Private school teacher job description template

A private school teacher posting states more than a subject and a grade: who the school is, what its community expects of its teachers, and what the school pays.

This page is the posting itself.

The sequence around it — when to post, where to look, how to screen, what to offer — is our guide to how to hire a private school teacher.

What are the core duties and responsibilities?

Name the role so a candidate can picture a teaching day: the subjects, the grade levels, the number of course preparations, and the curriculum or pedagogy your school uses.

Add the schedule facts that decide whether someone can say yes at all: full-time or part-time, the contract term, and the start date.

Write for the level you are hiring: for an elementary role, list each subject the teacher carries; for a middle- or upper-school role, list preparations and sections instead.

Family-facing work belongs on the list too: parent conferences, written updates home, and how your school communicates with families.

If you are unsure what the role carries at a school like yours, the private school teacher career guide describes the work from the teacher's side.

What qualifications should be required vs preferred?

Split the list, and keep the split honest: a requirement is what a candidate must hold on the first day; a preference is what strengthens an application.

The certificate line takes the most care, because the answer is your state's law for a school in your category — not private-school practice in general.

Michigan's Private, Denominational and Parochial Schools Act, for example, says no person may teach the regular or elementary grade studies in a private, denominational or parochial school without a certificate that would qualify them to teach like grades in Michigan public schools.

Where a statute like that reaches your school, the line says required.

Where it does not, a preferred line is the honest one.

Degrees, years of experience and association credentials — an AMI diploma or AMS credential, ACSI certification, a diocesan catechist certificate — are set by your school, or by your diocese or accreditor where it has its own rule.

The Diocese of Raleigh, for example, requires all teachers of Religion in its Catholic schools to complete its Basic Catechist Certification within the first year or two of hire.

Alongside the credential list sit the conditions of employment.

The first is the background check your state or your own policy requires before the first day.

The second is the mandated-reporter duty: as of May 2023, state law named school personnel as mandatory reporters in 44 states, DC and four territories (Child Welfare Information Gateway), and the other six states require every person to report.

Add any reporting training your state or school policy sets.

Our background checks guide covers what schools run and why.

Rules change, and categories differ.

Confirm what your state requires of a school like yours with your state education agency before the posting goes up — then keep the qualification line to exactly what you confirmed.

Mission statement and community expectations

State the mission in one sentence and tie it to the job: what the school is, whom it serves, and what it asks of the adults who teach there.

The duties beyond the classroom belong in the same block — advisory, coaching, clubs, chapel or dorm duty, supervision — written as the school's own published expectations rather than left to other duties as assigned.

At a religious school, the faith commitment is a working condition, and it belongs in the posting.

Federal disability-discrimination law expressly allows a religious educational institution to prefer applicants of a particular religion and to require applicants and employees to conform to its religious tenets.

That allowance is specific, and the same law's employment provisions continue to apply to the school.

Where the lines sit for your wording is a legal question: our religious school employment law guide covers the territory, and counsel should review the language before you publish it.

How do you write the pay and benefits line?

Write the range your school has actually budgeted — not a range you hope to negotiate into later.

Add the stipends attached to the extra duties the posting lists, and the benefits the school provides: health coverage, retirement contributions, tuition remission for children of faculty, professional development funding, or faculty housing at a boarding school.

A blank pay line asks the candidate to guess what the school will not say, and an application then needs a longer screening call.

Where you post can bind the line itself.

Washington requires covered employers to disclose the wage scale or salary range, or a fixed wage, and a general description of benefits and other compensation, in each job posting.

A posting includes one placed through a third party, so a listing your placement firm or job board publishes counts.

That requirement took effect January 1, 2023 and was amended in 2025.

Colorado's Equal Pay for Equal Work Act requires employers to disclose compensation, benefits, and how and when to apply, in all job postings — internal and public alike.

Posting rules are set state by state.

Our research verified the Washington and Colorado requirements; whatever your state, check your state labor department's current requirements before the posting goes up.

A posting loses candidates less often on its requirements than on its silences: the reader cannot tell whether the job is real, what it pays, or whether someone like them can hold it.

• No pay range. A blank pay line reads as a range the school would rather not say out loud — publish the figure you budgeted.
• No contract term or start date. A teacher already under contract plans a move around dates; a posting without them reads as a someday job.
• An unclear certificate stance. Publish the line your state education agency confirmed — and never a blanket no-certificate-needed claim, because the rule depends on the state and on your school's category.
• An unclear faith requirement. A candidate who cannot see the expectation before applying spends the school's time as well as their own; state it once, plainly, in the mission block.
• No benefits or tuition-remission detail. The pay line is not the whole offer, and a posting that hides the benefits makes the total package look thinner than it is.
• Duties that appear only after the offer. Coaching, dorm duty or a heavy advisory load revealed after signing re-opens the search a year later.

Once the wording is right, put it where candidates look: our where to post teaching jobs guide walks the channels, and our private school teacher job listings collect private school openings in one place.

Read the finished posting the way a candidate will read it before it goes live.

Time it to the season, too: the teacher hiring timeline maps the cycle from posting to offer.

Employer information, not legal, tax or immigration advice. Certification, pay-posting, background-check and faith-requirement rules are set state by state and agency by agency — confirm the rules that bind your school with your state education agency, your state labor department or counsel, as the question needs.