Spring Street is seeking a qualified individual to serve as a full-time dorm parent in our Residential Life program to start January 6, 2024. This is a full-time position that comes with a monthly salary, benefits, and includes a private apartment within the dorm, full board, and runs through mid-June. Applicants with prior boarding school experience are encouraged to apply.
Our School
Founded over 28 years ago, Spring Street is a 6-12 grade school with 20 teachers and 120 students, 35 of which commute daily by ferry from other islands and another 18 residential students from around the globe and the U.S. Located in Friday Harbor on one of the San Juan Islands, the school provides a student-centered rigorous academic and experiential education program that prepares students for success not just in college but in navigating the world with integrity, nuance, and empathy.
Our Philosophy
Spring Street International School is a close-knit community dedicated to helping students from diverse backgrounds find their voice and passion for learning. We build problem-solvers, team players, learners, and leaders through advanced academics and a hands-on curriculum in a safe and beautiful setting.
We believe in…
Relationships: When students know that teachers care, students care what teachers know. Our teachers are mentors and guides, engaging students in academic inquiry and creating space to discover what ignites them. Individuals: Every child is unique and deserves a unique education. We teach students, not classes, and tailor courses of study, assignments, and skill development around the needs of each individual student. Creativity: Characterized by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to make new connections, and to innovate solutions, creativity thrives in our unique environment. Our students develop their own opinions and critical thinking. Experience: Learning emerges from doing and experiencing. Our students are not stuck at a desk. They work in groups, they lead, they present, they go beyond the walls of a classroom. Community: From individual relationships to global connections, our human ties define our personal experience and guide our actions.
Residential Life Program
The primary goal of the Spring Street International School Residential Life Program is to take care of the emotional, physical, psychological, and intellectual health of the students in our dorm, in that order.
Dorm parents focus on spending time with the students individually, and help our chef provide healthy meals. During the week, dorm parents are present from 2 pm until 9 am the next morning to connect with students and help them with the inevitable struggles of being far away from home and navigating adolescence without their parents at their side. During the weekend, dorm parents cook meals with students and work with faculty to plan activities both on and off-island, creating an opportunity to relax, to study, to unwind, and to enjoy.
We encourage students to get exercise, be healthy, and take care of their academic obligations. Most importantly, we create a safe atmosphere where students learn how to navigate the inherent struggles of adolescence. Students have chores. They have lights out. Limited Internet hours. They lose their off-campus privileges when they mess up; sometimes we confiscate their computers and cell phones when they violate School policies. But in the grand scheme of things, these are ultimately less important than our focus on their emotional health and well-being.
Campus residences are odd places, occupying a space somewhere between one’s home with mom and dad and the expectations and obligations of a classroom. Campus residences are not home. Rules must apply to everyone and the ratio of parent to child is out of proportion to what most families have at home. But our student residence should not and cannot function as after-school classrooms. Adolescents need a place where they can be messy, mess up, and push back against authority as they transition towards adulthood – in other words, what happens at home. But, they need to learn to do this in a way that ultimately is respectful and honors the relationship they have with the dorm parents. The inherent struggle in this is that there is a paradigm for the classroom that most students understand, and there is a paradigm of the home, which they certainly know. And the student residence exists somewhere in between. Our goal, ultimately, is to help students successfully navigate this nether space between these two paradigms in their transition from adolescence to adulthood.
Expeditionary Education
The school year begins with three days of preparation for a four-day backpacking trip in the Cascade mountains which culminates in an all-school gathering at the basecamp to share one night together and reflect on the physical, social and environmental milestones the students achieved while on their backpacking trip. The school year ends with May Term — three-week long trips to domestic and foreign locations exploring themes based on responsible engagement with nature and humanity. All faculty and staff are involved in planning and leading these trips.
Full-Time Dorm Parent Job Description
Minimum Qualifications
- Experience working with high school students, ideally in a residential environment.
- Ability to set clear expectations and boundaries and hold students accountable.
- Caring, understanding, and patient nature.
- Ability to communicate clearly and effectively, verbally and in writing.
- Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and follow-through.
- Ability to problem solve and work without direct supervision.
- Positive attitude, flexible approach, and a sense of humor.
- Willingness and ability to participate in our Expeditionary Education program
Primary Responsibilities
1. Pay the utmost attention to the creation of a living environment in the dormitory that supports academic studies in addition to the emotional and physical well-being of the students living there.
2. Subject to change, the schedule is:
- Saturday 9am all day and overnight (along with a 2nd dorm parent)
- Sunday all day and overnight
- Monday 7-9am, 2pm – bedtime (+ overnight),
- Tuesday 7-9am, 2pm-8pm.
3. Duties of dorm parents include, at a minimum, the following, dependent upon their on-duty schedule:
- Do a 7:30 weekday wake-up call.
- Prepare breakfast on weekdays.
- Prepare 11 am brunch on weekends.
- Do final prep on dinner on weekdays from 5 – 6 pm.
- Plan and make dinner on Saturdays and Sundays.
- Take on simple repairs, and report other repair needs to the Director of Facilities.
- See that the facility is well maintained, and kept clean, crew jobs are completed, trash and recycling are attended to regularly, and students keep rooms clean.
- Encourage students to wake up and eat a prepared breakfast before they go off to class.
- Run weekly dorm meetings with co-dorm parent.
- Together with the other dorm parent, serve as co-adviser to a group of students.
- See that students return to their own rooms at the designated bedtime hour.
- Collaborate with the front office when dorm students are sick to see that their needs are taken care of – protocols to be designed by house parents and office staff.
- Attend dorm support meetings with administration, and faculty meetings (as on-duty schedule permits).
- Facilitate the initial arrival of students from the airport in September as well as the arrival of any new students during the year. Subsequent arrivals and departures may also require trips to the airport.
- Help design weekend activities at a level commensurate with your schedule.
- Help implement and supervise a healthy exercise program for residential students.
- Participate in our Expeditionary Education program.
- When you are on shift as a dorm parent, you are responsible for the well-being of children in your care. This may include doctor’s appointments, medication, etc.
Compensation and Benefits
- $45,000 per year
- Use of an apartment inside the dorm with utilities included, while school is in session as well as all vacations.
- Health Insurance with all premiums covered by the school.
- Retirement benefits.
- Board while the school is in session.
- During the term of his/her employment, the employee’s vacation time will replicate the breaks on the academic calendar with a few exceptions for dorm life transitions.
Contact Spring Street International School to Apply
If you are interested in this position, please email a resume and cover letter to hr@springstreet.org
Non-Discrimination
The Spring Street International School does not discriminate in its services or employment for any reason, including race, religion, age, color, national and ethnic origin, language, sex, sexual preference, gender identity, or physical handicap in the administration of its educational policies, admission policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.
