teacher

attendant

elementary school teacher

site coordinator

paraprofessional

Boston Public Schools

After over a decade of teaching in the Boston Public Schools, I possess a passion and a wide array of strategies and practices for serving diverse populations of learners in the secondary school community. During this time I counseled unruly students impacted by drug addiction, teen pregnancy, bullying, physical and sexual abuse, homelessness, as well as numerous behavior and learning disorders, allowing them to return to the learning environment with improved self-esteem and respect for their educators.
I have experience educating and assessing English for Speakers of Other Languages and Special Education students, as well as the cultural fluency to bond with members of the many nations represented in the Boston Public School system. I currently provide administration, colleagues and mentees input as to best pedagogical practices, ways to implement technology in the classroom and a host of learned strategies for improving student performance on standardized testing in and after high school, especially in the interest of increasing college admission and retention.
My strengths in communication, community outreach and empathy combined with prior experience as a program counselor practiced in managing behavior and tracking progress will make me a powerful liaison between students, parents and staff and an asset to school leadership.
I have worked in Traditional, Pilot and Horace Mann Charter settings in the past. Apart from their reactions to policy changes such as the adoption of the PARCC exam or Common Core curriculum, these institutions have similar physical plants, student bodies and teaching staff. In terms of my efficacy, an institution with a strong code of discipline, school identity and “open door” administration is of the utmost importance, as it ensures the community of support necessary for a successful academic experience. An Innovation school with a strong technological mission would be a great match.
 
Track Record of Success
 
I’ve chosen an artifact of Student performances that demonstrates a time when I led mathematics students to dramatically improve their ability to assess, analyze and make sense of math problems independently as well as work in a state-of-the-art online learning environment.
As an instructor of ninth grade Geometry in a school that offers full inclusion classes, I taught cohorts of students in the same classroom with mathematics skill sets that ranged from the third to eleventh grade level. As a result, there was a need for supplementary assignments, in the form of online Khanacdemy.org. 
The site assessed students to gauge their skill level in mathematics, assuring that recommended activities were in their Zone of Proximal Development, be it addition or solving Linear equations. 
Students were allowed to have peer tutors in class as well as full access to the instructor when they had difficulty reading the online hints available or learning from their errors, a strategy aligned with the district’s goal of increasing student ability to assess, analyze and make sense of math problems independently.
The majority of students were able to make great leaps in their general mathematics knowledge, filling in gaps that had existed since elementary and middle school. As a result, we were able to push into higher order thinking skill questions in class and introduce content that not only had a low access point, but also a now very reachable high ceiling.
 
Above is a spreadsheet showing some of the concepts covered as well as the time spent on independent learning activities. Student progress was be tracked from struggling to proficient, and the number of examples completed daily were recorded.
In conclusion, the addition of technology to the traditional classroom gave a wide spectrum of learners an additional mathematics resource as well as an independent learning assignment that puts them well into the 21st century content delivery methodology of todays leading colleges and universities.
 

Entry Plan
The general vision of a Boston Public Schools high school in 2015 should include a strong emphasis on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, as well as address today’s student as a whole learner, tapping into and cultivating Howard Gardner’s 12 intelligences while providing a myriad of diverse learning and life experiences.
In order for me to get to know the new school and community and vice verse, I would open a variety of lines of communication, such as meet and greet open house informational sessions at the school, develop an online website presence, deliver a mass phone call home to current students and staff, as well as orchestrate a mass-mailing letter of introduction/school vision.
In order to more effectively drive teacher instruction, I would want to gather information pertaining to the academic skills/transcripts/standardized test scores of incoming students. To this end I would require an experienced and efficient staff of guidance counselors capable of creating and maintaining a database of student records as well as presenting this data to the teaching staff. 
In order to gauge the percentage and demand of incoming ESL and Special education needs students in order to meet their needs and keeps classes manageable, I would want not only Special Education certified teachers, but specialists who would maintain a database of student records tracking IEP meetings, annual reviews, parent meetings and when necessary, alternative assessments.
Accordingly, I would want my teaching staff to be both ESL and SPED certified, or in the process of obtaining licensure in both fields, in order to assure that all learners are receiving appropriate content and delivery. To this end I would have my Coordinator of Planning and Development maintain an employee database and keep teachers aware of pending licensure changes and upcoming professional development opportunities.
In regards to the day to day operation of the school, I would access the accumulated wisdom of my teaching staff when making and implementing policies regarding classroom management, cell phones privileges, uniform codes, tardy and absence consequences, etc. as they will be the first line implementing these policies. Additionally, as the combined efforts of both teaching staff and disciplinarians are instrumental to the efficacy of classroom management, constant communication between both is a must, via online portals such as sis.aspen and school email, as well as weekly intervention meetings.
Balancing these essential aspects of school management would be the cultivation of strong arts and athletics programs, ideally partnered with corporate sponsors in the city and striving for national if not statewide recognition.

I enjoyed school nursing, it's much more involved than I had thought. You are usually the only health professional in the building caring for both staff and hundreds of children. Responsibilities including triage care, endless paperwork - make sure everyone is up to date with vaccines and physical exams, calling parents and doctors daily to get this information. Be prepared for any and everything. Many children have life threatening allergies, seizure disorders to name a few. Also, there are many inclusion schools, meaning children with special health care needs are immersed into the public schools. These medically dependent children include a vast majority of wheelchair bound children, several with g-tubes for feeding and medication administration, some with colostomy's, behavioral disorders, neglet, abuse and even homelessness.  The nurses all contact each other from other schools with questions, there are PD's once a month and various meetings after the school days. Constant contact with parent/guardians, headmaster/principal, teachers, school psychologists, guidance counselors, etc. The hardest part of the job is only being able to do so much for some children - they simply have been born into neglectful families and suffer from imaginable difficulties. I have to call 51A (DSS) however many children still remain in their homes or become foster children, getting split up from their siblings. The most enjoyable part of the day is children coming up to me in the hallways and giving me big hugs, "you're the best nurse!"

Boston Public Schools BPS, are going through an educational revolution in which corporate America has come to the classroom.  Tenure and job security are a vestige of the past.  Supervisor's are no longer required to be former teacher's but many administrator's are not certified in the content areas they are charged to supervise.  Supervisors in BPS come young, often inexperienced with Education degrees and many have little or no classroom experience. Helping students is the best part of the profession along with colleague relations. I learned that urban education has accountability standards that are difficult to meet when evaluations are 50% based on student performance. Many urban students are second language learners, have high absenteeism, substantially below average graduation rates as well as social/economic/emotional issues that create unique classroom management challenges.  There is a significant divide between labor and management relations unlike the suburbs.  New teacher's won't have a problem as they won't have anything to compare it to but for mid career and veteran teachers, there has been a sea change in the culture between management and teachers in the Boston Public Schools.

What is the best part of working at the company?
The best part of working for BPS, was seeing the children engaged in their learning.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The most stressful part of working for BPS, was when you did not get corporation from the parents of the students. Some students needed parent intervention to focus on their learning.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
I’m sure it differs from school to school and leadership drives the work environment and culture of the school. I had a strong leader at my school who encouraged teacher involvement to help shape the school into a likable work environment and culture.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
A typical day could be going into your classroom, checking in on your students from the day and night before, starting your lesson, hoping that all of your students are engaged in some part of the learning. However, another day in an urban school could be dealing with in element from the outside, but yet, affecting the children, therefor,  they can’t focus on learning until they have had a chance to learn what has happened and feel safe to continue their learning.

Basically , I was a 2nd grade teacher for 12 of my 14 years. I introduced Author Studies, Reciprocal Reading, followed the standards, taught Black History & many more core areas. 
I added Journalling, poetry blasts, read around the room, Art History & Drawing on the Right Side of the brain. The students would learn the basics of drawing, then they would have one half hour of art  twice a week . Outside w
As our science room, and experiments were brought into the room!!
I did some cooperative learning with Grade one & we were using the pull out model at that time.
The last 2 years I was a K2 teacher. My hopes were crushed do to a lack of a some- timey Para. This left me alone with 19 boys & 2 girls.
It was impossible to sit them! 
It was a totally hard year with no help from management.
The next year feared no better~the para clearly wanted to be in the other K2 class.
I had taught K2 before, not to toot my own horn~ but with my full time Para, our class entered Grade 1 ; reading, writing sentences w / B-M-E. they could recite many poems inc. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Eveming, and they all, minus 2 or 3 met bench mark for math.

Evaluations should be done by multiple administrators, teachers, and peers such as bigger corporations do such as in 180 or 360 type of evaluations where input is submitted by various people on teams and can be done online.

Evaluations are done by ONE administrator that frankly is reviewing way too many teachers at once and make judgements that seem made up just to be able to get by on their own deadlines not caring about who you are and what you do or even who your students are. 

Evaluations are written to make themselves look good. Instead of offering professional development, or asking them to model what it is they are looking for exactly in your classroom, they are a 'no show' or do not even know what to do. 

So if you are looking for a growing opportunity as a teacher, research the school and DO talk to teachers that work there to get an inside scoop and advice on how to survive in this archaic way of managing.

Worked with other students and program leaders to help improve Boston public school policies that were not beneficial to high school students. As a group we analyzed the policies and gave suggestions where they needed improvement. Once we came up with solid proposals we would edit them and present them to thousands of students. We sent surveys to all the schools to gain the approval of our new suggested policies. If a majority of the students agreed we would than bring the proposals to school legislatures and government officials. We would present to them the statistics of the students that agreed with the new policy and explain why we believed they should change it. Our efforts in helping to alter existing policies was to diminish the drop out high school rate in Boston. We were extremely successful in changing many policies that were harmful to students. We also helped diminish the drop out high school rate in Boston public schools.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Salary and benefits were at the top, along with occasional moments of intense job satisfaction when making a different in the lives of students  (unfortunately, this didn't occur with enough frequency)

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Way too much work, too many demands from admin, changing priorities, ineptitude, cruelty on the part of many administrators, a bureaucracy so far out of control that no one knew how to begin to repair it.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
There was often a climate of fear as the work demands, many of them arbitrary, continued unabated.   With the exception of 1st and 2nd years teachers, the vast majority (80% plus) of teachers were hugely dissatisfied with their work environment.   Endless hours of work, little or no recognition, unrealistic expectations, favoritism, nepotism were all rampant.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Teaching 5 classes, 45 minutes of free time per day; meeting and/or professional development after school, in an endless cycle of too much work.

You have to experience it to imagine it. Do not mail your documents, deliver them in person and have them date, time stamp & sign a receipt noting what documents were turned in and do keep copies or originals for yourself.
       Always check your personnel files since principals or headmasters lie a lot and sometimes put documents into your files without your knowledge. Longterm assignments are great if principals have integrity however, most of the time they will keep a substitute for 10 days terminate their contract and hire another for another 10 days solely to avoid paying the step increases for long term substitute employment. They may invent a false narrative to justify their cause and send a secrete DNR to HQ who may not notify you. Know it's not about you, rather it's about their need to hang on to every dollar they can and substitutes are their greatest pawn in the game of education. The students are the greatest losers.

An opportunity to make a difference in the lives of children, families and communities.I learned that emotional and stress training for teachers would be a benefit. I learned that all adult behavior has an impact on children of any age. I was very successful in the classes I participated in, to the point that several student teachers remarked that they had learned more by watching me than they had learned in school or from other situations. Loud voices, frustration and stress are or can be synthesized in groups and change the whole outcome of the day. That is the most enjoyable part of my day when teachers can observe things they cannot learn in academia or understand the nuances of classroom environment from videos. In the classroom, nothing is staged. You are the master of environment acknowledgement and present resolutions which in an instant can bring chaos or calm with experience.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Teacher 10 salaries reported	$44.48 per hour
Attendant 28 salaries reported	$18.83 per hour
Elementary school teacher 48 salaries reported	$18.96 per hour
Site coordinator 6 salaries reported	$55.67 per hour
Paraprofessional 11 salaries reported	$34.59 per hour

Working at Boston Public Schools: Company Overview and Reviews

Boston Public Schools

Boston Public Schools Ratings

Popular jobs at Boston Public Schools

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected