Dear Ms. Whitfield,
I am applying for the Grade 6 Classroom Teacher position at Cedar Park Middle School. I have spent nine years teaching fifth grade and middle school English in the same district, and the part of your posting that made me write is the move to vertical planning between your elementary and middle campuses.
I currently lead the vertical planning team that connects our elementary and middle schools. The first thing it produced was a shared writing rubric used in grades 4 through 7, which meant a student's sixth-grade teacher could see exactly what had been expected of them the year before rather than guessing.
Moving between an elementary and a middle school in one district taught me how much is lost at that transition, and it is the reason I applied here rather than renewing where I am. Your posting is the first I have seen that treats the handover as a staffing decision instead of a scheduling one.
I hold a Colorado Professional Teacher License in Elementary Education for kindergarten through grade six, with an English Language Arts endorsement covering grades seven through twelve. Together they cover the full span your posting describes.
I would welcome the chance to talk about how the vertical team is structured at Cedar Park and what the first year of the transition would ask of me. I am glad to meet whenever suits your schedule.
Sincerely, Marcus Ellery