Our Mission

High Meadow School is a nursery through 8th-grade independent school that celebrates childhood, the joy of learning and play, and the power of community in a student-centered environment. We honor and welcome each child’s unique voice, identity, and approach to constructing knowledge. Drawing on current pedagogical research, we center diversity, equity, civic engagement, nature, and the arts in the school’s dynamic curriculum and culture. High Meadow students graduate with a strong academic foundation and a developed sense of self, ready to contribute their passions and values to building thriving, sustainable, and equitable communities.

Job Description

The Lower School Lead Teacher at High Meadow teaches students in a grade level cohort in grades 1-4. The lead teacher creates a warm, safe, and welcoming classroom environment that includes all students. They design and deliver lessons for social skill building and standards-based core academic instruction utilizing the school’s curricular programs. HMS is a general education inclusion setting. Lower School Lead Teachers are responsible for differentiating the learning environment and academic lessons to meet each child's goals, including those with 504 plans or mandated services. Lower School Lead Teachers create inquiry-based units surrounding students' interests and strive to make interdisciplinary connections using our school’s frames of sustainability, place-based education, social justice, and the arts. Lead teachers support their students' social and emotional growth using child-centered curriculum and restorative discipline approaches. Lead Teachers frequently collaborate with colleagues, including an assistant teacher when class size rises above 13, and foster supportive partnerships with the children and families in their classrooms.

Essential Duties

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements below represent the knowledge, skill, and/or ability needed to fulfill the position. High Meadow School complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), as amended by the ADA Amendments Act, and all applicable New York State or local laws. Consistent with those requirements, High Meadow School will reasonably accommodate qualified individuals with a disability if such accommodation would allow the individual to satisfactorily perform the job's essential functions unless doing so would create an undue hardship.

• Foster loving, trusting, and supportive relationships with children
• Inspire learners to find joy and meaning in their learning and their relationships with others
• Build a warm, inviting, and student-centered classroom environment that is reflective of the school’s progressive mission and honors students’ identities, personal voices, and interests
• Create a supportive classroom culture that is calm and predictable, involves student input, sets logical and developmentally appropriate boundaries, and allows students to learn and practice expected behaviors to promote a positive learning environment without fear of punitive measures
• Model and support children using restorative practices to reflect on their actions, resolve intrapersonal issues and conflicts, and repair intentional or unintentional harm that their actions may have caused
• Utilize the lower school’s standards-aligned curricular resources to deliver literacy and math lessons
• Design engaging inquiry-based learning experiences that incorporate throughlines of sustainability, research, place-based education, social justice, and set learning benchmarks using the New York State Standards
• Orchestrate and carry out curriculum-aligned field trips and in-classroom events
• Adapt and modify lessons and the classroom environment to the unique needs of each learner
• Ensure that students with 504 plans or Individualized Education Plans are provided with the necessary accommodations and modifications to support their learning and meet their academic or behavioral goals; report on goal progress each marking period
• Engage students in daily social-emotional learning instruction based on the Responsive Classroom model
• Incorporate High Meadow’s wooded, outdoor campus into learning experiences
• Assess students using a range of formative and summative tools
• Collaborate with colleagues and student support providers to streamline differentiated student support, help students reach their learning goals, and create interdisciplinary projects, activities, and lessons
• Regularly communicate with and cultivate relationships with parents via in-person meetings, phone calls, emails, weekly class newsletters, and end-of-marking period progress reports
• Participate in professional development and grade-level planning meetings during daily prep time and designated professional development days
• Other duties as assigned by supervisor

Work Details

• This is a full-time, 10-month position
• This position functions onsite 5 days a week
• The physical demands of this job include lifting, carrying, pushing, pulling, crouching, reaching overhead, and/or climbing ramps or stairs
• The job is performed in a generally hazard-free environment

Desired Qualifications*

*Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply for jobs unless they believe they meet every one of the qualifications described in a job description. We are most interested in finding the best candidate for the job, and that candidate may come from a less traditional background. We encourage you to apply, even if you don’t believe you meet all the qualifications described.

• Bachelor’s degree required; Master’s degree or equivalent work/life experience preferred
• New York State Childhood Teaching certification preferred
• Educational philosophy aligns with the High Meadow School mission and core beliefs
• Able to genuinely project the High Meadow School image and culture by being genuinely friendly, deeply hospitable, showing great care, and taking pride in providing exceptional education
• Ability to craft an inclusive, equitable classroom environment that centers inquiry-based education, student identity, child development, choice and democratic decision-making, and learning by doing
• Experience with creating a calm and predictable learning environment for children, including formulating attainable classroom agreements and rules, designing, modeling, and practicing learning routines and structures with students that support them in meeting the classroom agreements, and arranging the physical space to foster independence and meet the needs of a range of learners
• Proven track record of forming trusting and loving relationships with children
• Skilled at differentiating instruction to fit each learning experience to individual student needs
• Experience working with students with disabilities who qualify for mandated services or 504 plan accommodations
• Commitment to culturally responsive and anti-racist teaching practices
• Experience with Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, Illustrative Mathematics, Words Their Way, and Handwriting Without Tears preferred
• Attentive to the physical and emotional safety of children in both classroom and outdoor play environments
• Experience forming relationships with and communicating frequently about progress with parents/guardians of students
• Willing and wanting to participate in a highly collaborative, community-based work environment
• Strong oral, written, and electronic communication skills
• Ability to maintain strict confidentiality and judgment regarding privileged information

Clearances

• Fingerprinting and comprehensive background checks required

About High Meadow School

High Meadow School (HMS) is a progressive independent school in the Hudson Valley that serves children in nursery to grade 8. Since 1984, High Meadow School has nurtured children's love of learning by engaging their intrinsic curiosity in nature, one another, play, and creative expression. We empower each child to be an independent thinker with a personal voice by providing opportunities to authentically and compassionately participate as a member of a diverse, democratic school community.

Connections working at High Meadow School