History Department Chair

Position/Title:             History Department Chair, Grades 5-12

Appointment:               School Year 2021/2022

Reports To:                  Director of the Upper School     

Laurel School seeks talented faculty who will put our students first and strive to make a difference in their lives.  We seek to attract culturally and academically diverse faculty who thrive on being engaged participants in our community and are committed to anti-racist education and the development of young women as authentic learners and leaders.   The most successful candidates are solutions-driven, are willing to listen to learn, embrace iteration and practice as a necessary part of the product, see opportunities before problems, and thrive in a fast paced, forward-thinking educational environment. Laurel lives our mission: to inspire each girl to fulfill her promise and to better the world.  We continually challenge our community to question existing paradigms and to dream, dare, and do. 

Position Summary

We are seeking a Department Chair who recognizes that the study of History equips young women to cultivate an understanding of the way our past shapes our future and who will encourage students to see the viability of their participation in not just learning about and critically evaluating but also shaping historical narratives. We are particularly interested in educators with expertise in multicultural, non-European, and/or gender-focused lenses. Laurel Department Chairs are part of a forward-thinking curricular team that examines best practices in pedagogy and curricular issues, including but not limited to standards-based learning, project-based learning, understanding by design, and design thinking. Laurel Chairs work with Division Directors as part of the evaluative process for department members.  They are responsible for the pedagogical approach of their departments, including the shaping of curricular design, scope, and sequence; the implementation of our curricular philosophy; the use of the Butler Campus; and the integration of Laurel’s Center for Research on Girls, Facing History and Ourselves, anti-racist education, and skills around diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging into the curricular sequence of their department. They also have oversight of the professional development needs of their departments. We expect that, as a curricular leader at Laurel, a Department Chair will also be excited about working with students outside of the classroom, particularly through our signature programs such as Capstone and Dream, Dare, Do programming.

Duties and responsibilities include:

• Leadership of regular department meetings that include facilitation of conversations about pedagogy and curriculum development and direction of departmental initiatives serving student learning and the mission and values statements of the school
• Collaboration with other members of the faculty, administration and staff on experiential, interdisciplinary and community-based opportunities that add to the school community
• Support of divisional and school-wide initiatives through committee work, where appropriate
• Preparation and implementation of daily lessons
• Design, implementation, and timely evaluation of appropriate, authentic formative and summative assessment
• Timely and proactive communication with student, parents, advisor about student progress
• Advising of a small group of students
• Active participation in all faculty and staff meetings
• Effective and timely communication with varied school constituencies in person and through email and voicemail
• Instruction of students as a Dream, Dare, Do or Capstone facilitator
• Supervision and/or participation in student activities, including lunch, study halls, dances, and class trips