2020-21 English : Language Arts

JOIN A TEAM THAT BELIEVES STUDENTS WILL MEET THE HIGHEST ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT EXPECTATIONS

EPIC Academy is a CPS neighborhood charter high school that opened fall of 2009 in the South Chicago community with the mission to inspire and equip every student to build a path to college and career success. We embrace the challenge of public education - to develop every student's resolve to reach his or her full potential regardless of the odds. EPIC Academy serves one of the most challenged student demographics in Chicago: 96% Free/reduced lunch, 21% Students with IEPs, 15% English Language Learners. The prevailing area expectation is to graduate high school and get a job.

We view these "obstacles" as opportunities to build on our students' assets. EPIC Academy has a shared vision of excellence and high expectations for postsecondary success, embracing a breadth of pathways, both college and career. To achieve these goals we inspire students to imagine their future, provide belief-altering experiences that broaden their vision of what is possible, and build students' academic skill sets to achieve attain their goals. Our results speak for themselves:

• Top 25% CPS HS in SAT growth - out-performing nearly all CPS selective enrollment schools
• Top 25% CPS HS in College Enrollment - out-performing the average college enrollment of other area schools by a wide margin
• 44.9% of EPIC Seniors earn college credit before graduation
• $8.4M in college scholarships from the last graduating class

EPIC Philosophy

We believe post-secondary preparation is the equalizer for life options and long-term happiness. Our students are capable of graduating from their best value higher educational institution. It's our work to ensure that we dare each student to imagine an ambitious future vision, and then we expect and coach the hard work and skills required to realize it.

Classroom Leaders Drive Our Success

A leader leads a group of people to greatness. Our Classroom Leaders are positively contagious. When students talk about why they can't succeed, we show them every reason why they can, transferring belief for students to own their own greatness.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree
• Illinois Teaching Certificate strongly preferred
• Leaders who are relentless in teaching, creating buy-in, and setting high expectations for every student.
• Highly organized managers of time that are able to prioritize, focus and deliver.
• Teammates who make everyone better by going above and beyond for the mission and the team.
• People that get results and are solution-oriented.
• We are flexible on experience and can be flexible on certification in high needs areas (math, science, etc.).

Classroom Leader Responsibilities

• Responsibility #1 – Focus on Skills: We focus on skills first and wrap content around them to drive interest and add rigor. This is SAT Standards for 9-11^th and College Study & Writing Skills for 12^th.
• Responsibility #2 – High Expectations: Create a learning environment that is safe and exudes high expectations for every student at every moment.
• Responsibility #3 – Just Right Support: Lead a Crew (homeroom) of 20 students where you are the liaison to home, deliver a curriculum for high school success, and meet with students to set goals and review progress towards increasing GPA, academic behaviors, and attendance.
• Responsibility #4 – Be a Great Teammate: Fully invest in our professional development. Make every second count by displaying high levels of attendance, preparation, participation to both the work and all meetings (grade level, co-teaching, and coaching). Deliver and use data and reports to drive improvement.
• Responsibility #5 - Make the Extras Count: Teach a reading intervention class or an elective club class. 12th-grade teachers lead a Senior Seminar class where students practice college study skills.

EPIC Daily Non-Negotiables

1. Know all students' progress toward mastery.
2. Expect college-bound beliefs and behaviors
3. Objective, activities and assessment all aligned at or above the rigor of SAT standard.
4. Live our core values.