Job description
The Cloud Forest School, locally known as the Centro de Educación Creativa, is an independent, bilingual Pre-K through 11th grade school that offers a creative, progressive education to 200 students with an emphasis on integrating environmental education, English, and Spanish into the curriculum.
The Cloud Forest School sits upon a 106 acre campus of pastureland and rainforest, nestled at the top of Costa Rica's northwest Tilaran mountain range. Monteverde is renowned for its unique biodiversity, and is surrounded by tens of thousands of acres of conserved cloud forest. Our town of 5,000 people is comprised of local Costa Ricans, North American, European nationals who have decided to make Costa Rica their home. With an active art, music, yoga, dance, and scientific community, Monteverde is a safe and dynamic place for families to live.
- Our mission is to nurture generations of ecologically aware, academically well-rounded bilingual individuals who possess the knowledge, values and skills needed to make environmentally and socially conscious decisions on a local, national and global scale.
- We are a Costa Rican, fully accredited, nonprofit, bilingual PreK – high school, working with mostly local Costa Rican students, over 75% of whom receive financial aid. About 8% of our 200 students are visiting from North America or other countries
- Abour 2/3 of our faculty are certified teachers from North America; the remaining 1/3 are Costa Rican educators. The majority of support staff at the CFS-CEC are local Costa Ricans.
- We offer a volunteer and internship program to university and gap-year students from around the globe
- Our campus sits on 42 hectares of Cloud Forest; we are a member of the Costa Rican Network of Private Reserves and form part of the Monteverde Reserve complex.
- Classes begin in mid-August and end in June
- Monteverde is a remote mountain community located about 3 hours from the city, or 3 hours from the Pacific coast beaches. It is perfect for those who truly enjoy the outdoors, hiking, relaxing with friends and enjoying wildlife. There are artists and musicians in town as well as many nonprofit conservation and educational organizations.
The Director of the school reports to the Board of Directors of the CFS-CEC. This individual has overall responsibility for insuring that the mission of the school is fulfilled: managing current resources, working with budgets and enrollment, providing vision and direction as well as planning future needs of the school, leadership of an administrative team as well as teaching staff, directing day-to-day management of educational activities of the school; developing academic programs; monitoring students' educational progress; training and motivating teachers and other staff; managing special education and other student services; handling relations with parents, prospective and current students, and the community.
The Cloud Forest School prefers a Director who will be bilingual, with experience living abroad and working in a multicultural setting; this individual will also have the interpersonal and professional skills necessary to work productively with a diverse group of constituents.
- Minimum 3-5 years experience in educational administration / school leadership
- Minimum of a Masters degree or its equivalent
- A devotion to, and experience with, environmental and progressive education
- Excellent management skills; non-profit management experience preferred
- Outstanding interpersonal and intercultural skills
- Ability to read, write and speak both Spanish and English is strongly preferred
- Poise and a sense of humor
As a non-profit school, our salaries are comparable with local compensation scales.
How to apply
Please send a cover letter in English/Spanish and your current resume to directorsearch@cecmonteverde.org.
