Common Ground is Seeking a Full-Time Special Education Teacher

Common Ground — the nation’s oldest environmental charter high school, creating the next generation of successful college students and powerful community and environmental leaders — is seeking a full-time Special Education teacher. This teacher will have the opportunity to:

• Collaborate with Common Ground’s talented team of Special Educators and Support Educators on the delivery of Special Education services to students with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs)
• Support General Education Teachers in delivering instruction utilizing accommodations and modifications to meet the learning needs of students with IEPs
• Participate in grade-level planning meetings that address students’ academic and social-emotional needs

Common Ground is seeking outstanding candidates with:

• A passion for our environmental mission and commitment to equitable and sustainable change
• An understanding of the circumstances that low income students and students of color have historically and are presently experiencing and an awareness of the role of individual educators and educational institutions in creating and changing those experiences
• Comprehensive Special Education (CT 165) certification
• Master’s degree with 3+ years of teaching experience
• Strong written and oral communication skills
• Experience managing a caseload of students with IEPs: Writing IEPs, completing required reporting, managing documentation; participating in PPTs
• Experience with pushing in to classrooms and working in Resource Rooms
• Experience collaborating with general education teachers and support staff
• Experience coordinating targeted interventions
• A commitment to involving school families deeply in the educational process

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

Please send cover letter and resume to:

Liz Cox, School Director

Common Ground High School

358 Springside Ave., New Haven, CT 06515

lcox@commongroundct.org

Common Ground is committed to the recruitment and retention of staff that is reflective of the communities we work with. We strongly encourage applicants from people of color, immigrants, women, people with disabilities, members of the LGBTQ community, and other underrepresented and historically marginalized groups.

It has been the policy and will continue to be the strong commitment of the Common Ground and all contractors and subcontractors who do business with Common Ground to provide equal opportunities in employment to all qualified persons solely on the basis of job-related skills, ability and merit.  Common Ground will continue to take Affirmative Action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, mental disorder (present or past history thereof) age, physical disability (but not limited to blindness), marital status, intellectual disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and criminal record. Such action includes, but is not limited to, employment, promotion, demotion or transfer; recruitment or recruitment advertising; layoff or termination; rates of pay or other forms of compensation, and selection for training, professional development, attendance at conferences or other opportunities for advancement.  Common Ground, its contractors and subcontractors will continue to make good faith efforts to comply with all federal and state laws and policies which speak to equal employment opportunity.

The principles of Affirmative Action are addressed in the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th Amendments of the United States Constitution, Civil Rights Act of 1866, 1870, 1871, Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VI and VII of the 1964 United States Civil Rights Act, Presidential Executive Order 11246, amended by 11375, (Non-discrimination under federal contracts)< Act 1, Section 1 and 20 of the Connecticut Constitution, Governor Grasso’s Executive Order Number 11, Governor O’Neill’s Executive Order 9, the Connecticut Fair Employment Practices Law (Sec. 46a-60-69) of the Connecticut General Statutes, Connecticut Code of Fair Practices (46a-70-81), Deprivation of Civil Rights (46a-58(a)(d)), Public Accommodations Law (46a-63-64), Discrimination against Criminal Offenders (46a-80), definition of Blind (46a-51(1)), definition of Physically Disabled (46a-51(15)), definition of Intellectual Disability (46a-51(13)), cooperation with the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (46a-77), Sexual Harassment (46a-60(a)-8), Connecticut Credit Discrimination Law (360436 through 439), Title I of the State and Local Fiscal Assistance Act of 1972.

This Affirmative Action Policy Statement re-affirms Common Ground’s commitment to equity in the workplace and the principles of Equal Employment Opportunity.