Professional Learning Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Job Description
Title : Professional Learning Specialist
Department : Office of Professional Learning
The School District of Philadelphia is committed to becoming the fastest improving District in the country and transforming the educational opportunities it offers to our city's more than 200,000 students. The District seeks leaders who have a passion for working with schools and communities who are committed to ensuring all students achieve. Serving a population as diverse as ours requires creativity, commitment and vision. Will you join us?
This is a full-time, 12-month, non-represented position. The salary grade is 4028, starting at $88,606 commensurate with experience and aligned to ensure internal equity with similarly situated roles.
Job Summary
The School District of Philadelphia is committed to having schools staffed with great teachers and principals. Professional Learning Specialists are responsible for supporting the continuous development of teachers, principals, and support staff. Professional Learning Specialists design, align, and facilitate, professional learning opportunities for educators throughout the School District of Philadelphia (SDP). Work involves formulating and implementing plans to meet the short-term and long-term needs of the District's teaching and administrative staff. Work additionally involves determining training and personnel development needs on a learning network, school and individual level. Professional Learning Specialists are tasked with providing high-quality professional growth opportunities that will enhance educators' leadership, cultural competency, organizational, communication, problem-solving, and outcomes-oriented skills. Their work also involves supporting the District's curriculum, assessment, and instructional goals. Supports the District, network, and schools in delivering a seamless system of comprehensive support in alignment with the District's Equity-based Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) Model. Works to ensure equitable services to students and expands existing support structure for delivery of all levels of MTSS implementation within schools by collaborating with school administrators, teachers, and support staff to ensure that MTSS is effectively integrated to address the academic, behavioral, and social-emotional needs of all students.
All Specialties
Essential Functions
• Designs and facilitates professional learning and development sessions and courses on a variety of topics to support the designated programmatic framework.
• Conducts professional learning and development sessions by learning network, grade band, and school type to bolster educator effectiveness and student progress.
• Research new trends in education in an effort to keep staff aligned with the Pedagogical shifts and SDP instructional practices.
• Thoughtfully creates customized professional learning modules for educators.
• Support District initiatives.
• Leads content programming, logistics, and communication for large-scale District wide professional learning programming.
• Coaches leadership teams, teacher leaders, and teachers in the implementation of professional learning.
• Develops plans for measuring the impact of professional learning; creates tools for collecting data; analyzes that data to make in-year and end of year programmatic decisions.
• Hires and develops part-time employees who support facilitation and logistics in District-wide programming.
Math K-8 Specialty
• Designs and facilitates professional learning and development sessions and courses on a variety of topics to support the designated programmatic framework.
• Plans and administers the implementation of instructional strategies to support academic achievement aligned to Board of Education Goals and Guardrails.
• Conducts professional learning and development sessions for principals, leadership teams, and teachers based on data informed needs.
• Assists school-based instructional leadership teams in analyzing data and creating an action plan to respond to data analysis.
• Debriefs with teachers, school leadership teams, and academic staff to analyze and support the instructional practices in schools.
• Visits schools and classrooms and provides support to improve instructional and assessment strategies through instructional rounds and other informal visits.
• Thoughtfully creates customized professional learning modules for educators. • Research new trends in education in an effort to keep staff aligned with the Pedagogical shifts and SDP instructional practices.
• Thoughtfully creates customized professional learning modules for educators.
• Support District initiatives.
• Develops and implements Common Planning Time as a District strategy.
Qualifications
Minimum Requirements
Math K-8 Specialty
• Master's degree from an accredited college or university in education, teacher leadership, administration or a related field.
• Five years of full-time, paid, professional teaching experience, which has included working with evidence-based interventions, developing and implementing professional development, and serving as a staff development leader, supervisor, or principal.
Certificates/Licenses
• Possession of a valid Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Administrative certificate for K-12 or Elementary and Secondary Principal.
The candidate must ensure that all of their relevant work experience is reflected on their resume prior to the submission of their application for District employment.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
Demonstrated knowledge of:
o the principles, practices and techniques of academic pedagogy, trends and best practices.
o the principles, practices and techniques of working with adult educators.
o standards-aligned instruction, pedagogy, instructional supports, and evidence based instructional practices.
o the methods and techniques used in effective program planning, design and administration.
o the current educational issues that directly impact student learning.
o effective facilitation moves and approaches to engage adults in collaboration.
Demonstrated ability to:
o understand the core curriculum as it relates to high-quality Tier One instructional planning.
o exercise discretion and tact in dealing with sensitive situations.
o maintain necessary records and files, compile information and prepare reports.
o process multiple tasks simultaneously, adhere to timelines, and bring plans to completion within a timely manner.
o assess the effectiveness of programmatic activities and make recommendations for modifications as needed.
o expertly develop and facilitate presentations that engage adults in meaningful ways to impact practice.
o evaluate effectiveness of professional development and implement changes as needed.
o conduct research and analyze data to inform District, network and school supports.
o gather, track, and use data to drive decision making and create detailed reports.
o effectively use Google Drive including documents, sheets, slides, and forms to develop and share content and presentations.
o communicate effectively, both orally and in writing.
o establish and maintain effective working relationships.
Disclaimer
The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by people assigned to this classification. They are not to be construed as an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills required of personnel so classified.
Nondiscrimination
The School District of Philadelphia provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, age, creed, religion, sex, sexual orientation, ancestry, national origin, disability, pregnancy, marital status, gender identity, or genetic information. Please refer to Board Policy 348 for further information regarding the District's commitment to Nondiscrimination in Employment Practices.