Middle School Paraprofessional SY21-22
Grade Level: Middle
Start Date: ASAP
Locations: Dorchester, MA
About UP Education Network
UP Education Network manages and operates five schools in Boston, and Lawrence, MA. We serve over 2,500 elementary and middle school students. UP is invited by local school districts to restart chronically underperforming district schools as UP Academies. Each UP Academy shares the same mission: to ensure that students acquire the knowledge, skills, and strength of character necessary to succeed on the path to college and to achieve their full potential.
COVID POLICY:
All City of Boston employees (which includes all Boston Public School employees) will be required to be fully vaccinated and will need to verify their vaccination status with their employer, unless granted a reasonable accommodation for medical or religious reasons. Employees who are not fully vaccinated and have not been granted a reasonable accommodation so as to not comply with the vaccination component of this policy are required to engage in regular testing, and reporting of test results. Please refer to the City of Boston Vaccination Verification Requirement for more details. UP Education Network is also adhering to this policy for all of their network roles. At the current time, there is no vaccination requirement for Lawrence Public Schools. Should you have further questions in regards to this feel free to reach out to the recruiter or UP employee you are in contact with.
Role
The Paraprofessional will work to support teachers across a grade band (1-3 grade levels) and will move flexibly between classrooms, content areas, and groups of students in response to data. The paraprofessional will be the first person in line to provide coverage (generally in conjunction with the cluster substitute) for the classrooms they typically work with. The paraprofessional will support classroom teachers with any preparation tasks, materials creation, and family communication. The paraprofessional will work closely with teachers to plan and execute academic and behavioral interventions for students.
Specific Responsibilities
- Work alongside an experienced educator to support students, driving the academic achievement of students
- Analyze assessment data to identify knowledge gaps and skill deficits of individual students
- Create materials that target individual student needs
- Implement an effective, rigorous academic and behavior intervention system for students in partner classrooms
- Support student mastery of state, city, and school academic and behavioral standards
- Hold all students to high academic and behavior expectations
- Lead daily individual and small group conferences and skills groups
- Communicate effectively with students, families, and colleagues
- Provide coverage as needed in classrooms the para typically works with
Qualifications
- A strong belief in UP Education Network’s core values: Students, Community, Humility, Resilience, and Humor
- ABA experience preferred
- A high-school diploma or GED
- Forty-eight (48) Credit Hours of College Coursework or an Associate’s Degree, or a passing score on one of the two following Formalized Standardized Assessments: ParaPro Assessment (http://www.ets.org/parapro/ ) or WorkKeys Certificate of Proficiency for Teacher Assistants (http://www.act.org/workkeys/profcert/index.html )
- Current authorization to work in the United States – A candidate must have such authorization by his or her first day of employment.
Compensation and Benefits
Your salary is commensurate with experience; UP Academy follows the salary scales of each UP Academy’s host school district. As an employee of UP Academy and your respective school district, you will receive the same access to personal and sick days, health insurance, and dental insurance as others within your union.
Working at UP Education Network
We know that great staff members directly lead to the success of our students. At UP, your career is shaped by:
- Opportunities for immediate impact: UP offers a chance to bring best practices found in high-performing schools to students previously enrolled in struggling schools, and to rapidly unlock the potential of these students
- Talented, mission-driven colleagues: Our staff is enthusiastic, dedicated, and willing to do “whatever it takes” to put every student on the path to college
- Collaboration and teamwork: Staff members collaborate and work closely together on grade-level or content area teams, using data to track student performance as well as guide instructional practice
- Consistent professional growth and development: Members of our staff typically have bi-weekly check-in meetings with their managers where they receive targeted coaching and support and the entire staff participates in weekly professional development sessions during the school year, kick-started by extensive training in August.