Behavior Support Specialist, KIPP Harmony Academy

Company Description

Founded in 2002, KIPP Baltimore operates joyful, academically excellent public charter schools and alumni support programming that prepare students with the skills and confidence necessary to successfully pursue individual pathways to careers of highest aspiration. KIPP Baltimore enrolls approximately 1,500 kindergarten through eighth grade students in two schools on a shared campus in the former Walbrook High School building in West Baltimore: KIPP Harmony Academy (grades K-5) and KIPP Ujima Village Academy (6-8).  Including our signature KIPP Forward (formerly KIPP Through College) program, we support more than 3,000 current students and alumni.

KIPP Baltimore is part of the national KIPP Public Schools network. KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) began in 1994 with 47 fifth-graders as a college-preparatory program housed within a public middle school in Houston, Texas; today, we are a network of 280 schools, 15,000 educators, and 175,000 students and alumni. All KIPP public charter schools are locally-run, non-profit organizations; each region is governed by a board of directors.

Job Description

Job Summary

The Behavior Support Specialist will support school culture by providing preventative and responsive interventions to our highest-need students and their families to ensure improved academic and character outcomes. The BSS will partner with the school leaders and classroom teachers to support a trauma-informed school community.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

• None

Duties/Responsibilities:

• Behavior prevention and intervention to build a strong school culture:

1. Participates in SST and CST meetings relevant to caseloads, as needed.

2. Establishes and upholds consistently high expectations for student behavior.

3. Ensures that school-wide discipline structures effectively support students, families, teachers, and the school and adjust as needed through coaching.

4. Collaborates on school-wide incentives to plan and execute monthly school-wide incentives.

5. Builds positive relationships with students, families, and teachers.

6. Assists with lunchtime and after-school procedures as needed.

7. Mediates issues between key stakeholders with warmth, empathy, and decisiveness.

8. Observes students in classrooms to support teachers in developing intervention plans for students needing services.

9. Responds to support students in crisis.

10. Plans, coordinates, and supports teachers in implementing and monitoring the implementation of preventative behavior intervention plans for students.

11. Leads discipline initiatives for one grade level.

12. Works in close partnership with the school leadership team to meet the needs of students.

• Trauma Sensitive School Community

1. Works with the school leadership team to continue monitoring the strategic plan's goals to develop a Trauma-sensitive school community.

2. Builds staff and family mindsets about the importance of recognizing and understanding trauma's impact on our students.

3. Builds the staff and family mindsets about how we maintain high expectations while building structures to support students who have experienced trauma.

4. Builds structures within our school to ensure each classroom utilizes trauma-sensitive practices.

5. Monitors progress against goals to ensure students who have experienced trauma continue to improve their progress against academic outcomes.

6. Attends training and continuing education relevant to these job duties.

• Leads and supports documentation.

• Leads and supports reinstatement meetings. 

• Enters referral data into infinite campus and analyze data. 

• Participates in arrival and dismissal duties.

• Ensures communication to parents around events, initiatives, daily activities, and important issues are clear and timely.

• Co-leads a lunch block.

• Supports timely transitions by monitoring students in the hallways and walking to and from classes, lunch, and recess. 

•  Serves as a full-time and engaged member of KIPP Baltimore’s staff.

Qualifications

• Evidence of strong relationships with families. 

• Unquestioned integrity and commitment to KIPP Baltimore’s mission and growth. 

• Professional demeanor, strong self-confidence. 

• Self-starter, takes initiative, leadership skills. 

• Ability to influence and motivate others.  Build strong working relationships with colleagues. 

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills. 

• Exc