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Posted: 14-Jan-26
Location: Raleigh, North Carolina
Type: Full Time
Salary: Based on Experience
Categories:
Required Education:
Internal Number: 114159221985
MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER
- Position: Middle School Teacher
- Type: Full-Time; On-Site
- Location: Raleigh, North Carolina
- Reports to: Provost (Dean of Academics)
ABOUT SOCRATIC SCHOOL OF STEM (SSS)
Socratic School of STEM (SSS) is a private boutique K-12 school in Raleigh, NC built for families who want rigor, learner ownership, and real-world skill - not passive learning. Our model is learner-driven and Socratic method-guided: students learn to ask better questions, defend ideas with evidence, and produce high-quality work.
We are STEM-forward by design while protecting fundamentals. Teachers coach strong reading, writing, and math alongside design thinking, labs, and projects where learners plan, build, test, revise, and present.
Our culture is to "Seek, Solve, Serve" - disciplined inquiry, meaningful problem-solving, and principled contribution. SSS is intentionally small and high-trust, with a faculty team that values clarity, high standards, warmth with accountability, and continuous improvement.
THE OPPORTUNITY
SSS is seeking an exceptional Middle School Teacher to help launch and shape a middle grades program defined by rigorous academics, strong culture, and authentic learner-driven exploration. The Teacher will lead students through the shift from "learning skills" to "using skills" - clear writing, evidence-based discussion, mathematical and scientific reasoning, and interdisciplinary projects that demand planning, collaboration, ownership, and iteration.
The Teacher will be a culture-builder and coach: someone who can hold adolescents to high standards while mentoring them through challenge, feedback, and growth. Students will Seek through Socratic dialogue and research; Solve through STEM labs, design thinking, and iterative projects; and Serve through leadership, community responsibility, and purposeful contribution. This role is ideal for a Teacher who loves middle-schoolers, values structure and freedom in balance, and believes character formation is inseparable from academic excellence.
CORE RESPONSIBILITIES
Middle Grades Studio Leadership + Culture Building
- Lead a rigorous, relationship-rich middle grades studio where structure and autonomy are balanced intentionally.
- Establish clear norms and routines that support adolescent learners: accountability, respectful discourse, time management, and ownership.
- Create a culture where learners learn to reason, calibrate, re-calibrate, and convey high quality work - academically, technically, and personally.
- Facilitate Socratic dialogue that trains learners to ask better questions, support claims with evidence, and engage ideas respectfully.
- Coach learners to challenge the status quo through logic, humility, and intellectual honesty.
- Coach learners to communicate with clarity and confidence in writing, speaking, and presentation.
- Guide strong curriculum outcomes in multiple subject matter areas through analytical thinking: structure, argumentation, grammar, revision, and style.
- Build knowledge through reading, research, and discussion across humanities and interdisciplinary content.
- Ensure learners can apply skills in real tasks: project-based learning, lab reports, presentations, debates, and project deliverables.
- Facilitate STEM-forward learning through labs, design challenges, and project cycles.
- Build learner competence with tools, systems, and scientific thinking - emphasizing safety, precision, and iteration.
- Coach learners to plan and manage their work: goal setting, weekly planning, task breakdown, time-boxing, and reflection.
- Hold high standards while teaching adolescents how to recover from mistakes, accept feedback, and improve performance.
- Establish transparent systems for tracking progress (portfolios, mastery checks, rubrics, student-led conferences) and coach learners to take ownership of outcomes.
- Build habits and identity aligned with SSS pillars: Seek, Solve, Serve.
- Explicitly support character formation during adolescence: integrity, courage, resilience, respect, and responsibility.
- Communicate with families clearly and proactively - especially around progress, expectations, and adolescent development.
- Collaborate with the Provost and faculty team to refine systems, curriculum, studio culture, and the overall school launch.
- Contribute to SSS as a boutique school: flexibility, initiative, and a shared commitment to excellence.
- Demonstrated success guiding middle grade learners (Grades 6-8) with high expectations and strong culture.
- Strong ability to coach: evidence-based writing and discussion; analytical reasoning and argumentation; and research synthesis, and presentation.
- Comfortable facilitating STEM-forward projects / labs and/or interdisciplinary design challenges (not "engineer required," but must be confident guiding technical thinking and iteration).
- Ability to run Socratic seminars and to teach students how to think clearly and respectfully and constructively challenge themselves and studiomates.
- Adolescent Culture Builder: Create a studio where students feel known and challenged; maintains structure, accountability, and mutual respect.
- Socratic Facilitation: Uses questioning to develop reasoning; teaches students to support claims with evidence and refine thinking.
- Feedback + Revision Engine: Implements rubrics, critique protocols, drafts, revisions, and "raise the standard" cycles that produce high-quality work.
- Executive Function Coaching: Helps learners plan, manage time, track progress, and take ownership - without rescuing.
- Project & STEM Facilitation: Runs design cycles (define, plan, build, test, revise, and then present) and builds learner competence with tools, systems, and documentation.
- Character Formation: Reinforces Seek. Solve. Serve. as identity: discipline, contribution, leadership, and integrity.
- Calm, steady presence with strong follow-through; can hold adolescents accountable with respect.
- Loves rigor and clarity; believes students can do hard things with the right systems and empathetic coaching.
- Team-first, low ego, and excited to build something new.
- Compensation: Competitive and commensurate with experience, credentials, and demonstrated ability to guide learners in a rigorous, learner-driven, STEM environment.
- Benefits & Professional Development: SSS invests in Teachers through paid-time off, STEM training / credentialing, observational coaching and feedback, collaborative planning time, and mission-aligned professional development.
This position requires regular interaction with students in a classroom and school environment. Teachers should be able to sit, stand, walk, and move about the studio throughout the school day; bend, kneel, reach, and lift classroom materials as needed; and participate in indoor and outdoor activities with students. Occasional lifting of up to approximately 30 pounds may be required.
The work environment is a dynamic, active school setting that includes collaborative studios, hands-on materials, and periods of sustained focus. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable qualified individuals to perform the essential functions of the role.