Lead - Critical Friends Group (COA) (Internal Only) (SY26-27)

Lead•Critical Friends Group (COA) (Internal Only) (SY26-27) Chelsea Public Schools Chelsea Opportunity Academy•Chelsea, Massachusetts This job is also posted in Chelsea Public Schools Job Details

Job ID:

5767217

Application Deadline:

Sep 08, 2026 11:59 PM (Eastern Standard Time)

Posted:

Jun 08, 2026 4:00 AM (UTC)

Starting Date:

Immediately Job Description Title•Lead•Critical Friends Group (COA) (Internal Only) (SY26-27) Reports to: Building Principal in collaboration with District Coordinators/Directors

About Chelsea Opportunity Academy:

Established in 2018, the Chelsea Opportunity Academy (COA) is the city's school for students who are facing the risk of dropping out of high school, or those who have already discontinued and are seeking re-engagement due to competing priorities outside of school. Offering nurturing staff-student relationships aimed at fostering the healing of trauma, our program provides a flexible operating schedule to support the nearly 80% of students who are working while earning their diploma. Additionally, our curated curriculum is designed to drive students towards success post-graduation. With the school's strongest core value being "Every Day is a New Day", the Chelsea Opportunity Academy empowers students to redefine themselves and envision a brighter future. To date, the Chelsea Opportunity Academy has graduated over 200 students, all of whom are in post-secondary institutes or gainfully employed. COA is seeking a principal who understands and embraces the unique spirit of our school, builds strong relationships with students and staff, and holds a deep belief that all students can thrive when loved, supported, and challenged.

Qualifications:

The ideal Critical Friends Group Lead must have an interest in creating professional development and building teacher collaboration for the Chelsea Opportunity Academy. The ideal CFG lead must have: A history of modeling teacher learning and teacher collaboration within their own classroom. Demonstrated belief, history, and practice in collaboration. History of creating a culture of openness and strong critical feedback to and from peers. Demonstrated history of working with both administration and instructional staff on school decision making. A strong desire to create professional development in alignment to COA's focus of building exceptional instructional practices in competency based education for all students. The ability to plan and facilitate discussion amongst peers with regards to looking at student work, best instructional practices,classroom walk throughs, looking at data, and other classroom related manners. Experience in creating and implementing professional development agendas to reflect the varying needs of COA priorities including the further development of our instructional model preferred, but not mandatory. Ability to model professional collaboration with teams and individuals.

Lead Teacher Responsibilities:

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to: Working with COA teaching staff and administration to create school wide professional development focused on competency based instruction. Creation of a learning environment that balances staff needs in the moment, with overall school goals for the year outlined in our school accelerated improvement plan (AIP). The implementation of a maximum of one Critical Friends Group session per week for 75 minutes.

Application:

Letter of interest describing qualifications and experience to the Principal with examples of how you demonstrate the above qualifications in your daily practice. Please answer/comment on the following questions/situations: What does collaboration look like in a high functioning school? What supports need to be in place for staff to collaborate effectively? How do you build those supports as a non-administrator? What is your biggest area of growth as a school leader? How would you request support in this area? As facilitator of a professional learning space, how would you handle a situation in which two colleagues fundamentally disagree on the quality of student work?

Compensation:

CTU contractual rate The Chelsea Public Schools District is an equal opportunity employer committed to recruiting, appointing, assigning, training, evaluation and promoting personnel on the basis of merit and qualifications, without regard for race, color, national origin, sex, religious affiliation, age, ancestry, marital status, handicapping conditions, gender identity, sexual orientation or any other applicable unlawful discriminatory standards. (Title VI & Title VII of Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII & Title VIII of the Public Health Services Act, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, as well as other relevant federal and state laws).

Position Type:

Full-Time Job Requirements