Early Childhood Teacher

Position Summary: 

The Early Childhood Teacher is part of the early childhood education team at Briya Public Charter School — a leading two-generation education program serving parents and their young children. Briya is a Tier One Public Charter School, consistently achieving the highest educational outcomes through its innovative, family-centric programming. 

Briya’s early childhood program serves children from six weeks through pre-kindergarten. Briya teachers draw inspiration from the pedagogical principles Reggio Emilia and offer culturally sustaining education for emergent multilingual children. This involves daily play-based assessment of children in inclusive bilingual classrooms.  While children attend the early childhood program, their parents attend classes comprised of three highly integrated areas of study: English, child development, and digital literacy.  Briya also offers workforce development programs for advanced students to pursue career-ready certifications. 

Briya has a strategic partnership with Mary’s Center, a Federally Qualified Health Center, further strengthening student families with comprehensive medical, dental, and social services.  At three of its four campuses, Briya is co-located with Mary’s Center.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities: 

Teaching, Learning, and Environment 

• Provide high quality curriculum for children 0-3 years of age that advances their knowledge, skills, and behaviors across all four areas of development in a collaborative manner with Co-teacher, Early Childhood Coordinator, and families.  
• Structure and guide children in their classroom routines in ways that are individualized, responsive, age-appropriate and promote healthy habits, confidence and learning. Routines include hellos and goodbyes, eating/feeding, getting dressed when they may need change of clothes, toileting or toilet learning, and sleeping/rest
• Design and prepare the learning environment and materials in a to respond and extend children’s emerging interests and abilities. Use principles of the Reggio Emilia approach in the environment, professional collaboration, and documentation of learning.  
• Talk frequently with children to build oral language skills and be a strong language model. Use a variety of words in context and scaffold children’s growing abilities to put their own ideas and feelings into words.
• Approach children’s behaviors from a developmental and holistic standpoint beginning with curiosity about each child’s temperament, experiences, and culture and seek to determine the meaning and root cause of behaviors.
• Use principles and strategies of co-regulation to foster children’s abilities to self-regulate and to promote feelings of safety, agency, and calm.
• Guide the work of CDA or other volunteers in the EC classroom.
• Conduct daily cleaning and safety checks and ensure that materials are organized and clean after each class. Periodically rotate materials to maintain engagement and interest.

Responsive Planning:

• Observe and document children’s learning on an ongoing basis and use observation and reflection to plan learning experiences.  Use GOLD online to enter observations for assigned objectives and set checkpoint levels.
• Plan and implement experiences throughout the day that promote children’s development of social emotional, cognitive, language, and physical skills as well as math, literacy, science, social studies, and the arts. 
• Utilize Teaching Strategies GOLD in a manner that is consistent with the program goals and aligned to learning objectives/standards and help others to use it in a consistent way
• Create individual child portfolios and prepare family conferences.
• Collaborate with teaching team and supervisor and therapists to ensure that children have developmental screening, monitor children’s development and identify children who may need additional support or referrals.

Family Engagement

• Demonstrate respect for parents of all languages, cultures, and backgrounds in a two-generation setting as children’s first and most important teachers.
• Use active listening and relationship building strategies to create strong partnership and support children’s learning.
• Organize the planning and implementation of Family Time experiences and help parents feel comfortable in the Early Childhood classroom.  During Family Time, model language and literacy strategies, and promote a positive parent-child relationship.
• Listen to families’ observations about their children and collaborate with co-teacher to provide ideas that support children’s learning at home.
• Use knowledge about children’s health and nutrition and community services and local resources to support parents in accessing and choosing healthy foods and activities for their children.
• Use home visits as opportunities to build or strengthen relationships with families.

Contribution to a Community of Practice: 

• Contribute to creating a culture of learning and reflection in the school by engaging with research on early childhood education and apply knowledge into daily practice.
• Assist in recruitment of Briya students, field trips, student recognition ceremonies and other celebrations
• Set learning and performance goals, communicate about goals and activities with supervisor and coach on a semi-regular basis, and seek support when necessary.
• Participate actively in professional development learning communities, demonstrate self-reflection and growth mindset, give and accept constructive feedback.
• Utilize communication strategies with co-workers that address conflict in a productive and collaborative manner.

Briya Values:                                                            

Successful employees will demonstrate the school’s five core values:

• Learner-Centeredness: Student agency and voice are foundational to high-quality education.
• Inclusiveness: People of all countries, races, religions, cultures, genders, sexual orientations, languages, abilities, and life experiences are integral to the Briya community.
• Trust: A space of safety and mutual respect among students and staff promotes optimal growth and belonging.
• Collaboration: Strategic, agile collaboration on all levels—among staff, students, departments, and community partners—increases the holistic success of student families.
• Equity: The pursuit of equity drives Briya’s work. Through our comprehensive, two-generation educational model, we seek to overcome systemic oppression and partner with students to create opportunities for all to thrive.

Competencies:                                                              

Employees are also expected to excel in the following competencies:

• Professionalism – Treats others with respect and consideration regardless of their status or position. Follows established policies and procedures to support the overall function of the organization.
• Safety and Security – Observes safety and security procedures, reports potentially unsafe conditions, and uses equipment and materials properly.
• Attendance/Punctuality – Is consistently at work and on time, adhering to a schedule pre-determined between the employee and the supervisor.
• Dependability – Follows instruction and responds to management direction. Takes responsibility for own actions.
• Teamwork – Can work well in multidisciplinary team setting with a variety of cultural and educational backgrounds and experiences. Contributes to building a positive team spirit, puts success of the team above own interests, and supports colleagues’ and students’ efforts to succeed.

Qualifications: 

This is full-time onsite position

The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skills, and/or ability required.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Education and/or Experience –

• CDA + Associates or Bachelors Degree in Early Childhood Education preferred
• 3-7 years experience working directly with young children.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to create written weekly plans and use online software to document learning
• Current Pediatric First Aid and CPR certification.
• Demonstrates flexibility, knowledge and enthusiasm for working with children of various ages.

Reasoning Ability – Ability to apply common sense understanding to carry out moderately complex, multi-step instructions and make appropriate independent decisions as necessary

Physical Demands –Regularly required sitting; frequently required to reach with hands and arms, walk, stoop, kneel, crouch, talk or hear; must be able to lift objects up to fifty (50) pounds.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. 

Work Environment –Mostly in a typical office setting with quiet to moderate noise level.

Salary bands: https://briya.org/policies-notices/salary-bands