Special Education Teacher - Elementary

Haverhill Public Schools•Haverhill, MA

1d•Onsite

About The Position

Haverhill Public Schools is seeking a Special Education Teacher for the Elementary level for the 2024-2025 school year. This role involves providing direct services to children with moderate disabilities in integrated and pullout settings, developing modifications for regular classrooms, participating in evaluation teams, and developing appropriate reports and IEPs. The teacher will also train Educational Support Personnel, coordinate team meetings, and work cooperatively with colleagues and parents. The position requires a strong understanding of subject matter, pedagogy, and student developmental levels, with the ability to design differentiated learning experiences, units of instruction, and well-structured lessons. The teacher will be responsible for designing and administering various assessments, analyzing data to improve student learning, and providing feedback to students and families. Instruction should be guided by high expectations, motivational strategies, and tiered instruction to accommodate diverse learning needs. The learning environment should be safe and conducive to academic risk-taking, fostering students' interpersonal and communication skills. Cultural proficiency is essential, with strategies to respect and affirm differences and appropriately address conflicts. Clear communication and enforcement of standards for student work, effort, and behavior are expected, along with modeling effective effort. Instruction, materials, and assessments must be adapted to make challenging material accessible. Family and community engagement is crucial, including updating parents on curriculum, suggesting support strategies, and providing clear expectations. Two-way communication with families about student performance is required, along with respectful and sensitive communication regarding home language, culture, and values. Regular reflection on practice and student learning is expected, along with proposing professional growth goals. Collaboration with colleagues for curriculum development, work analysis, and intervention planning is key. The teacher will contribute ideas to school-level decision-making and reinforce schoolwide expectations, sharing responsibility for meeting student needs. Additional responsibilities include instruction and general duties as assigned by the Principal, Director of Special Education, Superintendent, or School Committee.

Requirements

Licensed by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education as a Teacher of Students with Moderate Disabilities –Pk-8– Required, SEI Endorsement required.
Proficiency as evidenced through transcripts of undergraduate and/or graduate work in the fields in which candidates apply.

Nice To Haves

Bilingual preferred
Previous teaching and/or successful experience working with Children with Moderate Special Needs - preferred.
Preference will be given to candidates who furnish evidence of academic accomplishment and strength in the content areas.

Responsibilities

Provides direct services for children in integrated and pullout settings as determined by IEP’s.
Develops modifications to assist students in the regular classrooms.
Participates as a member of the evaluation team when appropriate.
Evaluates children who have been referred, developing appropriate reports and IEP’s as required.
Trains classroom Educational Support Personnel as necessary.
Coordinate and arrange team meeting process if requested.
Works cooperatively with other personnel and parents.
Possesses sound knowledge and understanding of the subject matter and the pedagogy it requires by consistently engaging students in learning experiences that enable them to acquire complex knowledge and skills in the subject.
Possesses knowledge of the developmental levels of students in the classroom and the different ways these students learn by providing differentiated learning experiences that enable all students to progress toward meeting intended outcomes.
Ability to design units of instruction with measurable outcomes and challenging tasks requiring higher-order thinking skills that enable students to learn the knowledge and skills defined in state standards/local curricula.
Ability to design well-structured lessons with challenging, measurable objectives and appropriate student engagement strategies, pacing, sequence, activities, materials, resources, technologies, and grouping.
Ability to design and administer a variety of informal and formal methods and assessments, including common interim assessments, to measure each student’s learning, growth, and progress toward achieving state/local standards.
Ability to design and analyze results from a variety of assessments to determine progress toward intended outcomes and uses these findings to adjust practice and identify and/or implement appropriate differentiated interventions and enhancements for students.
Individually and with colleagues, draw appropriate conclusions from a thorough analysis of a wide range of assessment data to improve student learning.
Regularly share with appropriate colleagues (e.g., general education, special education, and English learner staff) conclusions about student progress and seek feedback from them about instructional or assessment practices that will support improved student learning.
Based on assessment results, provide descriptive feedback and engage students and families in constructive conversation that focuses on how students can improve their performance.
Consistently define high expectations for the quality of student work and the perseverance and effort required to produce it; often provide exemplars, rubrics, and guided practice.
Ability to consistently use instructional practices that are likely to motivate and engage most students during the lesson.
Use appropriate practices, including tiered instruction and scaffolds, to accommodate differences in learning styles, needs, interests, and levels of readiness, including those of students with disabilities and English learners.
Use rituals, routines, and appropriate responses that create and maintain a safe physical and intellectual environment where students take academic risks and most behaviors that interfere with learning are prevented.
Develop students’ interpersonal, group, and communication skills and provides opportunities for students to learn in groups with diverse peers.
Consistently create learning experiences that guide students to identify their strengths, interests, and needs; ask for support when appropriate; take academic risks; and challenge themselves to learn.
Consistently use strategies and practices that are likely to enable students to demonstrate respect for and affirm their own and others’ differences related to background, identity, language, strengths, and challenges.
Anticipate and respond appropriately to conflicts or misunderstandings arising from differences in backgrounds, languages, and identities.
Clearly communicate and consistently enforce specific standards for student work, effort, and behavior.
Effectively model and reinforce ways that students can master challenging material through effective effort, rather than having to depend on innate ability.
Consistently adapt instruction, materials, and assessments to make challenging material accessible to all students, including English learners and students with disabilities.
Use a variety of strategies to support every family to participate actively and appropriately in the classroom and school community.
Regularly update parents on curriculum throughout the year and suggest strategies for supporting learning at school and home, including appropriate adaptation for students with disabilities or limited English proficiency.
Consistently provide parents with clear, user-friendly expectations for student learning and behavior.
Regularly use two-way communication with families about student performance and learning and responds promptly and carefully to communications from families.
Always communicate respectfully with families and demonstrates understanding of and sensitivity to different families’ home language, culture, and values.
Regularly reflect on the effectiveness of lessons, units, and interactions with students, both individually and with colleagues, and uses insights gained to improve practice and student learning.
Propose challenging, measurable professional practice, team, and student learning goals that are based on thorough self-assessment and analysis of student learning data.
Consistently seek out and apply, when appropriate, ideas for improving practice from supervisors, colleagues, professional development activities, and other resources to gain expertise and/or assume different instruction and leadership responsibilities.
Consistently and effectively collaborate with colleagues in such work as developing standards-based units, examining student work, analyzing student performance, and planning appropriate intervention.
Consistently contribute relevant ideas and expertise to planning and decision making at the school, department, and/or grade level.
Within and beyond the classroom, consistently reinforce schoolwide behavior and learning expectations for all students, and contributes to their learning by sharing responsibility for meeting their needs.
Responsible for instruction and general duties as indicated by the building Principal, Director of Special Education, directives of the Superintendent of Schools his/her designees, and policies of the Haverhill School Committee.