The Summit Country Day School – 2161 Grandin Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45208
Posted: May 21, 2025
Grades K-8: Student Support Specialist/Full-Time: The Summit Country Day School is a nationally recognized leader in character education and offers a compelling combination of small classes, caring faculty, academic rigor, and strong spiritual values. For more than a century, The Summit has maintained a proud legacy of excellence in independent, Catholic education. We offer coeducational learning experience to students from Montessori 18 months through grade 12. The Summit is a place where values are affirmed, young minds are enriched, and dreams take flight. Learn more at www.summitcds.org.

The Student Support Specialist is responsible for overseeing and integrating the systems that promote student success in the academic, social-emotional, and physical domains for students in grades K-8 at The Summit Country Day School. This role collaborates closely with the support services team, including learning specialists, resource program coordinators, counselors, nurses, and other support staff. The Specialist is also responsible for the development of policies and coordinates with external providers to ensure that the unique needs of neurodiverse students are met with care and professionalism.

Areas of Responsibility:

Academic Support

• Lead collaboration efforts for a team of learning specialist and resource program coordinators across grades K-8.
• Facilitate alignment meetings with learning specialists and resources teachers across all divisions.
• Establish, oversee, and communicate the system for identifying students with academic support needs through internal referrals, academic data collection, and MTSS/RTI review.
• Support families obtaining school-based evaluations or evaluations through external providers.
• Review psychoeducational and neuropsychological evaluations and translate findings into appropriate school-based supports.
• Develop Individualized Accommodation Plans and oversee the process for annual reviews.
• Collaborate with division directors and faculty to ensure accommodations are consistently applied in classrooms and assessment settings.
• Coordinate and align academic intervention programs across divisions.
• Coordinate the logistics for interventions delivered by external providers.
• Partner with learning specialists and resource program coordinators to offer professional development to faculty and parent education around neurodiversity and learning differences.
• Serve as the testing coordinator for K-8 benchmark assessments.
  • Determine appropriate accommodations.
  • With the team, share student reports with families.
  • Review testing data with school-based teams to identify students in need of specific interventions.
• Lead the academic support team efforts in the development of Reading Improvement plans for students who are off track in achieving the third grade reading guarantee.
• Develop accommodation plans for students with physical health needs that impact learning.

Social-Emotional Support

• Guide a team of school counselors across grades K-8.
• Facilitate alignment meetings with counselors across all divisions.
• Collaborate with behavior specialist (K-2) to support student needs.
• Provide oversight of SEL curriculum selection and promote developmental consistency in programming.
• Collaborate with counselors to ensure appropriate interventions and responses to student social emotional needs.
• Support crisis intervention and postvention plans as needed.
• Partner with counselors and behavior specialist to offer professional development to faculty and families around emotional regulation and student mental health.
• Monitor social-emotional trends across grade levels and adjust programming, screening tools, or staffing in response to emerging needs

Policies, Programs, and External Partnerships

• Lead the development, implementation, and regular review of policies related to academic and social-emotional support services.
• Collaborate with admissions personnel to review prospective candidate files that have a demonstrated need for support services to determine what services may be provided.
• Consult with internal support teams to support families seeking external services not provided directly by the school, such as occupational therapy, speech-language pathology, psychotherapy, or medical support.
• Establish and maintain relationships with outside providers and coordinate communication and services with discretion and professionalism.

Ensure compliance with all applicable federal and state laws (e.g., ADA, Section 504) and maintain accurate and confidential records of support services.

Qualifications:

• Master’s degree required in education, school psychology, counseling, special education, social work, or a related field.
• Minimum of 5 years of experience in student support, special education, or mental health services with demonstrated leadership in a school setting.
• Proven ability to lead and support multidisciplinary teams.
• Strong understanding of child and adolescent development, academic accommodations, mental health support, and physical wellness initiatives.
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and organizational skills.
• Commitment to The Summit’s mission and Catholic identity, and to the development of the whole child.

The Summit is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to increasing the diversity of our faculty/staff. Qualified applicants are encouraged to apply.  Please send all resumes, cover letters, and applications to humanresources@summitcds.org.