Empowerment Academy Charter School is hiring a Teaching Assistant for our Elementary School for the 2022/2023 school year.

Salary: $32,500-$37,500 +

Why Our School is Special:

Empowerment Academy is a highly successful charter school that truly supports its teachers. We serve a student mix that is among the most diverse in America while enjoying the cultural vibrance of Jersey City, Hoboken and New York City. If this appeals to you, then apply today! We have achieved academic success without burning out our teachers by meshing an effective education program with effective teacher supports and professional development.

We truly value our faculty and work hard to control other costs so we can focus our resources on supporting them. In fact, throughout our history, we have annually increased faculty salaries by more than at other public schools and now, among those with similar experience, OUR FACULTY MEMBERS ARE AMONG THE HIGHEST PAID IN NEW JERSEY.

New Jersey charter schools ARE public schools. Our teachers are part of the Teachers’ Pension and Annuity Fund (TPAF), just like teachers at other public schools, and teachers are able to transfer their pension credits from a traditional public school to a charter school and vice versa.

Teacher Responsibilities

Values, Expectations, and Commitment: Our staff commit themselves to the school’s values and mission. Moreover, appreciating the example of excellent schools which succeed at helping all students achieve at a high level, our teachers hold high expectations for each student and commit themselves to helping every student achieve their full potential.

Teaching and Assessment: We provide staff with curricular materials. We also allow teachers flexibility in designing their own. We ask that teachers plan and deliver vibrant and engaging lessons – each with a measurable goal – within the framework of the school’s carefully sequenced, standards-aligned education program. Our teachers administer school-provided formative assessments on a regular basis so instruction can be targeted to their students' needs.

Culture and Classroom Management: Our staff communicates and models behaviors which befit the high expectations culture and the caring school climate to which we are committed. Our teachers apply school and classroom rules consistently and effectively; make use of preventive discipline; and effectively supervise students both in their classroom and elsewhere on school grounds.

Teamwork, Professional Relations, and Professional Development: Our staff see themselves as members of a team and commit themselves to their own and to their peers’ on-going professional development. Teachers will be required to attend professional development sessions, to participate actively in planning meetings, and to become part of a professional learning community where they can lend assistance to, and gain assistance from, their grade-level peers.

Special Needs Students and English Language Learners: Our staff works collaboratively with the school’s special education and ELL staff to implement the school’s special education and ELL programs and to comply with all state and federal regulations.

Teacher Assistant Supports

Teacher Assistants are part of a school-wide team that includes many different professionals and they receive career-long coaching and professional development support from our diverse Leadership Team.Teacher Assistants work closely with their grade level peers, with whom they engage within professional learning communities (PLCs) assisting one another to solve problems and plan lessons collaboratively.

Additional teacher assistant supports include:

• Planning periods and a designated lunch break that provides teachers an opportunity to prepare up-coming lessons during the school day;
• A research-based curriculum and supporting curricular materials (you will have the freedom to develop your own, but after a full day in the classroom, you may appreciate not always having to develop learning objectives and curricular resources from scratch);
• High-quality formative assessments, aligned with our curriculum, that will help you immediately identify when students in your class have not achieved mastery of a skill, concept, or knowledge item;
• Full-time reading and math specialists or intervention teachers who will be available to tutor students who are struggling to master an essential skill, and social workers AND counselors who will be available to help students struggling with outside problems;
• The staffing of our afterschool program by Academic Tutors, so we can limit the length of our teachers’ work-days.