Join Our Staff

ABOUT OUR SCHOOL

Essex Street Academy is a small, project-based high school in the Lower East Side.  As a member of the NY Performance Standards Consortium, ESA students are exempt from state tests and graduate by completing in-depth projects demonstrating the mastery of core skills and content.  We value diversity and inclusion in our community with respect to all identities and learning styles, and we strive to continuously build a community at ESA that is affirming, inspiring, and advances social justice.

The staff at ESA is committed to learning from one another and our students. Our teachers write their own curricula to be student-centered with an emphasis on authenticity, depth of understanding, and multiple perspectives.  In class students examine essential questions such as “Is nationalism a force for good in the world?” and “How much do our genes really matter?”

We view our community at ESA as a family.  In advisory, students build close ties while developing social-emotional skills over the course of four years together.  We meet regularly as a whole school for our student-led Town Meetings to celebrate accomplishments, discuss important issues, and just have fun.  We have built a strong foundation in restorative practices as a way of strengthening and maintaining our community over time so that ESA can always be a place where all students thrive. 

POSITIONS AVAILABLE

For Fall 2025, we are currently interviewing candidates for Special Education, Math, and f-status Computer Science. As always, we encourage great educators in all disciplines who want to work at ESA to apply.  

 

Selection Criteria 

  • Experience working with young people
  • Passionate about building strong relationships with students, staff, and families and to fostering community within the classroom and throughout the school
  • Enthusiastic about working in teams with both adults and students to pursue collective growth
  • Committed to fostering an inclusive and intellectually challenging learning experience for all students

SPECIAL EDUCATION

General Duties and Responsibilities: 

  • Teach students via ICT and/or SETSS models in one or more content areas
  • Coach and collaborate with content teachers 
  • Develop accessible and engaging curriculum
  • Modify instruction and learning materials to meet the needs of all students (including those with IEPs)
  • Contribute in annual and tri-annual IEP meetings and IEP writing
  • Participate in biweekly special education department meetings 
  • Develop strong relationships with students with IEPs in order to support them academically and otherwise and to advocate for their needs within the school
  • Support the college and post-secondary transition planning for students with disabilities

Additional Selection Criteria:  

  • Applicants must bring a strengths-based, inclusive perspective to special education
  • Applicants must be interested in challenging ableist practices and implementing innovative practices to ensure inclusion
  • Applicants must bring an intersectional analysis to their work supporting students with disabilities 
  • Applicants must be able to and interested in developing strong relationships with general education teachers in order to facilitate collaboration
  • Applicants must have knowledge of ICT teaching models and effective SETSS strategies
  • Applicants must be open to learning STEM and/or Humanities content subjects

 

MATH

General Duties and Responsibilities: 

  • Develop and implement culturally responsive-sustaining, project-based math curriculum 
  • Collaborate with the math department for vertical alignment of scope and sequence 
  • Develop scientific skills in students necessary for performance based assessment tasks 
  • Collaborate and consult with Special Education Teachers 
  • Be an advisor to a small group of students and teach advisory class 2x a week
  • Develop strong relationships with students in order to support them academically and otherwise and to advocate for their needs within the school
  • Develop accessible and engaging curriculum
  • Modify instruction and learning materials to meet the needs of all students (including those with IEPs)

APPLICATION PROCESS

If you are interested in applying to work at Essex Street Academy, please send your resume and cover letter to the hiring committee at hiring (@) essexstreetacademy.org. 

Our hiring process is as follows:

  1. Send resume and cover letter
  2. An ESA member of the hiring team will reach out to you and schedule a phone interview
  3. Phone interview
  4. Group interview at school and demo lesson