Kindergarten Teacher

Position Type: Full-Time, Tenure-Track Grade Level: Kindergarten

Start Date: September 2026 Salary: Per MTA Contract Reports To: Building Principal

About Mechanicville City School District

Mechanicville City School District is a small, close-knit public school district located along the Hudson River in Saratoga County, New York. Serving students in Pre-K through Grade 12, MCSD is committed to academic excellence, community engagement, and preparing every student for a successful future. Our dedicated staff work collaboratively to foster a safe, inclusive, and nurturing learning environment where all students can thrive.

Position Summary

Mechanicville City School District seeks an enthusiastic, nurturing, and highly skilled educator to join our elementary team as a Kindergarten Teacher. The successful candidate will lay the academic and social-emotional foundation for students' lifelong learning by delivering engaging, play-based, and developmentally appropriate instruction aligned with the New York State Next Generation Learning Standards. This is a unique opportunity to shape the earliest school experiences of young learners in a warm, supportive community school environment.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

• Plan, prepare, and deliver developmentally appropriate, play-based, and standards-aligned instruction in literacy, mathematics, science, social studies, and the arts, in accordance with the NYS Next Generation Learning Standards.

• Establish and maintain a structured, warm, and inclusive classroom environment that promotes curiosity, independence, and a love of learning in five- and six-year-old students.

• Use a variety of instructional strategies including whole-group, small-group, and individualized instruction to meet the diverse developmental, academic, and social-emotional needs of all kindergartners.

• Implement ongoing formative and summative assessments to monitor student development across all domains — cognitive, language, physical, and social-emotional — and use data to drive instruction.

• Support the development of foundational literacy skills including phonemic awareness, phonics, print concepts, vocabulary, and early reading and writing.

Foster early numeracy skills including number sense, counting, basic operations, and mathematical reasoning through hands-on and inquiry-based learning experiences.

• Collaborate with Pre-K teachers and first-grade colleagues to ensure smooth transitions and vertical alignment of curriculum and expectations.

• Partner closely with parents and guardians to share students' developmental progress, celebrate milestones, and provide strategies for supporting learning at home.

• Work collaboratively with special education staff, school counselors, psychologists, speech-language pathologists, and other support personnel to meet the needs of students with IEPs, 504 plans, and other learning requirements.

• Implement social-emotional learning practices to help students develop self-regulation, empathy, and healthy peer relationships.

• Maintain accurate data to support student learning.

• Participate in kindergarten orientation events, parent-teacher conferences, staff meetings, professional development, and school-wide activities as assigned.

• 
  Valid New York State Teaching Certificate in Early Childhood Education (Birth–Grade 2) or Childhood Education (Grades 1–6); dual certification is strongly preferred.

• Bachelor's degree in Early Childhood Education, Elementary Education, or a related field from an accredited institution; Master's degree preferred.

• Demonstrated knowledge of developmentally appropriate practices and early childhood pedagogy, including play-based and inquiry-based learning.

• Understanding of foundational literacy and early numeracy development and evidence-based instructional strategies for kindergarten learners.

• Strong classroom management skills appropriate for five- and six-year-old students, with an emphasis on positive guidance and relationship-building.

• Ability to differentiate instruction to support learners across a wide range of developmental levels, including students with IEPs.

• Effective communication skills for building partnerships with families and collaborating with a multidisciplinary school team.

• Proficiency with educational technology tools appropriate for early childhood instruction.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior classroom experience at the kindergarten or Pre-K level in a public school setting.

• Dual NYS certification in Early Childhood Education and Students with Disabilities (Birth–Grade 2).

• Familiarity with structured literacy programs and/or science of reading instructional frameworks.

• Experience with early childhood assessment tools.

• Training or experience implementing social-emotional learning programs

• Knowledge of Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS)