Director of Student Support

Do you love helping students become their best person, to navigate potential obstacles, and to unleash their full potential? When you see students struggle, do you also see in them their power, potential, and capabilities? Their limitless capacity? At Greensboro Montessori School, we believe in empowering students to be independent and responsible learners. We believe all children can do great things. And, we know that some students require a little extra help to be at their best. 

This is when our Student Support Center (SSC) steps in. This team currently comprises two full-time team employees (a director and a school counselor) and two part-time employees (one focuses on early childhood and one focuses on reading interventions). They partner with classroom teachers throughout the School to support students with any learning, social-emotional, or developmental challenges; they run diagnostic tests and academic assessments; they do one-on-one interventions; they serve as “gatekeepers” for helping families partner with outside services; and they partner with our director of admission to help assess a child’s academic fit during this application process.

While the director of student support and the SSC provide general support to all the faculty and students, they provide more specific and more focused support to a smaller group of students whose learning or social needs require additional attention. There are anywhere from 30 to 40 students on their more focused caseload at any time.

We seek a director of student support to lead this wonderful and important team. We seek someone who embodies our Montessori values of meeting children where they are, who has a background in special education, and who is a great case manager. We seek someone who knows that student support goes much more deeply than paperwork and test scores. Impeccable attention to detail and limitless grace and compassion go a long way, too. Oh, and we’d like someone who has an easy laugh, as well. 

The director of student support is a 10-month, full-time position that reports directly to the head of school. oversees the other members of the student support team, and collaborates with directors of lower and upper schools. Working in a 270-student independent school, we are all used to having myriad responsibilities on any day, and we are all committed to pitching in to do whatever students need to be at their best.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Direct student contact. Running proactive small group support, doing one-on-one reading support in kindergarten (we currently use The Hill Center Reading Program), or responding to the student needs that emerge on any particular day.
• Coordinate faculty conversations. Joining faculty team meetings, offering strategies and tactics for faculty to employ to support individual students, following up from conversations to keep all parties informed, and ensuring strategies are followed up with.
• Lead the Student Support Center. Leading weekly team meetings, overseeing the caseload for the entire team, and ordering any needed instructional support materials.
• Faculty professional development. Facilitating occasional professional development opportunities for faculty (past examples include having challenging parent conversations; self care for faculty; resiliency training from a trauma-informed perspective for students).
• Family partnership. Having regular conversations with students on their workload, keeping families informed, partnering with home for student support, and joining relevant parent-teacher conferences.
• Outside support. Coordinating any outside support (speech, OT, psychologists, etc.), managing two-way consents, keeping families and classroom faculty connected, and reviewing outside evaluation reports families share with the School.
• Testing coordinator. Managing NWEA MAP Growth assessments for third to ninth graders, running reading assessments for kindergarten through second grades, and deciding if we return to speech and auditory screening after stopping for a few years during the pandemic.
• Admissions. Supporting the admissions process through observations and screening students using specific subsets from Woodcock Johnson III.

Needed Skills and Experience

• Background and experience with PK-8 special education.
• Bachelors’ degree in education; master's degree preferred.
• Experience both in the classroom and in a leadership role within a school.
• Excellent communication skills (written and verbal) with students, colleagues, and families.
• Montessori-aligned philosophy of learning; however, Montessori training or experience are not required.
• Experience with reading programs such as Orton Gillingham or The Hill Center are ideal, but not required.

To Apply

This 10-month position starts August 7, 2023, comes with a full benefits package, and involves occasional on-call help over the summer months. If you think you have what we’re looking for, we would like to hear from you. Please email a cover letter and résumé to Ashley Daniels, director of human resources, at HR@gms.org.

Our School

Greensboro Montessori School is a thriving and financially secure 49-year-old, toddler-to-junior-high, AMS- and SAIS-accredited, 260-student independent school. Our students have access to our 10-acre main campus, 37-acre satellite Land campus, two activity buses, a team of cultural education faculty (art, music, Spanish, physical education, computer science), and a crew of environmental educators teaching in our 20-year-old permaculture gardens and teaching kitchen.

If you are from outside the Piedmont Triad area of North Carolina, know that North Carolina is a fantastic place to live and that Greensboro is a wonderful, affordable, medium-sized city. Relocation support is available.