How To Write An Elementary School Teacher Job Description (With Examples)

Elementary school teachers have a wide range of responsibilities, many of which depend on the schools they work for and the grades and subjects they teach. Generally, though, they create lesson plans, decorate their classrooms, wrangle large groups of children, communicate with parents, grade tests and assignments, facilitate school-wide activities, and more.

As you probably know, it’s important to the success of your school to hire elementary school teachers who excel at their craft and want to get behind and further your school’s larger mission.

When it comes time to hire a new instructor, writing an accurate job description is vital to finding a quality candidate. After all, you need to convince the right people to apply just as much as they need to convince you to hire them.

In this article, you’ll find advice and ideas for what to include in your job posting to recruit the best elementary teacher for your school.

Objectives of Elementary School Teachers

This section is also often called the “Position Summary” because it provides an overview of the job and its purpose as a part of the rest of the organization. Some companies like to put this at the beginning of the job description, while others like to put it at the end — it just depends on how you want the posting to flow.

In this case, though, individual schools’ missions, visions, and cultures are often some of the largest differences between teaching jobs, so it may be a good idea to put this section at the beginning of your job description.

This way, as potential applicants are scanning listings, they’ll be more likely to be drawn into your posts if they can connect with the role’s objectives right off the bat.

As you write this section, think through the overarching goals of the position and how it supports the school as a whole. These goals may include motivating students to learn, incorporating values such as excellence, innovation, and kindness into the classroom, or creating strong relationships with parents and other teachers.

If your school is faith-based or has a specific set of beliefs or values that you want your teachers to demonstrate and promote to students, this is a good place to share those as well.

Duties and Responsibilities of an Elementary School Teacher

This section is where you can get down to brass tacks about what the job will look like. Write down both the practical responsibilities and expectations of the position. As you do so, try to strike the balance of not being so broad that applicants have no idea what they’ll be doing, but also not being so specific that you create unrealistic expectations.

Be specific in the duties that you list, but leave room for additional responsibilities. Using language like “Perform other duties as assigned” and “Including, but not limited to” is a good way to do this.

This section is important to get right because it’s often kept as a record of expectations for your employee and the organization, so make sure you talk to any administrators and human resources professionals who need to be involved to ensure you’ve covered all of your bases, especially as far as to state and school district standards are concerned.

You should also make sure this section is similar to the job descriptions of your other elementary school teachers who have similar roles. You may need to update the content of old job descriptions to give an accurate depiction, though, and asking your current instructors what they would put on the posting can be an efficient way to do this.

Skills and Qualifications of an Elementary School Teacher

This section outlines the skills and abilities you want to see in your elementary school teachers. These could be physical, mental, soft, or industry-specific skills, so you may even want to create separate headers for the different categories, depending on what you’re looking for.

Most of these listed skills should be things that you can’t or don’t want to train into employees. For example, you may want to share that you’re looking for someone who can sit or stand throughout most of the day, has strong computer skills, is self-motivated and good at working with others, and is good at managing their time.

Other qualifications may be more of a “wish list” of sorts that won’t preclude an applicant from being considered for a job but will set them apart if they do have them.

Talk with your administrators and HR representatives to make sure you aren’t overstepping in this area. You also may want to consider marking these as “preferred” or differentiate the truly required qualifications in another way.

After all, you don’t want to chase away perfectly qualified candidates by listing too many unrealistic hopes for their abilities. This is especially true if you’re looking to hire new graduates.

Education Requirements of an Elementary School Teacher

Since states and school districts have specific education requirements for their teachers, this section is vital to include in your job description. This is also a good area to discuss which licenses and certifications candidates will need to discuss work in your particular school district.

If they can apply for the job before they hold some of these certifications, specify that too, as this is helpful information for new graduates and candidates who are moving from another state or district.

Experience Requirements of an Elementary School Teacher

This is where you can list the required amount of experience you want your elementary school teachers to have. You can provide a range of years of experience you require or prefer, but make sure you specify if student teaching counts toward this if that isn’t already included in your state’s licensing requirements.

When you’re hiring an instructor for a specific class, this is a good place to specify the types of teaching experience you want candidates to have. If you’re looking for an art teacher, for instance, you could say that they need to have a few years of experience in teaching art classes in some capacity or at least in working in an art-related field.

You can also incorporate this section into the skills and qualifications section if you want. Just make sure you clearly differentiate between requirements and preferences.

Salary Expectations of an Elementary School Teacher

Another important piece of information to include in your job description is how much you will pay the person you hire. This could be a range dependent on the person’s qualifications or a set number.

For reference, elementary school teachers in the U.S. make an average of $49,952 a year, with the bottom 10% making around $38,000 and the top 10% earning about $64,000 each year.

Because there is such a wide range of salaries, look up what similar schools in your state or city are paying their teachers to make sure you’re staying competitive. This is a good habit to get into whether you’re actively hiring or not since it can quickly get difficult to hold onto employees who could easily be making more money elsewhere.

Beyond the salary, make sure you mention any additional benefits your employees get. Meal plans, access to workout facilities, discounted tuition for family members, health insurance, teachers’ pensions, and other perks are all selling points for your potential applicants.

Example Job Description for an Elementary School Teacher

Author

Abby McCain

Abby is a writer who is passionate about the power of story. Whether it’s communicating complicated topics in a clear way or helping readers connect with another person or place from the comfort of their couch. Abby attended Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she earned a degree in writing with concentrations in journalism and business.