Student Experience & Belonging Coordinator

Sonoma Academy

Student Experience & Belonging Coordinator

Full Time 2024-25

Overview of School:

Sonoma Academy is an independent high school located in Santa Rosa, CA on a 34-acre campus, surrounded by 1,000 acres of protected open space, at the base of Taylor Mountain. Founded in 2001, it provides an engaging, challenging, and innovative college preparatory education and a supportive community for motivated learners from Sonoma, Napa, Marin, Lake, and Mendocino counties. The school currently serves 330 students in grades 9 through 12 and is increasing its enrollment each year. Of our 330 students, 31% self-identify as students of color and 6% of our students are international students. Our students come from 80+ middle schools, ensuring a broad mixture of students from all over the greater North Bay Area.

Our Mission: Sonoma Academy calls its students to be creative, ethical, and committed to learning. The school nurtures inspiring teachers and engages with the surrounding community, and its students communicate across cultures as they prepare to become leaders in a dynamic world.

Sonoma Academy’s Commitment to Diversity: We believe that learning occurs best in a connected community. Diversity, equity, and inclusivity are essential to an education in which all members of our community thrive. We are committed to cultivating a diverse community that is conscious and welcoming of difference, dedicated to investigating and advancing equity, and engages with our local and global community. If you would like to join us in our work, we would welcome your application. As we are deeply committed to having a staffulty (staff and faculty) and student body which reflects the rich diversity within the North Bay, we strongly encourage candidates from BIPOC and/or educators from communities that are historically underrepresented to apply.

For more information on programs and philosophy, please visit our website: www.sonomaacademy.org.

Position Overview:

The Student Experience & Belonging Coordinator is a full-time (1.0 FTE, 12 month) position. The ideal candidate will have a minimum of two years’ experience in a similar position within a high school environment. The coordinator will report directly to the Director of Student Experience & Belonging to help foster and maintain a smoothly functioning school environment for all students and community members.

This role supports all aspects of student life at Sonoma Academy including activities, clubs, community meetings, retreats, and other events and duties. The ideal candidate will be ready to partner with the Student Experience team to plan, manage, and execute a balanced calendar of activities and events for students during the school day, and some evenings and weekends. They will be responsible for balancing multiple co-curricular schedules, providing opportunities to build relationships and deepen a sense of community at the school, and create a fun environment for all students. The ideal candidate will possess a deep understanding of the critical issues facing adolescents and be able to apply a DEIB lens to the work they carry out in this role.

Key Responsibilities

Student Experience & Community Building

• Demonstrate, model, and promote DEIB best practices
• Create an environment that invites all students and community members to bring their voices to conversations and engaging in a thoughtful & respectful manner
• Exemplify SA’s deep commitment to community building
• Plan, promote, and execute all SA signature student activities and events including but not limited to Community Meetings, Club Fairs, Grade Level Meetings, Retreats, New Student Orientation, Prom, Spirit Weeks, etc.
• Design and implement strategies to support the diverse social, emotional, and wellness needs of the student body
• Oversee the Student Leadership Committee (SLC) and all areas of focus: Community Engagement, School Spirit, Finance, DEIB, and Communications
• Plan and execute SLC leadership training, affinity space leadership training, and other student leadership workshops incorporating relevant DEIB concepts and competencies
• Manage and attend all major school events
• Create, coordinate, and actively maintain the Student Activities Calendar. This also includes ensuring Staffulty participation and gathering information from relevant constituencies (students & Staffulty), while also making arrangements with our facilities team and other relevant vendors as needed.

School Operations

• Partner with Student Experience team to manage, track & monitor student attendance including sending the relevant communications when policy violations occur
• Regularly confer and collaborate with members of our Student Experience team, Admissions team, Communications & Marketing team, and Staffulty to gather relevant information for event planning and promote student activities and events
• Manage visitors and external partners supporting events such as Community Meetings, Retreats, Grade Level Meetings, etc.
• Oversee junior and senior parking permitting
• Support the Calendar Management Team & Graduation Committee with planning, logistics and execution of school-wide events including but not limited to convocation, graduation, etc.
• Serve as a chaperone for most school events
• Monitor some supervised study halls and lunch time student spaces
• May serve as an advisor to a mixed grade level student group or teach a course related to DEIB and/or Community Wellness

Key Competencies:

• Communication: Exceptional ability to articulate thoughts and express ideas effectively using oral, written, visual, and non-verbal communication skills, as well as deep listening skills to gain understanding.
• Emotional Intelligence: Demonstrates high levels of self/social awareness, self-management, empathy, and curiosity.
• Relationship Management: Positively collaborates and builds/maintains authentic and trusting relationships. Demonstrates high levels of discretion and confidentiality.
• Critical Thinking/Problem Solving: Analyzes and integrates trends and patterns based on diverse information and perspectives to determine the root causes of problems, identify the best course of action, and prioritize efforts. Develops new insights and formulates creative solutions, considering the impact and implications of recommendations in the context of overall vision, goals, and objectives.
• Project Management: Ability to lead and execute complex projects to achieve goal attainment by prioritizing activities, assigning responsibilities in accordance with capabilities, monitoring progress, and evaluating impact.
• Quality Results: Ensures high-quality results on projects/tasks, meets deadlines, and attends to details. Takes responsibility for the quality of work and achieves results with little oversight.
• Decision-Making: Generates and evaluates alternatives before making a decision or taking action, considering the risks associated with each option and selecting the option that has the best balance of risk and reward, encouraging input from others when it is appropriate, standing by decisions without reconsidering unless information or circumstances make it necessary to do so, and evaluating the effectiveness of decisions after they have been made.
• Cultural Competence: Possesses and applies the skills, values, and principles that acknowledge, respect, contribute, and work effectively across cultural differences. Recognizes the unique value, perspectives, strengths, and challenges of every person who comes to the Crystal community.
• Personal Growth: Demonstrates commitment and curiosity to ongoing learning and development.
• Collaboration: the interpersonal and intrapersonal qualities one will leverage to collectively solve a problem or make progress toward a common goal. The ability to work with others to complete a project or task or develop ideas or processes.

Required Education and Experience:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and work experience
• Experience managing multiple projects simultaneously
• Experience curating large events
• Valid CA driver’s license.

Preferred Education and Experience:

• Event planning experience in an independent school setting
• Direct experience collaborating with and managing teens
• Conflict resolution skills
• Substantial experience facilitating DEIB learning experiences

Travel Required

Compensation:

Benefits of working at SA:

• Comprehensive benefits package, including 100% paid health, dental, and vision insurance for employees with several plan options to meet individuals’ specific needs
• Generous retirement plan contribution of 7% of base salary. Please note that this does not require an employee’s matching contribution.
• Commitment to professional development, including generously-funded training opportunities and a dedicated “exploratory fund” of $450 annually for learning opportunities unrelated to work.
• Healthy and nutritious lunch service offered at no cost to employees during the school year (when on campus and our kitchen operational)
• A professional work environment defined by teamwork, collegiality, trust, agility, and altruism.

Work Environment:

• This position operates in a professional office environment at a private, independent high school.
• This is a full-time position with occasional evening and weekend work

To Apply

• Interested candidates should complete the application and submit the following materials:
  1. a cover letter expressing particular interest in this position at Sonoma Academy;
  2. a current resume;
  3. a list of three professional references with name, relationship, phone number, and email address (references will not be contacted without the applicant’s permission).

Sonoma Academy is an equal opportunity employer. Sonoma Academy does not discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, age, or any other characteristic protected by law.