The Nest Nursery School, Inc.
Atlanta, Georgia
Start Date: August 1, 2023
The Nest Nursery School is currently seeking bright, curious, hard-working, and dedicated educators for full-time and substitute teaching positions with young children and their families.
The classroom teacher’s general responsibilities include the following:
Supervise and engage with children.
Develop and implement an emergent curriculum through the process of progettazione and design-thinking on an ongoing basis
Provide empathy for the children by remembering they are new to life and every behavior is a communication from them
Observe, document, and make visible the experiences of children, teachers, and families.
Remain committed to the ongoing study of the Reggio Emilia approach, including active participation in Project Infinity.
Ensure that the school and the classroom are clean, organized, well-maintained, and safe.
Communicate and build community with families in many different ways–email, classroom diaries, in-person check ins, etc.
Actively participate in the life of the local community.
Ensure that substitute teachers and new employees have the information they need to work effectively in your classroom.
Specific tasks and duties of the teacher (as they pertain to the responsibilities of the teacher) are described below.
Experiences with Children
Ensure children are safe and supervised at all times
Provide comfort to children
Focus on positive behavior during your engagements with children and don’t give energy or emotion to unwanted behavior. “Catch” children’s successes.
Use a tone of voice that communicates care, respect, and empathy for children and their experiences
Maintain a daily “energy” that supports you in being present and engaged with the children
Clearly, effectively, and respectfully communicate with children
Document (i.e., writing children’s words, photographs, videos, audio recording) in order to support you in listening to children — their ideas, theories, hypotheses, feelings, experiences, interests, concerns, etc.
Refrain from inappropriate talk and subject matter about and in front of children
Intentionally support healthy relationships among children, including the development of a disposition for listening, problem-solving, empathy, etc.
Resist the desire to “control” children and children’s experiences by striving to be a classroom’s supportive adult (vs. the classroom’s manager)
Pedagogical Work – Design Thinking, Projecting, and Planning
Relationships/relations should be the foundation of our design thinking
Participation in weekly planning and projecting meetings with colleagues (to include collaborating with teammates through sharing observations, analyzing documentation, coming up with learning/concept goals together, and brainstorming questions + related experiences together)
Document your observations of children through notes, photos, and/or video/audio recording in order to provide relevant experiences
Provide intentions/learning goals for small group experiences
Take “open roads,” which don’t always lead where you think you want to go, but which keep you constantly aware that the unexpected might happen.
Create weekly projection forms and share with families each week
Visibility, including…
Three Storypark posts per week, which should also be printed and placed in a binder labeled with the classroom name and the school year
Presentations for parents and community members
Monthly class newsletters
Maintaining individual children’s portfolios, which may contain artwork, relevant classroom diaries, and other forms of documentation.
Maintaining displays of children’s on-going experiences in the classroom to support the furthering of your work, including photographs of the children and transcriptions of their conversations.
School and Classroom Environment + Materials
Planning and implementation of various experiences for children
Be familiar with different materials and their “languages” including knowing the basic structures of these languages and the willingness to imagine their possibilities.
Ensure the equipment and facility are safe, clean and well-maintained (including weekly cleaning tasks with the children, such as dusting shelves and organizing materials)
Ensure the equipment and facility are safe
Create a rich environment with a variety of materials and opportunities for child-initiated learning as well as teacher-planned experiences
Ensure that materials are plentiful and accessible by children
Continually contribute to the rich environment to keep it fresh and engaging, to reflect emerging project work/threads, and to meet the changing developmental needs and interests of children
Intentionality around the introduction of new materials to the classroom, including conversations with children about the purpose of the material, how to care for the materials, where to keep the new materials in the classroom
Give visibility to children’s learning processes, the identity of the school. This includes Storybook posts, emails, and the walls of our school
Creating and maintaining a binder for substitute teachers that clearly describes tasks and duties as they pertain to your classroom
Interactions with Families
Maintain daily attendance records
Keep families informed of children’s experiences, classroom activities, and other relevant information
Develop specific strategies to intentionally build a communicative, trusting partnership with families
Maintain professionalism in interactions with parents.
Be proactive with parents by listening to their concerns and sharing your expertise. It is important to anticipate “typical” concerns that parents may have at specific moments in their child’s development (e.g., potty training, “school readiness,” biting, eating, etc.)
Be a resource for parents. Research issues of concern to parents and share these.
Ensure responsive and timely communication with parents as issues and needs arise.
Support parents in building a strong community of support for their child, at The Nest and beyond.
Implement a variety of communication strategies with parents.
Develop meaningful experiences for parents, including….
Back-to-School Night
Twice yearly class meetings.
Annual parent/teacher conferences
Professionalism
Be knowledgeable and demonstrate curiosity about child development theory and practice
Be familiar with The Nest employee handbook and comply with The Nest employee policies and procedures
Demonstrate good work habits:
Demonstrate self-motivation, flexibility, problem-solving skills, and the ability to make decisions
Maintain confidentiality.
Manage personal stress and time
Demonstrate dependability and accountability
Demonstrate punctuality and organizational skills
Willingness to perform alternate duties
Does not spend excessive amounts of time on telephone or conversing with other adults, which distracts from engagement with children
Demonstrate positive personal attributes and ethical behavior:
Accept change and adapt to new situations
Maintain a positive attitude and a sense of humor
Demonstrate a cooperative, diplomatic, respectful attitude
Show gratitude & empathy towards your colleagues.
Commitment to on-going professional development, including participation in Project Infinity-sponsored experiences
Regularly communicate with school leadership about your professional growth and goals
Seek support on classroom issues, challenges, and areas for growth.
Develop and maintain a professional growth & formation plan and seek support from your colleagues in navigating your plan
The classroom educator should have post-secondary education in early childhood education or child development (associates degree, CDA, technical college diploma, etc.).
Bachelor’s degrees in any field are appropriate when combined with related child care and/or preschool teaching experience.
Equivalencies will be considered.
Salary dependent on education and experience.
Benefits include a 4-day workweek, 2 weeks of paid personal time off, 5 weeks of annual vacation (school closure), an annual healthcare stipend, and a 401(K).
Interested applicants should email Eleanor Walsh at ewalsh@thenestnursery.org, and include a letter of interest, a resume, and a list of three references.
The Nest Nursery School is a not-for-profit organization that nurtures relationships, curiosity, critical thinking, empathy, and advocacy. We are dedicated to building an understanding of the inequities in early childhood education and to expanding the possibilities for schools.
We offer full-day childcare from 815am-5pm, Monday-Friday.
Eleanor Walsh at ewalsh@thenestnursery.org
Together, we are empowering exceptional education.