To be considered for this position, candidates must also apply to the Boston Public Schools Principals and Heads of School posting and be screened through the district screening process. In your cover letter, please clearly indicate interest in the Co-Leader role at the Lyndon.

 

Summary

 

The Patrick Lyndon Pilot School has a unique opportunity for two collaborative school leaders to join our supportive community. Located in West Roxbury, the Lyndon is a K - 8 school with experienced staff, dedicated families, and engaged students. Since its inception as a pilot school over two decades ago, Lyndon has operated as a Co-Leadership model. Currently, both co-leader positions are posted for the 2023-24 school year. 

 

Reports to: Regional Superintendent for Region 5

 

SKILLS, COMPETENCIES, AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

 

1. Visionary Leader: Lyndon School co-leaders work collaboratively together, along with the staff and SSC to develop and implement a clearly defined vision that honors and acknowledges the assets, fund of knowledge and cultural wealth of students and families.  The vision maintains a clear focus on achieving sustainable success for every student, providing access to equitable opportunities, and building an inclusive and culturally responsive school culture and environment.

• Vision: Build and act on a vision that is informed, continually refined and strengthened through staff, student and family input, student data, best practice, and community input.
• Reflection: Reflect on their leadership behaviors and practice.  Seek feedback from staff, families, and other relevant stakeholders. Apply feedback  to continuously improve.
• Communications: Establish consistent, reliable, and omnidirectional  communication and engagement opportunities with staff, students, families, prospective families, and other stakeholder groups. Adapt messages and actions to speak and to listen to each audience, addressing their unique questions or needs. Respond to all forms of communication in a thorough, timely, and accurate manner. 
• Curriculum and Instruction: Provide opportunities for collaboration and growth in curriculum and instructional skills, evaluate curricula, seek opportunities for professional devleopment
• Operations: Able to set and work against a strict budget, adhere to legal regulations and union workplace guidelines, evaluate and manage staff, and establish systems and a schedule that best serve students and enable staff to work effectively.

2. Pilot School Governance / Shared Decision-Making 

• In consultation with the district and Boston Teachers Union, the following must be reviewed/prepared on an annual basis and presented to the SSC for approval:
• Annual Budget
• Curriculum, evaluation, and program priorities
• Teacher evaluation process
• Staffing plan and corresponding schedule
• Election to Work agreement 
• 90-Day School Plan (Quality School Plan)
• Keep the school’s mission at the forefront of all decisions and practices, using the mission to guide the development of goals. 
• Work closely with the governing board - the School Site Council (SSC) - to ensure the school stays on track with its mission and goals. 
• Lead the effort to create a budget, schedule, and staffing pattern that best serves teaching and learning while also adhering to union rules. 
• Ensure a focus on high academic expectations, challenging and culturally responsive curriculum, effective instruction, and support for all students. 
• Ensure the financial well-being of the school, including support of parent/community fundraising efforts.
• Mobilize and support teacher leadership, for example,  by creating teams or committees to lead specific goals, including the Instructional Leadership Team.

3. Instructional Leader: Lyndon School co-leaders take initiative to create change and implement new initiatives grounded in equity to accomplish sustainable results. They have the knowledge and experience to build, support and empower their staff to create healthy and sustaining learning environments and consistently deliver excellent and equitable instruction.

• Design and implement the vision, goals, and requirements for instructional excellence and the pathway for student academic gains in collaboration with Co-Leader
• Curriculum: Support and advocate for the adoption and implementation of high quality, culturally responsive and standards-aligned instructional materials; coaching, leading professional development, leading data-driven decision-making, and managing all internal academic assessments and data coordination; Design and implement the vision, goals, and requirements for instructional excellence and the pathway for student academic gains in collaboration with Co-Leader
• Practice: Monitor and ensure high quality, culturally responsive instructional practices among teachers and staff to advance learning for every student. Ensure instruction is contextualized in students’ lives, promotes academic discourse, develops students’ critical consciousness, and enables students to demonstrate learning in a variety of ways.
• Resources: Works with teacher leaders in the evaluation of instructional materials, including textbooks, digital resources, library/media acquisitions, and other instructional materials; Ensures the effective use of technology in the teaching-learning process
• Equity in Instruction: Oversight of and Coordinating with Learning Specialists and Paraprofessionals and ensuring quality completion of all documents (i.e Consent/Assessment Planning, Learning Environment Interventions, Notice of Conference, Parental Excusal of Staff) prior to meeting; Coordinate with outside service providers (psychologist, nurse); ensure alignment of student needs with correct services to provide academic excellence for all
• Growth Pathways: Provide pathways and opportunities for educators to grow as instructional leaders by providing opportunities for educators to lead in all of the above; this includes observing and meeting with teachers on a regular basis. Work with Co-Leader to organize, develop, and deliver on-site high quality professional development; Support with hiring process and onboarding for new teachers

4. Operational Leader: 

• Design and implement the vision, goals, and requirements for instructional excellence and the pathway for student academic gains in collaboration with Co-Leader
• Data management: Oversee data entry, ensuring integrity and accurate reporting of data; Consistently examine and use disaggregated data to support calls for change in practice or instructional approach, paying close attention to inequities and gaps for historically marginalized students; share pre-identified trends and areas of focus at a bi-weekly cadence; Ensure up-to-date accurate transcripts; efficiently using data to make decisions through analysis, action planning and execution
• Schedules: Create student and staff master schedules; coordinate with Co-Leader and Grade-Level teams
• Budget and Facilities: Oversee school budget and bookkeeping to ensure that the school's resources are aligned with academic priorities; Oversee management of the school facility, ensuring its appearance reflects the high expectations we hold for students; Manage vendor relationships; Actively seek out partnerships aligned with school values
• Student Support: Lead MTSS school-wide interventions and strategies; communicate with and support teachers and advisors in planning tier one interventions; Develop grade-level specific interventions that support scholars who are academically off-track or whose attendance is off-track
• School Culture: Create strategy for enrichment offerings, manage student process, and execute data recording procedures; Oversee the logistics, planning, and implementation of school events and services provided to students; Manage and execute on enrollment processes and recruitment; Plan and execute staff-oriented events in order to increase team cohesiveness and teamwork
• Growth Pathways: Provide pathways and opportunities for educators to grow as instructional leaders by providing opportunities for educators to lead in all of the above; this includes observing and meeting with teachers on a regular basis. Work with Co-Leader to organize, develop, and deliver on-site high quality professional development; Support with hiring process and onboarding for new teachers

5. Leader in Equity: Lyndon School co-leaders believe deeply in the potential for every student to succeed, and work tirelessly each day to create an anti-racist school environment that is built around high expectations, an inclusive and welcoming culture, and an expectation of excellence for all.

• Disrupt Inequities: Take clear, swift action to disrupt inherent inequities within the school community and relentlessly pursue what is right for students, even in the face of opposition from those in power.
• Passion for Students: Require all educators in the school to maintain and model a similar asset-based perspective of students and families and commitment to student learning, growth, and opportunity.
• Culture: Embrace all student cultures and native languages, and engage and lead others in creating opportunities for the full community to celebrate and learn from them through linguistic and culture-sustaining experiences
• Awareness: Ensures regular opportunities for educators to build awareness of their own cultural identities, lenses and biases through text-based dialogue and activities that enable educators to identify, confront and disrupt biases and racism.
• Confronting Racism: Actively confronts racism, stereotypes and biases and empowers the school community - educators, students, families and partners - to do the same.

6. Team Management: Lyndon School co-leaders will purposefully recruit, select, and support an experienced, culturally competent and diverse team who can work together to ensure the success of all students in the building.

• Staffing: Ensure practices that yield and retain staff that have an asset-based mindset and fervent belief in the students and families served by the school. Place staff in roles that play to their strengths and enable them to have the greatest impact on students.
• Growth: Facilitate the growth of individuals through ongoing, actionable feedback and evaluation; creates and empowers educators to seek out stretch opportunities; and coaches and mentor teachers to achieve the school mission and grow as leaders.
• Collaboration: Provide space for staff to engage in collaborative work to meet their immediate needs and build their longer-term capacity through Common Planning Time, weekly Morning Meetings and PD, coaching, mentoring, and the development of teacher-led Professional Learning Communities. 
• Feedback: Provide and support others to provide real-time personalized, actionable feedback and opportunities so staff can celebrate their wins, and identify areas where they need to improve. Hold staff members accountable to changes in their practice to best serve students.

7. Culture & Community Building: Lyndon School co-leaders create and maintain a safe, supportive and sustaining  school community and an environment for learning in which all students and their families feel welcome.

• One School: Create and execute  a long-term  plan to bring together the lower grade teams (K1 - 3) and upper grade teams (4 - 8). Bring teams together to foster collaboration and create efficiencies. Create and sustain a school culture of “we” vs. “I,” with partnership and collaboration of  all of the adults across the building and school community, including teachers, administrators, central office staff, paraprofessionals, custodial staff, itinerant staff, the SSC, PTA and other community committees. 
• Communication: Facilitate communication between parent/ family groups (for example, PTA, Friends of the Lyndon).
• Safe Space: Create a physically and psychologically safe space for all students, families and staff, where they feel consistently heard, seen, valued and respected.
• SEL: Model the principles of culturally responsive social and emotional learning through daily interactions with staff and students; coach staff to do the same to provide students with the social and emotional support they need.
• Partnerships: Build authentic relationships with students, families and communities to enable learning partnerships. Support educators in establishing genuine partnership with families, intentionally learn from families, and encourage family involvement in classrooms and school. Ensure proactive and positive outreach to families and partners so that they may engage meaningfully with school in traditional and non-traditional ways.

 

QUALIFICATIONS - REQUIRED:

• Masters in Education or Similar Field
• Possession of a valid Massachusetts Professional (not initial) Teacher License (PK-6 or 7-12), and  School Administrator License (PK-6 or 5-8)
• Teaching and leadership experience in an urban public school setting 
• Current authorization to work in the United States—candidates must have such authorization by their first day of employment
• ESL endorsement 

 

QUALIFICATIONS - PREFERRED: 

• Multilingual 
• Boston resident
• ESL license
• Valid MA Professional or Initial Special Education Teacher License 
• Experience working with students with moderate disabilities or severe special education needs 
• Mastery of and enthusiasm for instructional pedagogy, data collection & analysis, and action planning & execution
• Experience in managing people, systems, and/or projects
• Follow through, attention to detail, and a belief that sweating the small stuff matters 
• Experience creating and managing data tracking systems
• Project management experience
• Master scheduler experience

 

TERMS:  BTU, Group I

 

Please refer to www.bostonpublicschools.org/ohc (under "Employee Benefits and Policies") for more information on salary and compensation.  Salaries are listed by Unions and Grade/Step. In accordance with the schedules of traditional school leaders at other Boston Public Schools, BTU Pilot Teacher-Leaders will work 223 days during the calendar year. This includes all days school is in session and an additional 43 days which will be decided upon in tandem with the academic superintendent for the school.

 

The start and end times of BPS schools vary, as do the lengths of the school day. Some BPS schools have a longer school day through the "Schedule A" Expanded Learning Time (ELT) agreement. To learn more about ELT at BPS and whether or not this school is a "Schedule A" ELT school, check here: https://www.bostonpublicschools.org/Page/6571. To see the bell schedule for every BPS school, go to: https://www.bostonpublicschools.org/Page/7017. Please note, these times may be subject to change prior to the start of the SY20-21 school year.

 

The Boston Public Schools, in accordance with its nondiscrimination policies, does not discriminate in its programs, facilities, or employment or educational opportunities on the basis of race, color, age, criminal record (inquiries only), disability, homelessness, sex/gender, gender identity, religion, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, genetics or military status, and does not tolerate any form of retaliation, or bias-based intimidation, threat or harassment that demeans individuals’ dignity or interferes with their ability to learn or work.