Position overview:

TEP Social Workers serve as the primary coordinators of mental health services for TEP students and families, design and implement programs that promote social and emotional health, and respond to day-to-day student issues and unanticipated crises. Each Social Worker at TEP focuses his/her efforts on the students, families, and teachers in one specific cohort. The Social Worker moves up with that cohort as the students move up from 5th through 8th grade.

Position responsibilities:

Mental health and counseling services

• Provide regular counseling to students and families in need of social and emotional support; this includes both mandated counseling to students with IEPs (Individualized Education Plans) as well as individual and group counseling to other students in need
• Coordinate the delivery of mental health and family services at community-based organizations for students and families requiring outside services

Prevention programming

• Create programs for students and families to promote emotional and mental health
• Create mental and emotional health in-service programs for staff
• Crisis management
• Respond to day-to-day issues and unanticipated student crises at TEP during the course of a school day

Qualifications:

• Complete fluency in Spanish required
• Master’s degree in Social Work preferred
• Those with degrees in School Counseling or School Psychology will be considered
• Significant experience as a Social Worker/School Psychologist/School Counseling, preferably in a middle school setting
• Minimum of five years clinical experience working with children and families or related experience
• Working knowledge of the instructional and social needs of students at risk and students with disabilities
• Ability to design and implement in-school prevention programming according to current best practices
• Ability to simultaneously manage a regular counseling schedule and triage crisis
• Ability to prioritize multiple competing urgent tasks

Compensation and benefits: The Social Worker is paid a starting salary of $80,000. Benefits include medical, dental, and vision coverage, and a 403b retirement plan. The candidate also receives all school vacations – approximately 10 weeks per year.

To apply: Please submit a resume and cover letter. Incomplete applications will not be considered. In your cover letter, you must indicate that you are completely fluent in Spanish. Candidates who are not fluent in Spanish will not be considered.

Deadlines and notifications: TEP is currently reviewing applications on a rolling basis. Applications will be reviewed in the order that they are received. If you submit all of the required materials, you will receive a response from us as to whether or not you will be invited to the next stage in the process.

TEP contributes towards the cost of medical, dental, and vision coverage for an employee's family. TEP has a 403b (similar to a 401K) retirement plan for employees. A 403b is a tax-deferred retirement plan available to employees of educational non-profits.

Featured in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and on 60 minutes for its $125,000 teacher salaries and outstanding results, The Equity Project (TEP) Charter School opened in September 2009. Originally a 5th through 8th grade middle school, TEP now also serves students in Kindergarten, 1st grade and 2nd grade, and will soon be adding Pre-K, 3rd, and 4th grades. TEP will serve 1200 students at full capacity, from Pre-K through 8th grade.

Located in the NYC neighborhood of Washington Heights, TEP is succeeding in closing the Latino-White achievement gap. TEP's mission is to achieve educational equity for disadvantaged students by utilizing master teachers to provide rigorous academics, arts, and athletics instruction. TEP reallocates the public funding it receives as a charter school to pay its teaching professionals an annual salary of $125,000, with the opportunity to earn a significant performance bonus.

As reported in the Wall Street Journal, a rigorous long-term study found that TEP produced major achievement impacts, including test score gains equal to an additional 1.6 years of school in math, with significant gains in science and English. For more information, visit us online at www.tepcharter.org.