Dean of Culture

Dean of Culture

VOICE Charter School is an elementary and middle school located in Long Island City, Queens that serves about 650 students across grades K-8. We are located just minutes from Manhattan and Long Island City's growing waterfront district, thriving arts community, and rapid residential growth. We are looking to identify extraordinary educators and administrators committed to urban education who wish to join a dynamic professional learning community.

Our mission is to create a safe and healthy learning environment that will nurture, motivate and challenge all of our children to achieve the highest level of academic excellence and to develop into mindful, responsible, contributing participants in their education, their community and the diverse society in which we live.

What makes VOICE different?

At VOICE, it's not just about the music. It's about the people. It's about what you can be. It's about using your passion. It's about relationships. It's about having the opportunity to choose. It's about caring enough. It's about each individual child and adult.

We believe in efficacy. At the core of our academic culture is the idea that all students are capable of doing well in any discipline. At VOICE, all students will learn – being smart is not something that you are, it is something you become. At VOICE, you will be pushed to become more.

We support and develop the effectiveness of our teachers. We believe that teachers need time to collaborate to build their practice, so we provide our team with over two hours of planning time a day as well as additional days for collaborative thought partnership and planning during the school year.

We promote participation in music and the arts. As music and art help develop problem solving and critical thinking skills and open children's imaginations, all VOICE students participate in and learn from daily activities in the arts including rigorous choral training. We design our arts-integrated curriculum to bring joy and wonder to the lives of our children, providing them with the skills necessary to forge their own path.

All Staff at VOICE:

• Love and nurture all of our students as they become deeply caring and responsible individuals;
• Take personal responsibility and work collaboratively to ensure that all students achieve and grow, understanding that the performance and progress of our students is directly under our control;
• Ask questions and empower students to exercise curiosity and wonder about the world around them;
• Hold themselves to the highest standards;
• Push and support themselves, their students, and their colleagues;
• Proactively seek and incorporate feedback;
• Help each individual child gain the opportunity to choose what his or her future will be.

Position Responsibilities:

The Dean of Culture promotes a healthy school culture by training, supervising, and evaluating classroom assistants, and overseeing student discipline. Additionally, the Dean of Culture will create and manage VOICE's advisory program and school-wide activities that enhance student and staff social-emotional well-being. The Dean of Culture focuses on building and sustaining a positive, structured school climate, which blends student discipline, family communication, staff support, and schoolwide culture systems

Major Responsibilities:

Student Discipline

1. Support student discipline, conflict resolution, and restorative practices.
2. Implement proactive best practices that supports both students and staff to foster a positive school culture.
3. Work with staff, administrators, and families to address behavioral concerns.
4. Developing content for and delivering professional development on student discipline.
5. Modeling, training, and coaching new and selected staff on VOICE discipline strategies.
6. Investigating and resolving student disciplinary matters daily.
7. Maintaining student discipline-related documents and procedures.
8. Reviewing staff incident reports and communicating incidents to the school leadership team.
9. Investigating and resolving disciplinary matters:

• Review incident reports
• Maintain required discipline documentation
• Implement thoughtful natural consequences to address student misbehavior
• Review parent notes as needed.
• Conduct suspension hearings for all grades.
• Initiate and maintain communication with families regarding student behavior.
• Trigger alternate instruction for suspension.

Student Culture

1. Development and implement an aligned advisory program that fosters cognitive and moral development.
2. Collaborating with a variety of stakeholders to design and implement proactive strategies to promote positive student culture
3. Ensuring physical environment reflects the spirit and vision of culture at our school
4. Implementing proactive strategies to engage families; attending and facilitating relevant events
5. Providing student information as requested for special education, ACS, social work, or other parties
6. Ensuring school day transition procedures are followed by faculty
7. Creating and managing school-wide activities that enhance student social-emotional well-being and values comprehension
8. Coordinating onboarding for students who are new to VOICE

Training, Development and Supervision

1. Developing and implementing internal professional development for staff.
2. Employ strategies in developing supervisees and cultivating team culture, which may include but is not limited to leading team check-ins and participating in 1:1 meetings.
3. Supervise and support individual supervises' professional development and job responsibilities, which may include but is not limited to providing coaching, feedback, training and helping to manage conflicts as appropriate.
4. Provide supervisees with regular performance evaluations through VOICE's formal mid-year and end-of-year performance evaluation processes.
5. Observe and provide feedback to teachers
6. Develop and implement coaching plans that are measurable and goal-driven
7. Model instructional strategies as needed.
8. Identifying and coordinating classroom assistant participation in external professional development offerings.
9. Envisioning, developing content for, and leading weekly classroom assistant meetings, oftentimes engaging assistants with core practices and the study of values and/or teaching techniques.
10. Modeling behavior management and instructional strategies for classroom assistants and what effective support looks like.
11. Observing and providing feedback to classroom assistants both formally and informally.
12. Communicating classroom assistant progress and needs to the instructional leadership team.
13. Creating, implementing and following up on assistant evaluations and working with faculty to give input on assistant performance.
14. Creating and tracking goals for assistants.
15. Organizing and leading assistant leadership initiatives; providing socio-emotional support for assistants and identifying them for growth opportunities at VOICE.

Duties Supervision

1. Supervising deployment of assistants to morning and afternoon duties to ensure safe transitions to and from class; remaining available in case of emergencies
2. Supervising lunch and recess to ensure adequate lunch time for students and safe play.
3. Work with teachers, counselors, administrators, and families to address behavioral concerns.
4. Ensure general coverage as appropriate

Culture Team

1. Design and implement teacher professional development based on identified cultural needs
2. Communicating classroom assistant progress and needs to the instructional leadership team
3. Communicating with the Assistant Principal and Principal weekly on assistant progress and needs

Position Qualifications:

Educational Background and Work Experience

• Bachelors and Master degrees from accredited college or university
• Valid NY State Teacher Certification
• 3+ years of classroom teaching experience with improvements in student achievement
• Preferred: 2+ years of leadership experience (e.g. instructional coach, team leader)
• Preferred: Experience working in an urban school setting

Knowledge

• VOICE's mission, vision, values, and culture
• Tact and sensitivity, including but not limited to adhering to confidentiality obligations such as mandated reporting as part of child protection
• Familiarity with restorative practices and the implementation of both staff and student facing best practices.
• Experience with advisory programs and the creation and implementation of SEL lessons within a structured grade level curriculum.

Skills and Abilities

• Effective skills in self-management including but not limited to meeting deadlines, effective prioritization of tasks, self-organization, managing up, and efficient time and task management
• Strong relationship-building and conflict-resolution skills.
• Ability to gather and analyze data using defined and differentiated processes
• Ability to build