FILLED- Common Ground Seeks Environmental Leadership Manager

Common Ground — the nation’s oldest environmental charter high school, part of a community organization that also operates a community environmental education center and urban farm — is seeking a passionate, creative, effective, inclusive Environmental Leadership Manager. This is a unique opportunity to work at a school that prioritizes leadership development and experiential learning focused on the environmental and social justice.

The Environmental Leadership Manager leads key components of our Environmental Leadership strategy — helping to ensure that all students have equitable and robust opportunities to grow as leaders and change agents, working to grow a more just and sustainable world. This employee will:

• Manage the school-wide Environmental Leadership Portfolio process — through which all students create and defend electronic portfolios showing their growth as learners and leaders over time. (To learn more about our portfolio process, visit http://www.teachcity.org/practices/environmental-leadership-portfolios) 
• Facilitate and participate in the development of school-wide systems that support expanded opportunities for leadership development and engagement with the community as a classroom — including a strengthened four-year advisory curriculum, a four-year progression of leadership portfolio benchmarks and supports, and a portfolio format that documents learning in school and community settings.
• Collaborate with students, teachers, staff, and community partners to strengthen opportunities for students to grow as learners and leaders, engage with environmental and social justice issues, and use our farm, site and city as learning laboratories as part of courses and the curriculum.

We are looking for candidates who demonstrate some or all of the following:

• Strong program management and systems skills — able to manage multiple priorities, help to strengthen and develop systems, etc.
• A passion for and experience with work at the intersection of environmental, social, and food justice.
• Experience and skill in youth development, leadership development, organizing, and/or helping young people grow into agents of change.  
• Experience working directly with racially and economically diverse high school aged young people, and with low income young people and people of color in particular.
• Knowledge about and passion for working for an organization that is committed to social justice, the dismantling of systems of oppression, and creating a just, equitable, and inclusive culture.
• Experience developing and sustaining relationships with community partners.
• Creativity, sense of humor, and commitment to collaboration and relationship building
• Excellent communication skills.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience.

We are also excited to consider candidates who have:

• Understanding of the history and present-day dynamics of the city of New Haven, as well as connections/social networks within our city.
• Strong writing, presentation/facilitation, and reflection skills — and an ability to help young people develop those skills.
• Experience in trauma-informed work, restorative justice, and/or social emotional learning/literacy.
• Passion and experience in curriculum development and working closely with classroom teachers.
• Background in experiential, place-based, and/or project-based learning.
• Experience working with Google applications, online course management platforms, and other online learning tools.
• A minimum of three years experience working in school or community organization setting.

This is a full-time position, with benefits. Salary is commensurate with experience.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. We hope to fill this position in June 2018.

To apply, please send resume and cover letter to:

Joel Tolman
Director of Impact & Engagement
jtolman@commongroundct.org

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION POLICY STATEMENT

Common Ground is particularly eager for candidates who help us fulfill our commitment to building a racially and culturally diverse faculty and staff. Common Ground has a commitment to examining the intersection of social, environmental, and food justice issues; how systems of oppression, including white privilege, impact the organization’s work; and how resistance to those systems can offer windows into a more sustainable society.

It is the policy of the New Haven Ecology Project, Inc. and Common Ground High School that no person shall be excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or otherwise discriminated against under any program, including employment, because of race, color, religious creed, sex, age, national origin, ancestry, marital status, civil union status, sexual orientation, mental retardation, and past/present history of mental disorder, learning disability and physical disability.

It is the policy of the New Haven Ecology Project, Inc. and Common Ground High School to provide equal employment opportunities to all qualified individuals without regard to age, color, marital status, civil union status, national origin, disability, race, religion, sexual orientation or gender in all personnel actions, including recruitment, evaluation, selection, daily interactions, promotion, compensation, training and termination.

In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), as amended, it is the policy of the New Haven Ecology Project, Inc. and Common Ground High School not to discriminate against protected qualified applicants and employees with disabilities in all aspect of employment.