Professional Learning Specialist

School District of Philadelphia•Philadelphia, PA

About The Position

The School District of Philadelphia is committed to becoming the fastest improving District in the country and transforming the educational opportunities it offers to our city’s more than 200,000 students. The District seeks leaders who have a passion for working with schools and communities who are committed to ensuring all students achieve. Serving a population as diverse as ours requires creativity, commitment and vision. Will you join us? Job Summary The School District of Philadelphia is committed to having schools staffed with great teachers and principals. Professional Learning Specialists are responsible for supporting the continuous development of teachers, principals, and support staff. Professional Learning Specialists design, align, and facilitate, professional learning opportunities for educators throughout the School District of Philadelphia (SDP). Work involves formulating and implementing plans to meet the short-term and long-term needs of the District’s teaching and administrative staff. Work additionally involves determining training and personnel development needs on a learning network, school and individual level. Professional Learning Specialists are tasked with providing high-quality professional growth opportunities that will enhance educators’ leadership, cultural competency, organizational, communication, problem-solving, and outcomes-oriented skills. Their work also involves supporting the District’s curriculum, assessment, and instructional goals. Supports the District, network, and schools in delivering a seamless system of comprehensive support in alignment with the District’s Equity-based Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) Model. Works to ensure equitable services to students and expands existing support structure for delivery of all levels of MTSS implementation within schools by collaborating with school administrators, teachers, and support staff to ensure that MTSS is effectively integrated to address the academic, behavioral, and social-emotional needs of all students.

Requirements

Master’s degree from an accredited college or university in education, teacher leadership, administration or a related field.
Five years of full-time, paid, professional teaching experience, which has included working with evidence-based interventions, developing and implementing professional development, and serving as a staff development leader, supervisor, or principal.
Possession of a valid Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Administrative certificate for K-12 or Elementary and Secondary Principal.
Demonstrated knowledge of: the principles, practices and techniques of academic pedagogy, trends and best practices.
Demonstrated knowledge of: the principles, practices and techniques of working with adult educators.
Demonstrated knowledge of: standards-aligned instruction, pedagogy, instructional supports, and evidence based instructional practices.
Demonstrated knowledge of: the methods and techniques used in effective program planning, design and administration.
Demonstrated knowledge of: the current educational issues that directly impact student learning.
Demonstrated knowledge of: effective facilitation moves and approaches to engage adults in collaboration.
Demonstrated ability to: understand the core curriculum as it relates to high-quality Tier One instructional planning.
Demonstrated ability to: exercise discretion and tact in dealing with sensitive situations.
Demonstrated ability to: maintain necessary records and files, compile information and prepare reports.
Demonstrated ability to: process multiple tasks simultaneously, adhere to timelines, and bring plans to completion within a timely manner.
Demonstrated ability to: assess the effectiveness of programmatic activities and make recommendations for modifications as needed.
Demonstrated ability to: expertly develop and facilitate presentations that engage adults in meaningful ways to impact practice.
Demonstrated ability to: evaluate effectiveness of professional development and implement changes as needed.
Demonstrated ability to: conduct research and analyze data to inform District, network and school supports.
Demonstrated ability to: gather, track, and use data to drive decision making and create detailed reports.
Demonstrated ability to: effectively use Google Drive including documents, sheets, slides, and forms to develop and share content and presentations.
Demonstrated ability to: communicate effectively, both orally and in writing.
Demonstrated ability to: establish and maintain effective working relationships.

Responsibilities

Designs and facilitates professional learning and development sessions and courses on a variety of topics to support the designated programmatic framework.
Conducts professional learning and development sessions by learning network, grade band, and school type to bolster educator effectiveness and student progress.
Research new trends in education in an effort to keep staff aligned with the Pedagogical shifts and SDP instructional practices.
Thoughtfully creates customized professional learning modules for educators.
Support District initiatives.
Leads content programming, logistics, and communication for large-scale District wide professional learning programming.
Coaches leadership teams, teacher leaders, and teachers in the implementation of professional learning.
Develops plans for measuring the impact of professional learning; creates tools for collecting data; analyzes that data to make in-year and end of year programmatic decisions.
Hires and develops part-time employees who support facilitation and logistics in District-wide programming.
Plans and administers the implementation of instructional strategies to support academic achievement aligned to Board of Education Goals and Guardrails.
Conducts professional learning and development sessions for principals, leadership teams, and teachers based on data informed needs.
Assists school-based instructional leadership teams in analyzing data and creating an action plan to respond to data analysis.
Debriefs with teachers, school leadership teams, and academic staff to analyze and support the instructional practices in schools.
Visits schools and classrooms and provides support to improve instructional and assessment strategies through instructional rounds and other informal visits.
Develops and implements Common Planning Time as a District strategy.