Full-Time: Forest Kindergarten Teacher - Trackers Earth Portland

Trackers Forest School seeks founding Kindergarten Teacher

Compensation: $35,000 / year plus health benefits, generous paid leave, and potential camp tuition for your children

Application Deadline: 5 PM on Friday March 18

About Trackers Earth and the Trackers Forest School

Since 2004, Trackers Earth has led the way in innovative outdoor education, creative summer camps, and hands-on wilderness skills for kids and adults. Our Portland and Bay Area locations serve over 1,000 unique students in our year-round mentoring programs and over 11,000 students in our summer programs. Join us for the the next big step in our evolution: the Trackers Forest School. Our pilot kindergarten program in Fall 2016 is the first step to our full-time, year-round, K - 8 school.

Needed: a Kindergarten Teacher With an Edge

Our founding class’s Kindergarten teacher has a profound opportunity to shape the development of the Trackers Forest School at the ground level. Our curriculum goes beyond rounded tip scissors and crayons: Real bows and arrows, tracking, whittling, and practical botany go hand-in-hand with beginning math games, reading, and writing. You work closely with our leadership team and program coordinators, and also have significant latitude to work independently.

This position is full-time and year-round, with regularly scheduled school-year vacation breaks. Because this is the first year of our school, you must have exceptional organizational acumen and be passionate about building something new. At Trackers, we have very high expectations for our students and our staff when it comes to independence and accountability. We work hard and we play hard, and we don’t do anything halfway.

This position begins with occasional, hourly, part-time preparation work in spring and increasing preparation time hours in summer as school start approaches.

Responsibilities - the foundational Kindergarten Lead Teacher will:

Be the primary teacher for a class of 6-12 kindergarten students, possibly including managing an assistant teacher pending enrollment
Develop a project-based curriculum, in collaboration with others on the Trackers administrative team
Attend occasional parent outreach events and get-togethers
Create teaching materials and manage supply acquisition
Plan and implement project-based activities that develop outdoor skills as well as supporting academic progress
Lesson plan for both indoor and outdoor/excursion days on an individual, small group, and class-wide basis
Establish an educational community of students that supports joyful independence, personal accountability, and competency - both indoors and out
Provide regular updates to parents about classroom activities, projects, and celebrations, creatively involving parents in their child’s education as much as possible
Keep records of student progress, and compile student progress reports twice yearly
Conduct twice-yearly parent-teacher conferences
Build a classroom culture that supports and grows the Trackers Code of Common Sense:
Pay Attention.
Be Truly Helpful.
Respect.
We’re Doing it Wrong; Let’s Do it Better!

Experience, Qualifications, and Attributes

At least 2-3 years teaching young children in long-term settings (such as a mentoring program, classroom or Forest School)
Experience in outdoor education highly preferred
Experience with Montessori, Reggio Emilia or other individualized project-based education a plus
Proficiency with written communication including google docs/sheets, email, etc.
A current, valid driver’s license and exemplary driving record
Must have, or be willing to get, a commercial driver’s license with passenger endorsement for transporting students (we can help you get this)
Must have comfort in and enthusiasm for the outdoors in all weather: ~80% of your time will be spent outside
Excitement to learn primitive and outdoor skills through professional development with our outdoor skills expert staff
Some experience with some of the following foundational outdoor and primitive skills (we can help train you) - including but not limited to:
Fire-by-friction
Fishing
Shelter-building
Tracking
Fiber arts and crafts
Trackers Forest School
Whittling
Pacific Northwest Naturalist knowledge (animal, plant, bird ID)

Learn More about Our Programs and Culture:

Finally, should you wish to learn more about us, you can visit our Forest School information page:

Ready to Apply?

Send a cover letter and resume to kteacher@trackersearth.com. Please ensure your letter and resume address the qualifications, attributes, and experience as described in this job post. Thank you!