging with parents as children's first and most important teachers and building strong connections with families.
• Learn about and honor families' various funds of knowledge and encourage them to contribute to the life of the classroom community. Approach difficult situations with an understanding and curiosity about cultural and educational experiences that may impact formal schooling.
• Partner with classroom and site team members to help families overcome barriers that may impact children's academic or social development. Listen to families' observations about their children and collaborate with co-teachers to provide ideas that support children's learning at home.
• During Family Time, model and promote language and literacy strategies and play based interactions.
• Contribute to parent-friendly newsletters and other family communication that provides key information about children's Participate in family conferences three times per year for children with special needs.
• Support parents of children with special needs during weekly Family Time experiences in designated classroom.
• Provide home visits for Pre-K students with special needs at the beginning of the year or as necessary and completes relevant documentation. Use home visits as opportunities to build or strengthen relationships with families.
• Orients parents to the Special Education and MTSS process in a manner that exemplifies Briya's core values of collaboration, equity, inclusion, trust, learner-centeredness, and regard for parents as children's most important teachers.

Contribution to a Community of Practice

• Contribute to creating a culture of learning and reflection in the school by engaging with research on early childhood education and strive to apply knowledge into daily practice.
• Communicate and collaborate regularly with co-teacher/s about classroom practices, routines, the environment, and children. Use time with other teachers to reflect and plan and support each other as team members.
• Set learning and performance goals, communicate about goals and activities with supervisor and coach on a semi-regular basis, and seek support when necessary
• Participate actively in professional development learning communities, demonstrate self-reflection and growth mindset, give and accept constructive feedback.
• Utilize communication strategies with co-workers that address conflict in a productive and collaborative manner.
• Assist in recruitment of Briya students, field trips, student recognition ceremonies and other celebrations.

Values:

Successful Briya employees demonstrate the school's five core values in the way that they carry out the core responsibilities:

• Learner-Centeredness: Student agency and voice are foundational to high-quality education.
• Inclusiveness: People of all countries, races, religions, cultures, genders, sexual orientations, languages, abilities, and life experiences are integral to the Briya community.
• Trust: A space of safety and mutual respect among students and staff promotes optimal growth and belonging.
• Collaboration: Strategic, agile collaboration on all levels-among staff, students, departments, and community partners-increases the holistic success of student families.
• Equity: The pursuit of equity drives Briya's work. Through our comprehensive, two-generation educational model, we seek to overcome systemic oppression and partner with students to create opportunities for all to thrive.

Competencies:

Employees are also expected to excel in the following competencies:

• Professionalism - Treats others with respect and consideration regardless of their status or position. Follows established policies and procedures to support the overall function of the organization.
• Safety and Security - Observes safety and security procedures, reports potentially unsafe conditions, and uses equipment and materials properly.
• Attendance/Punctuality - Is consistently at work and on time, adhering to a schedule pre-determined between the employee and the supervisor.
• Dependability - Follows instruction and responds to management direction. Takes responsibility for own actions.
• Teamwork - Can work well in multidisciplinary team setting with a variety of cultural and educational backgrounds and experiences. Contributes to building a positive team spirit, puts success of the team above own interests, and supports colleagues' and students' efforts to succeed.

Qualifications:

Must have the following knowledge, skills and/or abilities.

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Education and/or Experience -

• Bachelors Degree in Early Childhood Education or related field
• 2-7 years experience working directly with young children preferably including children who are dual language learners and children with special needs.
• Native or fluent speaker of the modeling language
• Excellent communication skills and ability to create written weekly plans and use online software to document learning
• Current Pediatric First Aid and CPR certification.
• Demonstrates flexibility, knowledge and enthusiasm for working with children of various ages.

Reasoning Ability - Ability to apply common sense understanding to carry out moderately complex, multi-step instructions and make appropriate independent decisions as necessary.

Physical Demands - Regularly required sitting; frequently required to reach with hands and arms, walk, stoop, kneel, crouch, talk or hear; must be able to lift objects up to fifty (50) pounds.

Work Environment - Mostly in a typical classroom setting with moderate noise level. Enrollment in early childhood classrooms depends on the age of the child and is typically between eight and fourteen students.

Salary Range - $60,000 - $70,000k