2024 - 2025 Kipp Durham Middle School 7th Grade Master Teacher

Job Description
CRUCIAL COMPETENCIES
Our seven “re-founding” classroom teachers will blow the following four crucial competencies* out of the water:
Driving for Results:
Our teachers will have a strong desire to achieve outstanding student learning results and the task-oriented actions required for success. Our teachers will set high goals for themselves and their students, making persistent, well-planned efforts to achieve these goals despite barriers and resistance;
holding others accountable for doing their part to achieve results;
and putting in all the extra effort necessary to ensure success.
Influencing for Results:
Our teachers will motivate others—students, staff colleagues, and families—and influence their thinking and behavior to obtain outstanding student learning results. Our teachers will understand that they cannot accomplish change alone, but instead must influence the work of others. They will use a variety of influencing moves—inspiring students, nurturing ridiculously joyful AND rigorous classroom and schoolwide cultures, grasping and responding to unspoken student needs and motivations, and simultaneously supporting and prodding colleagues to collaborate on the path to schoolwide success—as the situation requires. The relationships they will form are for the purpose of influencing others to enhance student learning, not just for the purpose of personal bonding.
Problem-Solving:
Our teachers will be LASER FOCUSED on planning, organizing, and delivering high quality Tier 1 instruction, AND they will continually analyze data to determine student learning needs and next steps for intervention blocks during the day, on select weekend academies, and during summers (while running summer academies during select weeks and participating in summer teacher professional development sessions during other select weeks).
Personal Effectiveness:
Our teachers will exhibit flexibility and optimism when faced with stressful, uncomfortable, and unfamiliar situations;
maintain confidence in themselves and a willingness to keep improving despite the many challenges of their role;
actively embrace the constant changes needed to ensure student learning in high-challenge situations;
and hold and maintain astrong belief in the human potential for learning and improvement, despite significant societal pressures to settle for less. Our teachers will see themselves as not just a classroom teacher, but a SCHOOLWIDE teacher oriented around solutions and being proactive in their engagements.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES
Preparing and Delivering Instruction
Thoroughly review, deeply internalize, and meticulously prepare KIPP NC adopted curricula every single day. KIPP NC has selected the following curricula for its middle schools:
Math:
Open Up Resources, focused on problem solving and developing student thinking
ELA:
KIPP Wheatley
8th Grade Science:
Amplify &
supported Science materials to match NC Standards
State-aligned intervention:
i-Ready
Practice—and then practice some more—lesson delivery to execute curricula at an exceptionally high level
Work to learn the students in the room - working to learn their data and individual needs, including those addressed by IEPs, multilingual language plans, and other individualized plans
Create exemplar responses and documents for work to hold students accountable and to facilitate collaboration with colleagues
Use assessment data (i-Ready data, IA data, EOG data, DIBELS data, curricular data, exit tickets, student quizzes and work) to drive instruction, make hard pivots when necessary, and make individualized learning plans for every student in their care
Set clear, high expectations, and hold students accountable for performance—all of which requires taking personal responsibility and doing everything required to reach challenging goals
Embrace and incorporate the gift of feedback from wherever it comes—colleagues, principal, assistant principal, regional coaches, students, wherever—in the spirit of Pursuing Excellence, one of KIPP NC core values
Do all the operational things that support great instruction, like maintaining an accurate and timely gradebook, keeping records, and completing tasks for data tracking systems
Building Positive Classroom and Schoolwide Cultures
Develop positive relationships with students, families, teachers, and staff through regular positive phone calls to families, routine curbside check-ins with families at arrival and dismissal, weekly newsletters from the classroom, and attendance at all school events, including Back-to-School Night, family conferences, report card conferences, and all other school celebrations
Leverage those relationships to induce behaviors and instructional habits from students that are significantly different from those previously exhibited;
pinpoint and tap the needs, wants, and underlying motivations of students
Participate fully in the daily routines of a school that form the foundation of culture, like arrival/dismissal, advisory/circle time, lunch, hallway transitions, and the 1,000 other moments that make up a day
Embody, nurture, and build KIPP NC’s core values (Pursuing Excellence, Building Knowledge, Fighting Injustice, Sparking Joy, and Rising Together) and the school’s student and staff cultures
Assume personal responsibility for student achievement, all the students in the school, and the success of staff colleagues
Create and maintain a joyful classroom space that exudes love, builds a sense of belonging, and celebrates learning, which includes displaying current student work and grade level/content- appropriate and identity-affirming decorations
Exemplifying a Growth Mindset
Collaborate with leaders and coaches to identify areas of strength and areas of growth for professional development throughout the year, some of which will be leader-led, and some of which will happen in the quiet after-school moments in classrooms with colleagues in the routine preparation for the next day
Attend practice clinics to hone and sharpen pedagogical skills and lesson delivery
Participate in Teacher Work Days, Regional Data Days, and Professional Development meetings after school;
satiate their hunger tolearn and grow as a professional
Taking Care of Yourself
Use the many benefits the organization offers employees (health benefits, generous school holidays, etc.) to relieve stress after the workday is done or over school breaks and holidays, as the job of turning a school around is tough—teachers will experience stress and emotional challenges associated with all the essential duties enumerated above, and self-care will be a priority