Middle School Math Teacher, Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired

State of Louisiana; Baton Rouge (LA); On-site; USD 45,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

Louisiana Special School District seeks a middle school math teacher for the Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired (LSVI). This 9‑month, 7.5‑hour day position may move among LSVI departments. The district emphasizes opportunity, equity, and advancing students toward college and career readiness.

LSVI serves blind and visually impaired students with comprehensive supports, technology, and a focus on inclusive education. Inquiries: [e-mail].

Qualifications

• Louisiana teaching certificate required.
• 2+ years teaching experience preferred, especially with similar backgrounds to LSVI students.
• Teacher of Visually Impaired certification preferred (3 years to achieve).
• Demonstrates Braille proficiency with NCUEB passing score.

Responsibilities

• Plan rigorous lessons aligned to Early Childhood Standards and state standards.
• Deliver instruction to visually impaired students, including Braille and assistive tech.
• Engage in regular Professional Learning Communities and collaborate with teams across the district.
• Provide interventions and supports using RtI framework to meet diverse learning needs.
• Participate in school activities, clubs, and health and wellness initiatives.

Skills

Louisiana teaching certificate

2+ years teaching experience

Teacher of Visually Impaired cert

Braille proficiency

Content area knowledge

Curriculum planning

Extracurricular involvement

Observation & goal setting proficiency

Education

Louisiana teaching certificate

Job description

LOUISIANA SPECIAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

Louisiana is a State as a Model Employer for People with Disabilities.

The Louisiana Special Schools are experiencing a critical shortage of certified teachers, school counselors, interpreters and educators of the Deaf or hard of hearing and Visually Impaired.

The LA SPECIAL SCHOOL DISTRICT is seeking applicants for a

Middle School Math Teacher, Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired (LSVI)

"This position may move around within other LSVI departments."

Position #50309734

This is a full time 9 months and 7.5 hours per day position.

To be filled for immediately.

Teacher Positions

All of our teachers are leaders with unique opportunities to create pathways for success for every student and other teachers in the years to come. This is a rare opportunity for teachers who are looking to increase their responsibility and impact within a school and across our state.

Special School District

The Special School District (SSD) was established by the Louisiana Legislature and serves over 1,800 students annually across Louisiana. Our mission is to provide compassionate, collaborative, and innovative educational opportunities for students with low incidence disabilities, meeting each student’s unique needs. Our goal is to ensure 100 percent of the students served in our schools and programs will leave with a clear path to success. Our core values include:

• Unity
• Collaboration & Innovation
• Trust
• Compassion
• Commitment
• Results
• Hope

Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired

The Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired (LSVI) traces its roots back to 1852 and serves blind and visually impaired children, birth to age 21. Our school prides itself on offering comprehensive services, including rigorous instruction, outreach services, extracurricular activities, assistive technology, transition, and orientation and mobility and Expanded Core training. We dedicate ourselves every day to ensuring our students reach their maximum potential.

LSVI commits to teaching all students Braille in an optimal, highly accessible environment; to present instructional materials in formats and using technology best suited to each student; to ensuring that we are driven by research in best developmental practices for learners that are blind or visually impaired; to use advances in technology to meet the diverse needs of our students.

LSVI strives to be a college and career preparatory environment where students are expected to read, to respond, to analyze information, to reason and solve real‑world problems, and to make sense of the world around them. We encourage parents and families to engage fully with the school and to help us support their children. Our teachers are experts in the field and in the needs of our students, they engage in regular Professional Learning Communities, and they continuously grow in the profession and techniques.

Throughout its more than 150 years as a school, LSVI has maintained an unchanging commitment to offer blind and visually impaired students the academic, career and social opportunities to help them achieve their full potential. We never stop learning here at the Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired!

Inquiries regarding non‑discrimination may be referred to Mary Gloston, Human Resources Director at [e-mail].

RELEASE OF ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION INFORMATION

La. R.S. 17:3884(D) requires that any school board wishing to hire a person who has been assessed or evaluated pursuant to the Children First Act, La. R.S. 17:3871, et seq., whether that person is already employed by that school system or not, shall request such person's assessment and evaluation results as part of the application process.

Please be advised that, as part of the mandated process, your previous assessment and evaluation results will be requested. You have the opportunity to apply, review the information received, and provide any response or information you deem appropriate.

Physical Activity Level

The employee must be able to perform assigned duties without significant risk of substantial harm to his/her own safety/security and the safety/security of others. Some work is performed in physically comfortable positions with little or light physical effort, and some work requires moderate effort. Physical requirements are subject to reasonable accommodation in accordance with ADA standards.

• Deep belief that all students, regardless of their backgrounds and educational pasts, have the potential to succeed in college, career, and beyond, and that it is the responsibility of schools to help students realize that potential.
• Louisiana teaching certificate, 2+ years of teaching experience, preferably working with students from similar backgrounds to LSVI students.
• Teacher of Visually Impaired certification preferred (3 years to achieve).
• Demonstrates Braille proficiency with passing score on the National Certification Unified English Braille (NCUEB).
• Desire to work at a college and career prep school rebuilding education for blind and visually impaired students.
• Desire to grow as a teacher and face the challenges that come with deep reflection and direct feedback on your classroom practices.
• Positive attitude and strong work ethic. Ability to constantly find joy in the successes and challenges of our work. Ability to demonstrate that joy towards students, families, and teammates.
• Personal initiative to better yourself and those around you. Drive to actively pursue excellence in everything you do, even when not given direct coaching.
• Strong knowledge in content area of choice, demonstrated through lesson planning, execution, and intervention with all students.
• Strong desire to participate in all school activities, including extracurricular activities, clubs, sports, school health and wellness activities, and other activities and events that promote school identity and culture.
• Effective rating measured using the Compass observation and goal setting cycle and tools, which includes measures of setting instructional outcomes, managing classroom procedures, questioning and discussion techniques, engaging students in learning, using assessment in instruction, and measurable student learning targets.

Planning for College and Career Ready Bar

• Plan rigorous lessons aligned to the Early Childhood Standards, Louisiana State Standards and the school’s internal curriculum to align all of your planning.
• Utilize curriculum assessments at the daily, weekly, and unit level to measure what your students learned: Daily Exit Tickets (formative) to know if you were successful in teaching that day; Weekly or Unit Assessments (summative) to assess students learning. For each assessment, create your ideal student response or mastery response, clearly defining the bar of rigor your students must reach.
• Utilize curriculum summative assessments to test overall mastery at the unit level that align to the end of year assessment for your course.
• Know your content deeply. Ensure lessons demonstrate your knowledge and passion for your content. Lessons must drive mastery and investment in your content from every student you teach.

Culture That Builds Strong and Positive Student Identities and Investment

• Ensure your students know that you believe in them, and they know what you expect from them and why.
• Create a classroom culture where 100% of your students are engaged in your lesson and doing rigorous thinking at every moment throughout your lesson.
• Create and leverage a classroom narrative along with the school system of positive behavior support and positive discipline to build strong and positive student identities. Use praise and recognition to ensure your students know what you value. Use corrections and consequences to teach expected behavior while holding students accountable to high standards.
• Build relationships with students that let them know you care about them as individuals. Leverage those relationships to push your students to the highest heights academically and as people.
• Use Restorative Approaches with every student when approaching corrections and consequences. Work hard to keep your students in class and only send a child out when he or she needs time to step back, re‑center, or reflect on something that needs improvement behaviorally.
• Incorporate best practices received in trainings on social and emotional learning for students and model the use of these strategies.
• Check in with students monthly to support positive student relationships and to identify potential concerns. For example, attendance, grades, discipline and other concerns.
• Ensure regular communication every month with parents, so they also know you are invested in their child.

Lesson Execution Using Data Throughout the Lesson Cycle

• Execute the lessons you have planned with fidelity and at the highest level, ensuring 100% of your students are engaged in your lesson and doing rigorous thinking at every moment.
• Bring passion, joy, and energy to your execution. Ensure students reflect the level of passion, joy and energy you feel because of your execution.
• Gather data throughout your lesson to ensure students at all levels in your classroom are mastering the material. Use these Checks for Understanding to pivot your lesson in the moment.
• Ensure your lessons drive towards both mastery of the Exit Ticket for that day and mastery in the larger themes of your unit: The Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions.
• Reflect on your data daily to know what your students learned and what they didn’t learn. Make a plan to fill in those gaps the following day and retest later on.

Interventions and Supports to Meet the Needs of All Students

• Teach to the diverse learning needs of every student you teach. Take action on and responsibility for every student in your classroom regardless of incoming achievement level or diverse learning needs.
• Plan and execute strong Tier 1 and Tier 2 interventions within the Response to Intervention (RtI) framework to ensure every child can master the material in your class every day.
• Use relevant instructional techniques and technologies for the visually impaired student.
• Track data to assess the efficacy of your interventions. If interventions aren’t working, find new interventions to test out to ensure all students are growing as fast as possible towards their goals.
• Ensure all students have high quality accommodations and modifications in place to meet their unique needs.
• Commit to a minimum of one hour, two days per week of tutoring. Additional compensation will be paid for actual hours spent tutoring.

Teamwork that Drives the Success of our Whole School

• Actively participate in all team meetings including but not limited to: our daily Morning Meeting, Weekly Grade Level and/or Department meetings, Professional Development, Network Wide Data Days on a quarterly basis, and Monthly Professional Learning Community meetings.
• Collaborate with others to drive the success of your grade level and school.
• Seek solutions to problems you see constantly. Constantly look across the school and ask yourself, “How can our school be better tomorrow?”
• Proactively propose solutions and ideas to improve the school.

Refer to Job Specifications.