Lower School Counselor

About The Position

The Peck School, a coed, K-8, independent school in Morristown, NJ, seeks a collaborative, proactive, and compassionate Lower School counselor, psychologist, or social worker for the upcoming school year. This position is an excellent opportunity for a thoughtful educator-leader to join a wonderful community that prizes lifelong learning.

Working closely with the Head of the Lower School, the Lower School Counselor is an essential member of the Peck faculty. This individual is tasked with creating, overseeing, and delivering developmentally appropriate programming that supports K-4 students’ social-emotional growth and well-being. As a core member of a highly collaborative team, the Lower School Counselor spearheads and oversees the social-emotional learning (SEL) curriculum for Kindergarten through 4th-grade students. The Lower School Counselor serves as a resource for all constituencies at The Peck School and works closely with administration, teachers, students, and families to support community wellness and navigate varied challenges.

Overview Of Responsibilities

• Community Resource: Serve as a trusted resource regarding local mental health services for students, families, and colleagues. Strong connections to local practices are a plus. Collaborate and consult with teachers and families on the latest research in student wellness, behavioral norms, and the social world of young students.
• Professional Development and Parent Education: Run professional development and ongoing support for teachers and staff on student behavior, learning, intervention strategies, and social-emotional wellness that align with developmentally appropriate expectations. Serve as a partner to families by creating and running parent education that is relevant and timely for our community.
• Teaching & the Social-Emotional Curriculum: Review, modify, develop, and teach a comprehensive K-4 social-emotional (SEL) curriculum that links to The Peck School’s core values and provides student voice and community-building opportunities.
• Duties: Provide supervision during scheduled duties, such as lunch, recess, and dismissal.
• Faculty Resource: Serve as a collaborative partner to Peck faculty and staff in working with students and their families to enhance on-campus learning and growth.
• Student Support Team Member: A key member of a collaborative team of specialists who designs plans to address individual student needs, monitor progress, and provide teachers with tangible real-time strategies to support student growth.
• Meetings & Professional Development: Participate in all required professional development activities and meetings, including department, division, and grade-level meetings, scheduled collaboration times, professional development days, and beginning and end-of-year meetings.
  
  

Qualifications/Experience

• Master's or Doctorate in Counseling, School Psychology, Social Work, or a related field.
• 2 years experience working with elementary school students, preferably in a school setting.
• Strong understanding of developmentally appropriate behavior and expectations for children, primarily in the elementary years.
• Experience creating, implementing, and adapting social-emotional (SEL) lessons for whole group instruction.
• Ability to understand and interpret student evaluations.
• Experience providing short-term counseling services to children in a one-on-one or small group setting.
• Ability to document work with individual students comprehensively and concisely.
• Demonstrate and engage in ongoing professional development in this field.
  
  

Competencies

• Initiative: Anticipate and assess the needs of teachers, families, and students and devise individualized, supportive plans to address them. Engage in the implementation of plans that contain continued follow-up and monitoring.
• Communication Skills: Maintain open communication channels with peers, administrators, faculty, students, and parents. Possess a people-first mindset, able to work with a wide range of individuals in a supportive and productive manner. Collaboration is the core component of this position. Strong written and verbal skills are essential.
• Flexible Problem Solver: Able to troubleshoot, adapt, and respond to evolving needs of community members- teachers, families, administration, and students. Through a developmental lens, understand and implement classroom management strategies in a whole-group environment.
• Time Management Skills: Manage many tasks and projects simultaneously while adhering to deadlines and maintaining quality work.
• Community Engagement: Engage in and support a positive, healthy faculty culture. Engagement at Peck looks like investing in the whole life of our school, from attending interscholastic sports games or the musical to participating in committees and task forces designed to further school initiatives and embrace community-wide events throughout the year.
• Cultural Awareness: Demonstrate the ability and desire to understand, appreciate, and interact with people from other cultures or belief systems.
• Technology Skills: Ability to navigate the Google Suite of applications (Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Google Slides, etc.). Comfortable using or learning technology as part of Peck’s systemic workflow (Zoom, Apple AirPlay, SeeSaw, Google Classroom, printers, copiers, etc.).
  
  

The Peck School seeks to create a culture of belonging and connectedness. We welcome the unique contributions brought by individuals with diverse backgrounds. Qualified applicants are offered top-tier pay, exceptionally strong benefits, and a robust professional development program.

Please submit a cover letter, resume, and contact information for three professional references by email to LSCounselor@peckschool.org. Kindly reference the job title in the subject line of your email. No phone calls, please. To learn more about The Peck School and working at Peck, please visit us online.

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