Assistant Director, Early Childhood Education

ABOUT THE ROLE: 

The Assistant Director will join a vibrant and growing team, committed to ensuring outstanding in-classroom education and care for young children and their families in the South End. The person in this role will be responsible for day-to-day operations of the early childhood education program (ECE), including but not limited to planning daily and weekly schedules, supervising staff and regular check ins, curriculum development, supporting enrollment and providing quality services to families in compliance with USES policies, and local and state regulations.    

This role is a great opportunity for an experienced childcare professional to directly supervise a staff of mission-driven individuals and to receive coaching and development towards future leadership roles. The ECE Assistant Director reports to the Director of Youth and Family Mobility Programming.  

ABOUT UNITED SOUTH END SETTLEMENTS (USES): 

The mission of United South End Settlements (USES) is to harness the power of our diverse community to disrupt the cycle of poverty for children and their families. USES believes families have the best chance of reaching their potential when they have long-term, holistic support. Our goal is to empower families in the South End and the surrounding areas to stabilize, achieve economic mobility, and become more resilient through access to resources and connections to a diverse social network. We have integrated our programs and implemented new initiatives to support the whole family, providing children and youth with early childhood education, after school programs, and Camp Hale, a summer camp on Squam Lake in New Hampshire. We also support parents and caregivers to identify and pursue goals important to their family through one-on-one coaching. We value diversity in every setting and are committed to building a community of individuals with various backgrounds, skill sets, and perspectives who share our vision for disrupting the cycle of poverty. To learn more, please visit our website at www.uses.org. 

USES’s early childhood education program prepares children to become confident, successful learners. We have 64 slots for children 3 months through 6 years of age. Our teachers create nurturing and inviting spaces which foster the development of children’s self-esteem while classrooms provide rich learning environments where children feel comfortable taking risks to help them grow socially, physically, emotionally, and intellectually. 

Our early childhood education program uses an Emergent Curriculum approach as a guide for creating developmentally appropriate lesson plans to ensure that each child’s individual and developmental needs are met. Arts programming is integrated in each of our classrooms through the Arts in Early Learning curriculum, which uses sensory rich, STEM based (science, technology, engineering, and math) arts experiences to teach abstract concepts in a tangible and accessible way. Young children learn with their whole bodies and minds, and we believe that the arts are a powerful tool for literacy and language development, critical thinking and reasoning skills, and developing self-confidence and emotional regulation. 

The early childhood program operates year-round and is open Monday through Friday, from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm. We offer private pay, Department of Early Education and Care subsidized slots and accept vouchers. 

WHAT YOU WILL LOVE: 

• Being a part of a committed, dedicated, and fun leadership and youth development team with a mission to disrupt the cycle of poverty for children and their families. 
• Providing outstanding customer service to parents, staff, children, and partners with a focus on effective and proactive communication. 
• Ensuring that our educators implement high quality educational programming with a commitment to ongoing excellence.  
• Supporting classrooms directly to ensure ratios, break coverage and beginning/end of day support. 
• Managing details and requirements for state licensing regulations, BON tracking, accreditation guidelines and daily attendance and administrative record keeping. 
• Working with our educators to ensure assessments of our children are completed as per DEEC guidelines, coordinate parent conferences and ensure notes are collected.  
• Collecting and using data through assessments to ensure continuous cycles of improvement and accurate reporting. 
• Serving as coach, mentor and supervisor to staff, volunteers, and interns, including meeting individually with your direct reports, providing ongoing quarterly evaluations, planning, and implementing monthly full team meetings and supporting professional development 
• Orchestrating outreach to and build relationships with USES prospective and current families with an eye towards full enrollment across programs 
• Conducting outreach to potential candidates, supporting recruiting efforts, interviewing, hiring, and orienting new team members.  
• Support the USES ECE program as it expands into new initiatives such as re-accreditation, Universal Pre-K, and other quality enhancing and funding opportunities.  

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR: 

• Commitment to USES’s mission, vision, and values 
• Lead Teacher certification required. DEEC Director II certification, preferred 
• Five+ years of experience working with children 0-5, including experience as a lead teacher, Assistant Director, or other role with administrative and/or curriculum supervision duties 
• Commitment to working holistically with diverse youth, staff, agency personnel, and families  
• Experience in and excitement to supervise and develop professional skills in staff  
• Flexibility with scheduling, including availability to open and close the center as well as make programmatic shifts to ensure programs are appropriately staffed throughout the day   
• Energetic and positive attitude, with ability to engage in collaborative problem solving 
• Spanish or a second language preferred 
• Strong leadership, organizational and communication skills 
• Demonstration of timely problem-solving skills and flexibility 
• Superb written and communication skills, public speaking skills; highly interpersonal 
• Strong organizational and time management skills with the ability to manage competing priorities  
• Able to exercise sound judgment  
• Bachelor's degree in early childhood education, Child Development, Child Guidance, Human Services, Psychology, Education, Child Psychology, or a related field required 
• This position is 100% in person at 48 Rutland Street, Boston, MA 
• This position is expected to be 40% in ratio and 60% out of ratio but will require flexibility as staffing needs change.   

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS (with or without accommodation)  

• Must be able to climb, stoop, reach, stand, lift, feel, talk, hear, and be capable of repetitive motion 
• Position requires exerting up to 20 pounds of force occasionally, and/or up to 10 pounds of force frequently, and/or a negligible amount of force constantly 
• Work requires close visual acuity 

COMPENSATION + BENEFITS: 

• USES offers its staff a robust compensation and benefits package including a salary range of $60,000 - $70,000, dependent on experience; access to high-quality health, dental and vision benefits; a 403B plan and a generous paid time off policy.  

OUR CORE VALUES: 

• Community: We believe in engaging the entire community as a catalyst in our model of service that helps children, and their families build strong, trusting and mutually beneficial relationships. 
• Diversity: We believe that we achieve the greatest positive impact on children and their families when we include people from various backgrounds, skill sets, and perspectives in disrupting the cycle of poverty. 
• Opportunity: We believe that all people have potential and deserve access to top quality educational and economic opportunities. 

OUR ORGANIZATIONAL NORMS 

• Collaboration: Finding ways to work together with each other and across our departments and positions 
• Positivity: Having a “can do” attitude even when things are tough or stressful 
• Transparency: Having open communication by sharing successes, challenges, and ideas with each other 
• Excellence: Doing the best we can all the time with everything we do 

This position is scheduled to begin in late Summer 2024.