Program Director

The Brooklyn Kindergarten Society (BKS) is the original “born in Brooklyn”. We were founded in 1891, and for 130 years, BKS has helped provide high-quality early childhood education to working families. BKS has grown up with the borough and continues to be a leader in equal access to high quality early childhood education. BKS sees its mission as providing an equal first educational step to some of our borough’s youngest learners. We provide full day, year-round academic experiences and care for children ages 2-5 years old. Our curriculum is play based and marries together reading, writing, movement and music, with STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) learning. Our goal is to ensure that Brooklyn’s youngest learners have an equal first educational step.

JOB PURPOSE

The ECE Program Director will work to ensure implementation of the Creative Curriculum model by teachers throughout the school, as well as monitor all staff to maintain compliance with company policies and state regulations. Additional responsibilities include, but are not limited to: day to day center operations, including scheduling, classroom observations, staff training and development, curriculum development, implementation and assessment. The Director is expected to maintain all regulations consistent with NYC DOH licensing regulations and Article 47.

SCOPE OF INFLUENCE

• Preserves educational excellence through various modes of operation such as monitoring teaching staff for quality instruction
• Maintenance of center space through overseeing and keeping in accordance with DOHMH and DOE requirements to operate an Early Learn center

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND ACCOUNTABILITIES

Center Operations (Health and Safety, Compliance, Coaching, Curriculum Implementation) 90%

• Understand the goals, objectives, and vision of BKS
• Supervise all Center staff (teachers, assistant teachers, teacher aides, cooks, assistant cooks, assistant bookkeeper, custodians)
• Ensure full implementation of all aspects of Creative Curriculum, policies/procedures and tools with the goal of supporting all children to achieve school readiness goals.

Provide ongoing coaching to teaching staff to support them in successfully fulfilling all aspects of their role, including but not limited to effective practices in the following:

1. CLASS™ Teacher-Child Interactions

2. Learning Environments

3. Curriculum and Lesson Planning

4. Child Assessment

5. Meeting All Children's Needs

6. Working with Families

7. Professional Growth and Collaboration

8. Health and Safety

• Conduct formal and informal observations of each teacher team and provide constructive and actionable feedback on a consistent basis
• Work with teachers to implement the child assessment system reliably, including understanding child outcomes data and using them to plan and individualize.
• Actively participate in the recruitment of children to their individual center, which includes devising strategies to increase and maintain enrollment throughout the school year.
• Collaborate with the Family Services Department to manage intake and placement of new children at the child care center.
• Work in collaboration with the Director of Compliance to ensure city and state compliance.
• Establish efficient record-keeping processes, including health logs, required DOHMH and DOE paperwork, family communication documents
• Spearhead staff accountability for promoting and ensuring child health and safety across all aspects of center-based programming
• Responsible for dealing with Dept. of Education and Dept. of Health (walk throughs, meetings, permits, renewals, budgets, etc.)
• Responsible for attending monthly DASPC meetings; planning meetings with family service members and running reports to report to DASPC members
• Monitor food log and weekly menus in conjunction with Cook and Assistant Cook
• Assign daily work to Custodian
• Responsible for NYCHA ticket process for any repairs needed in the center, eventually training Custodian to take on responsibility
• Entering information into any DOE/BKS based systems

JOB REQUIREMENTS

• NYS Professional ECE Certification B-2, Valid NYS Permanent Certification B-2 or N- 6, Professional or Permanent Childhood Education (1-6), Prekindergarten-Grade 6 (P-6)
• 2 years of experience working with kids under the age of 6
• Master’s in Early Childhood Education or related field
• Intermediate skills in Microsoft Office, Google Suite, and any and all external systems related to DOE, NYCHA and DOHMH systems

Preferred Qualifications

• Minimum of 2 years supervisory experience with at least 10 direct reports
• 2.5 minimum cumulative undergraduate GPA
• Experience working with low income populations and diverse cultures.