Early Childhood Lead Teacher
Opening Statement
Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School is seeking a warm, experienced, and collaborative Early Childhood (EC) Lead Teacher to join our EC team.
The EC Lead Teacher recognizes early childhood as a vital time to protect wonder, nurture imagination, and support healthy development through rhythm, meaningful work, play, worthy imitation, and time outdoors. This role is ideal for an educator who thrives in a collaborative, team-oriented environment, sharing responsibility for a mixed-age class of children (ages 3–6) alongside a co-Lead Teacher and a team of dedicated assistants. As a teacher at PRWS, you will join a faculty united by a deep love for children, a commitment to collegial collaboration, and a genuine partnership with families.
About
Far from the interstate highways and the hustle of the city, in a beautiful landscape of dramatic cliffs, winding rivers, and fertile valleys, there’s a lively community of people who share a dream of a simpler, more connected life.
A life lived in harmony with nature’s rhythms.
A life in which friends live and learn together, sharing their struggles and triumphs.
A life with children, family, and community at its very heart.
Forty five years ago, a few of these families came together to found a school. Their vision was to build a child-centered educational community that reflected the values they held dear: reverence for life, for learning, and for the children themselves. They began by searching for an educational approach that aligned with their vision. When they discovered Waldorf education, Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School was born.
From its humble beginnings as a one-room schoolhouse with three students and one teacher, PRWS has grown to serve nearly 150 children in kindergarten through eighth grade.
But while our school has grown, we remain true to our founders’ vision of providing a balanced educational experience that instills in children a love of learning, a respect for nature, a strong sense of community, and an abiding appreciation for the value of service.
Essential Job Duties
Responsibilities in regard to the curriculum:
- EC Lead Teachers are expected to strive to understand the model of child development that underlies the Waldorf curriculum and, coupling this with study of the early childhood curriculum itself, the Curriculum Standards of the school, an awareness of the kindergarten class and community attributes, plan the yearly and daily rhythm in such a way that it meets the needs of the mixed-age group of children.
- The kindergarten’s year and daily rhythm is planned with emphasis on meeting the needs of today’s children and families. Attention is given to the following attributes:
- Consideration for the children’s academic, artistic, physical, and social skills development
- Balance of thinking, feeling, and willing activities
- Care, warmth, interest and enthusiasm for participation in all activities and the world
- In-breathing and out-breathing rhythm
- A balance of directed activities and inside and outside play
- Presenting the children with challenging, age-appropriate activities
- Imbue the children in a world of imagination and healthy imitation
Responsibilities to the children:
- Strive to become worthy of imitation in movement, speech, thought and feeling life that, together with loving authority and discipline, conveys to the children a living sense of respect, reverence and gratitude.
- Expected to provide conscientious guidance of the children in their care at all times.
- Develop the ability to work with the class as a whole, while concurrently being aware of, and tending to, individual needs.
- Observations are to be made of the class as a whole and of individual children, and working with these, the children are to be taken into the teacher’s meditative life.
- Responsible for developing methods of evaluation of the children’s physical, emotional, social and conceptual development through record-keeping.
- Written end-of-year reports are completed for children entering first grade.
- Work collaboratively with members of the Integrated Student Support (ISS) committee to conduct assessments for first grade readiness.
Responsibilities to the parents:
- Interact with parents with honesty, courtesy, warmth, and professionalism. Work with parents to promote awareness and understanding of their child’s school experience, as well as to foster the parents’ development as a supporting and protecting calyx around the development of the class as a whole.
- Regular class updates should be communicated to parents via letter or email.
- Conduct parent-teacher conferences at least two times during the year according to the school’s schedule.
- Parent evenings are to be held at least three times during the year.
Responsibilities in regard to the school and colleagues:
- Work collaboratively with colleagues – sharing observations, questions, and insights – to support each other’s professional and personal development.
- Works closely and collaboratively with other EC colleagues regarding decision-making on a daily basis.
- The EC Lead Teacher oversees the work of the two assistant teachers in their classroom.
- Take active roles in the administration of the school. After the first year, a teacher is to serve on at least one committee.
- Contributes to public relations aspects of the school’s work as follows: taking part in at least one informational event per year and contributing to the Calyx, the school’s newsletter.
- Responsible for the physical environment of their classrooms – creating a place that is inspiring for learning by giving care to the beauty, artistic aspects, cleanliness, and order of the room – and for the shared school building and grounds.
- Expected to follow and uphold the policies, guidelines, and emergency procedures outlined in the Employee and Parent Handbooks.
- Attend weekly faculty meetings, section meetings, in-service days, festivals, and school-wide events as scheduled.
- On school days, EC Lead Teachers are present from 7:45 am – 3:30 pm, Monday – Friday, allowing two hours (12-2pm) for preparation, meetings, and release time.
Full job description available upon request.
Qualifications
Skills/Qualifications:
- Completion of a bachelor’s degree
- Experience and/or training in teaching young children
- Waldorf Early Childhood teaching certification from an AWSNA-recognized institute or a clear path to certification
- Strong understanding of and enthusiasm for Waldorf education, including curriculum and pedagogy
- Knowledge and understanding of anthroposophy and the picture of child development it presents
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Self-motivated, detail-oriented, and comfort working independently and collaboratively
- Ability to work artistically and creatively with the education in an organized, timely manner
- Professionalism in speech, manner, and dress (following the school dress code)
Employment Details
Salary and benefits:
- Full-time, salaried position
- Starting salary is $36,500 per yea, increases based on years of teaching experience
- 401(k) with 3% matching
- 24-hour accident insurance is available
- A modest professional development stipend is available as the budget allows
- Paid Time Off (PTO) days are 8 per year (or 64 hours)
- Full tuition remission available for each child
- Free hot lunch provided Monday through Thursday
To Apply
Please send letter of interest, resume, and three references to admin@pleasantridgewaldorf.org.
