Overview of Position: A strong and dedicated faculty is paramount to best serving our students and families and to establishing Unity as an exemplary school. Most critically, our faculty equip students with the knowledge and skills needed to experience secondary and postsecondary success, including the desire and capacity to learn independently, think critically, and communicate proficiently. Our Coordinator of Special Projects has the privilege and responsibility of delivering on these outcomes through the coordination of new and promising school initiatives.

Brief Overview of our School: Unity’s Core Purpose is to provide all students with an exceptional educational experience that empowers them to lead fulfilling lives.

As a small, open-enrollment, community-based charter school that proudly serves the families of central Brooklyn in grades 6-12, a Unity education is best described as personalized, inclusive, well-rounded, and keenly focused on each child’s long-term growth and development as skillful learners and whole-hearted human beings.

Given these qualities, Unity’s most important resource as a school is the talent and dedication of our faculty and staff. At its core, a school is only as good as the learning experience of students over the course of each day. We invest significant time and resources to ensure that we, as a team, are providing all of our students with daily learning experiences that are healthy, safe, engaging, supportive, and appropriately challenging.

We aim for each and every one of our students, upon graduating from Unity, to be empowered with the skills, knowledge, experiences, and disposition to succeed in their postsecondary endeavors, lead fulfilling lives, and positively impact their communities.

Our Recent Accomplishments: Regardless of where students are academically or otherwise as they enter our school, our focus is on accelerating growth and on cultivating long-term academic and non-academic success. This focus has reaped impressive results for our students and families in recent years. Among our accomplishments:

• 94% of our first three graduating classes earned their high school diploma in four years.
• 100% of our graduates had formal college and career plans with a college matriculation rate of 76%. This compares favorably to a 58% college matriculation rate for students in NYC.
• 95% of our graduates complete at least one Advanced Placement (AP) course in high school. This compares favorably with the 33% of NYC graduates who enroll in AP courses during their high school tenure.
• Our students who comprise subgroups that traditionally have been least effectively served by our education system, including students classified as economically disadvantaged, Black, Latino, and students with disabilities, have consistently outperformed their district and state peers in our high school graduation rates.
• In holding true to our belief in providing a truly empowering education, a vast majority of our students experience the following over their seven years at Unity:
  • After-school extra-curricular activities, including athletics and clubs;
  • Formal community service initiatives;
  • End-of-year middle school Roundtable presentation – a 45-minute oral presentation given to families, Unity faculty, and community members, and;
  • Intensive counseling in College & Career Readiness beginning in 9th grade.

Key Design Elements: Collectively, these elements reflect our beliefs on what makes for an exceptional secondary education in today’s world:

• A culturally relevant and rigorous college-ready curriculum that is rooted in the liberal arts and sciences, including high-school level Regents courses in middle school and 11 Advanced Placement courses available in high school
• A skillful team of devoted educators who inspire students to be their best selves, coupling high expectations with high support, and serving as role models for students. Unity’s educators are lifelong learners who take the utmost pride in perfecting their craft:
  • Over 50% of our teachers coach athletic teams, lead enrichment clubs, or teach summer courses
  • Our students have benefitted from a teacher retention rate of 80% over the past two years
• Expanded time for learning, including a 12-month calendar year for select students that allows for differentiation, universal growth, enrichment, and acceleration:
  • 25% of our students experience academic and extracurricular programming over a full calendar year; this subpopulation represents students who most benefit from more intensive support in order that they may meet NYS learning standards, earn a high school Regents diploma, and succeed in their postsecondary pursuits
• Highly customized support and specialized counseling throughout students’ time at Unity and beyond – this includes a staff-to-student ratio of 5:1 with a majority of courses as co-taught, along with intensive counseling from our five full-time academic counselors and four full-time social workers
• A positive and supportive discipline system & school culture built on a framework of Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports (PBIS) in which sound character traits, healthy habits, and strong socio-emotional skills are explicitly taught and cultivated by compassionate adults:
  • 100% of students having designated advisors that they meet with weekly
  • Best practices in restorative justice are commonly utilized, including circles and mediation
• A wide range of extracurricular offerings, enrichment courses, and community service opportunities that expose students to potential passions and pursuits, including:
  • One of the largest athletic programs among public schools in Brooklyn, with 18 athletic teams that span grades 6-12
  • Performing and visual arts courses in theatre, art & design, dance, as well as world languages and speech & debate
  • Over 20 elective clubs offered to students after school and over the summer, including but not limited to student government, culinary arts, personal fitness, film-making, peer mediation, blogging, climbing, and gaming

Core Responsibilities: Key responsibilities of Unity’s Coordinator of Special Projects include, but are not limited to, the following:

Technology:

• Maintain Unity’s technology infrastructure
• Conduct inventory of Unity’s technological assets at regular intervals in conjunction with the School Aide at each site
• Coordinate loss prevention efforts
• Coordinate maintenance of staff and student computers, school website, and school wireless networks
• Update and maintain Unity’s Fixed Asset Tracker
• Maintain Unity’s bell schedule and public address system
• Perform laptop/chromebook repairs (preferred)
• Comfortable with designing flyers and planning events
• Intermediate skills with Google Suites and Microsoft Office

Student Attendance Tracking

• Maintain school-wide attendance data to identify attendance rates and chronically absent students
• Coordinate with Unity’s Social Workers to support chronically absent students
• Act as liaison with NYCDOE with respect to attendance data
• Ensure the accuracy of student attendance in conjunction with the Operations Manager

Assessment Coordination

• Receive testing materials from NYCDOE/NYS and ensure secure storage
• Support the coordination of interim assessments, mock state tests and actual state tests
• Coordinate the collection and organization of test materials
• Facilitate submission of test materials to scoring site
• Manage and facilitate all aspects of the 8th Grade State Science Test

Student Information Systems

• Manage all aspects of Jupiter grades system
• Upload and continuously update student/family contact information, courses/sections, class meetings calendar, bell schedule and any other system fields pertinent to use at Unity
• Manage all aspects of GoGuardian, including staff access, training, and serve as Super Admin
• Orient staff on program features in relation to monitoring student technology use
• Upload and continuously update sections/classes in system to ensure it remains in sync with offerings via Jupiter
• Manage all aspects of School Messenger system
• Ensure that all automatic exports from Jupiter to school messenger are successful, make edits and changes to system and export files as needed

Facilities and Safety

• Serve as facilities liaison between co-located school administration pertaining to building usage, custodians, school foods and school safety personnel
• Ensure that all extended space use permits are entered in a timely manner via the Custodial Payroll System, that School Safety personnel receive permit and that permit information is entered in Unity’s permit tracking system
• Serve as Building Response Team leader in conjunction with PS44 BRT leader and coordinate all required safety drills at regular intervals
• Ensures staff readiness in case of various emergencies by orienting staff to drill types and their responses

Miscellaneous

• Ability to lift up to 60lbs unaccompanied
• Assist with substitute teachers’ on-boarding
• Being a point person to research vendors and receive quotes
• Organize student perception survey information in drive for teacher and leadership viewing
• Support facilitation of student perception surveys and DOE parent/student surveys
• Supporting the operations manager with one off projects and day to day school management

Core Qualifications: An ideal candidate for this position is equipped with:

• At least two years of formal professional experience in schools
• A balance of high expectations and high support, a growth mindset, and an innate joy in working with adolescents
• Strong interpersonal and management skills with a focus on building strong relationships with students and families
• An openness and responsiveness to constructive feedback and a strong commitment to continuous improvement and professional growth
• A strong work ethic that features organization, multi-tasking, flexibility, an orientation toward solutions, and a pride in meeting deadlines
• Is committed to acting with honesty and integrity in all matters involving Unity students, parents, staff, and community members
• Expertise in working with diverse populations of students and families, and in differentiating instruction to fully support the needs of diverse learners
• Strong written and oral communication skills and experience working collaboratively in team settings
• Approaches the profession with maturity, humility, versatility and, of course, a sense of humor
• Proficient in Google Workspace and MS Office Suite programs is required; experience with ATS, CIR is preferred
• A Bachelor’s Degree

To Apply: If you seek to contribute meaningfully to the development and successful operation of an innovative public school with a strong team of talented educators, please visit http://www.unityprep.org/careers to begin the application process.