(NAME-MCE) Founding Teachers Wanted for New School Design Team

[Kyle Meador]

Bayview Essential School of Music, Art and Social Justice

We are looking for teachers of Math, Science, Spanish, English Language Arts, Social Studies, Special Education, and Technology/Digital Arts who have experience working with urban youth, youth of color and traditionally underserved students. We need dedicated, creative and hardworking educators interested in working on a team to plan and design an instructional program for a small, public high school in Bayview Hunters Point, San Francisco that will open in August 2008.

Founding Teachers: Ideally, we are looking for educators to join the school’s instructional design team that are also interested in applying for a teaching job at the school.

Mission: Our mission is to engage, educate and empower Bayview youth to transform their lives while positively contributing to the betterment of their community. Our students will become independent thinkers, problem solvers and self-directed learners. Bayview Essential School students will graduate as artists, scholars and leaders. We use the ten common principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools, found at www.essentialschools.org, to guide our school’s vision as a lab school.

Instructional Approach: We believe young people learn best by building an understanding of the world through doing and discovering, actively scaffolding new knowledge and experience onto old. The themes and topics, already identified by the students during our summer pilot program, aligned with state standards for essential skills and content, will drive the school program and courses. Bayview Essential School will serve as a type of think tank for the relevant issues that youth face on a daily basis. Youth learn best when the curriculum is relevant to their lives, when they can unearth issues with which they’re confronted, hear and express various perspectives, suggest solutions for change, and make a contribution to their community. The Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood will be used as an extension of the classroom. In this physical laboratory students will research and tackle relevant social justice issues that impact the quality of life of their community. Using the recording arts, performing arts and digital filmmaking as vehicles for learning, students will document the life of their community and tell their personal stories while discovering new ways of understanding themselves and how to use these mediums to influence change in their community and the world beyond.

Design Process: We are looking for educators to work on designing an instructional program for the school using a collaborative process. The curriculum must be aligned to our instructional approach, the CES Ten Common Principles as well as state standards. The team will meet every two weeks and use tools and protocols to collaboratively map and calibrate the work. Each design team member dedicates about 10-15 hours a month on projects and meetings.

Qualifications:
• Strong teaching skills
• Experience teaching in a small school preferred
• Curriculum development experience
• Experience teaching using project based learning and service learning a plus
• Experience designing small schools a plus
• Experience working with high school students a must
• Experience teaching in non-traditional settings preferred
• People of color and residents of Bayview Hunters Point encouraged to apply

Salary & Benefits: Stipend for Feb. 1st – July 15th

Various Paid Professional Development Opportunities including a week-long design training, visits to other small progressive schools, assessment tools, rubrics, protocols, etc.

To apply please send a cover letter and resume to:

Francisco Gutierrez
Design Team Leader
Coalition of Essential Schools
1330 Broadway Suite 600 Oakland, CA 94612
fgutierrez at essentialschools.org