Position : Preschool Teacher
Cambridge Preschool Program/Cambridgeport School

Cambridgeport School Community:
At the Cambridgeport School, we believe that learning unfolds when we provide conditions for children to explore, inquire, and shape their understandings. Cambridgeport teachers and families work as a community to ensure every child's success. The school values the culture and beliefs each child brings to the classroom, and teachers believe that children must engage with their world to make sense of it and build their knowledge. Each student is expected to take responsibility for their learning while collaborating, supporting, and respecting others.

Teachers provide learning experiences that guide and capture our students' interests while helping them develop literacy and math skills, think critically, solve problems, and engage in rich scientific and historical inquiry. Learning expeditions allow students to investigate a topic and produce work with a specific purpose and an authentic audience. Examples include exploring the life cycle, the importance of butterflies, or the role of fables within a culture or society. The strong bonds between teacher and students support a deeper level of understanding,
learning, and engagement.

The Role:
The Cambridgeport School seeks an innovative and collaborative practitioner to join our community as the lead teacher in our Preschool classroom. This is an exciting opportunity for a teacher who wants to inspire young learners through authentic student-centered literacy, mathematics, science, and social studies units in accordance with school, district, and state guidelines. We are eager to identify an individual who can collaborate effectively with the other staff members, sees themselves as a learner, and can balance both the rigorous responsibility and the joy of working as part of a PreK-5 school.

The Cambridgeport School serves children and families from a diverse range of racial, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds. We recognize that elementary-aged children benefit from seeing themselves reflected in the adults around them, and we are eager to field applications from candidates whose backgrounds mirror the diversity of the students we serve.

The successful candidate will possess a strong conceptual understanding of literacy, mathematics, social studies, and science instruction at the elementary level and effective techniques for engaging young learners.

This individual will work under the general supervision of the principal and assistant principal and will be evaluated according to the professional standards articulated in the Massachusetts Teacher Rubric.

The Preschool teacher will work closely with a paraprofessional, staff members, parents, and the school as a whole. Commitment to working within a team is essential. In cooperation with faculty colleagues, they are responsible for the planning, implementation, and ongoing adaptation of a curriculum that integrates multicultural values and experiences and is informed by Cambridge, state, and national curriculum expectations, as well as children's individual developmental needs and interests.

The teacher will provide a creative, well-organized physical environment that is activity-centered, rich in many forms of expression, and encourages students to make choices and become increasingly responsible for their learning. They will provide strong language and literacy learning experiences, implement project learning that connects academic disciplines, integrate technology into the curriculum, use a variety of learning approaches, develop opportunities for students to work collaboratively in ways that enhance a strong sense of self and a healthy respect for others in a diverse, multicultural community; and maintain high expectations for all students. They will be expected to draw on a well-developed knowledge of early childhood to encourage each student's personal, social, and academic growth. They will work with families to develop shared goals for their children's education and encourage active participation in their children's learning, including attendance at family-student-teacher conferences. They will maintain portfolios for each student and other longitudinal documentation to record each student's growth and development, including preparing biannual narrative reports of student progress. They will work with classroom colleagues and support staff to integrate the needs of students with an individual education plan into the classroom and meet the particular needs of all children. They may be asked to mentor a student teaching intern to obtain licensure. Other related duties as assigned.

Your Skill Set:
As the incoming Preschool Teacher you will possess many, though perhaps not all, of the following characteristics and qualifications:

• Successful classroom experience in early childhood in an urban, multicultural setting (3 or more years preferred).
• A bachelor's degree or higher from an accredited college or university is required. Additional coursework in early childhood, literacy, mathematics, science, social studies, curriculum design, and/or longitudinal assessment is highly desirable.
• Experience in working collaboratively with colleagues and parents from a variety of backgrounds.
• Previous training and experience with the Literacy Collaborative, Science of Reading model, and project-based learning is preferred.
• Massachusetts certification/licensure in Early Childhood: PK-2 required.
• The ability to utilize technology as an essential learning tool is highly desirable, as is the ability to speak a language other than English.

Cambridge Public Schools is committed to slowing and/or stopping the spread of COVID-19. Therefore, as a condition of employment with Cambridge Public Schools, all new hires will be required to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 no later than their first day of work. Written requests for either a religious exemption from this requirement based on sincerely held religious beliefs, or for a medical exemption based upon clear documentation from a medical provider should be submitted to the attention of the Chief Talent Officer.
How to Join Our Team:
Please upload a resume and thoughtful cover letter, outlining how your skills, experience, and commitment to equity in education meet the qualifications of the position as well as stating how you heard about this opportunity.

At the Cambridge Public Schools, we are committed to cultivating an environment where diverse perspectives and backgrounds are embraced, acknowledging that a team reflecting diversity of race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, age, gender, marital/domestic partner status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, and veteran status allows us to serve our communities better. To that end, we welcome and encourage applicants to bring their authentic selves when considering employment opportunities within our school district.