Middle School Counselor

Overview

Job Description

Position Overview

KIPP Nashville seeks a highly dedicated school counselor who will bring a “whatever it takes” attitude to its team. The School Counselor will work directly with students and families to provide effective, high quality interventions that are data-driven. The Counselor will work directly with teachers to cultivate their knowledge of students’ social and emotional development. To ensure that we are meeting the social and emotional needs of all students and families we educate, our School Counselor will be a key driver of our schools’ student culture vision of creating safe, inclusive, and character building culture for every child.

The School Counselor provides the following core services: prevention, intervention, assessment, and collaboration.

• Prevention
  • Build relationships and collaborate with external education and social services professionals to develop appropriate agency services for students and families
  • Participate in weekly intervention meetings to thought partner with teachers around social and emotional supports
  • Facilitate workshops and other learning opportunities for families
  • Conduct home visits that support families to meet KIPP Nashville College Prep Elementary expectations and increases student/family involvement
  • Participate on school staff teams to develop policies and practices to proactively build school culture including opportunities for team-building and collaboration among students
  • Help drive a school-wide atmosphere that suits the needs to our students, teachers, and families
  • Facilitate professional development for teachers to help them understand child development and how it affects student performance academically and social/emotionally
• Intervention
  • Drive social and emotional intervention plans for our most high need students
  • Run individual and group counseling sessions with research-based social and emotional practices
  • Assist students, teachers, and families to develop solutions to family and community factors that influence students’ capacity or ability to learn
• Assessment
  • Complete high-quality progress notes for all students receiving counseling services weekly
  • Conduct interviews with a student, family members, and KIPP staff members to gather information about each student’s social, emotional and behavioral needs; help all constituents integrate information to best meet the student’s needs
  • Conduct observations to gather data in order to determine best options for interventions
• Collaboration
  • Create professional learning goals each year and implement feedback towards these goals
  • Offer support to and receive constructive feedback from colleagues in order to create a professional working atmosphere that is conducive to growth and improvement
• Family Engagement
  • Establish and maintain strong communication lines with all parents and share progress
  • Be available for open houses, parent teacher conferences and other events involving parents
  • Make oneself available to students, parents and other staff members
• Growth Mindset
  • Pursue challenging professional goals each year
  • Willing to offer support and receive constructive feedback from colleagues in order to create a professional working atmosphere that is conducive to change and improvement
  • Participate in school-wide and individual professional development, including pre-service training over the summer and weekly during the academic year (held during school hours)

• Valid Tennessee professional school counselor license or Master of Social Work (required)
• Bachelor’s degree (required), Master’s degree (preferred)
• Pass Criminal Background Check (required)
• At least two years of counseling experience (preferred)
• Experience and demonstrated success teaching students from educationally under-resourced communities (highly preferred)
• Experience teaching or supporting diverse learners (preferred)
• Commitment to working with students from educationally under-resourced communities

• Unwavering commitment to KIPP Nashville’s mission, students, families, and community
• Firm belief in affirming the identity of students, families and staff
• Passionate and committed to being a leader for…