Athletic Trainer

Position Overview

The Office of Social Emotional Academic Development works with the Chancellor to ensure coherence in the educational experience for our students, families, and schools. Our goal is to initiate change and lead DC Public Schools into the highest performing school district in the nation. We are currently in the process of creating our next strategic plan. After engaging with over 3,000 internal and external stakeholders to help shape the future of DCPS, our draft strategic priorities include:

• Promote Equity: Define, understand, and promote equity to close achievement gaps and interrupt institutional bias.
• Empower Our People: Recruit, develop, and retain a talented, caring, and diverse team.
• Educate the Whole Child: Provide rigorous, joyful, and inclusive academic and social emotional experiences for all students.
• Ensure Excellent Schools: Increase the number of high quality schools across the district by defining blended autonomies for schools and creating opportunities for innovation.
• Engage Families: Deepen partnerships with families and community.

Divisions/Teams

• Core Team: works to improve the organizational effectiveness and work to ensure daily operations are managed efficiently across all SEAD offices and divisions. The SEAD Core Team advocates for SEAD DCPS Programs by shepherding cross-team collaboration with procurement, budget, and staffing teams. SEAD Core Team provides oversight to ensure equitable, transparent, and compliant hiring and spending practices through quality customer service.
• Strategic School Planning: works closely with principals, Central Office staff, and community members to ensure schools plan appropriately to meet the needs of their students and the District. The Strategic School Planning division is made up of the Strategic Enrollment Initiatives and School Planning teams. These teams lead DCPS efforts related to the planning and design of the District’s portfolio of schools.

Division of Leadership Development

• Wallace and School Leader Recruitment, Selection: this division will shape the vision for the Wallace Grant initiative and develop and implement comprehensive, aligned principal pipelines reflective of the 7 critical domains articulated by Wallace that produce equity-centered leaders who can help bring a district’s vision of equity to fruition. They drive the District’s goals related to recruiting, selecting, and developing the best school leaders for DC Public Schools.
• Leadership Development: develops and executes instructional leadership programs and initiatives aimed at enabling school leaders to provide outstanding instruction to every student, every day in schools. This team works to build the leadership capacity of school leaders with a particular focus on instruction, data analysis, intervention, and developing capacity within the school. This team also triangulates qualitative and quantitative data to evaluate the effectiveness of leadership initiatives and to ensure alignment to leaders’ developmental needs.

Division of SEAD Strategy

• Athletics : The Department of Athletics ensures all DCPS students have access to comprehensive and inclusive interscholastic athletics programming designed to increase student satisfaction, improve physical fitness, keep students engaged in school, develop leadership qualities, and provide additional outlets for students to express their unique talents.
• Career and Technical Education : Career Education programs provide the academic, technical, and employability skills necessary to succeed in college, careers and to become lifelong learners.
• College Preparedness and Persistence : College Preparedness and Persistence includes programming that prepares students for college, including Dual Enrollment, SAT in school day, Test Prep, and the DCPS Persists initiative which enables DCPS to support students through their college graduation and invest in additional efforts to effectively prepare students to succeed in college.
• Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) : JROTC utilizes programming in our Army and Navy academies to motivate young people to become better citizens by teaching them leadership skills that they can use in any career field.
• Ninth Grade Academies : Ninth Grade Academies in DCPS provide rich, responsive, and well-rounded educational experiences for students transitioning from eighth grade to succeed in ninth grade and beyond.
• School Academic Scheduling and Support : School Academic Scheduling and Support (SASS) is responsible for supporting and monitoring DCPS schools in four areas: scheduling, grading, graduation, and the development and distribution of accurate academic records.
• Student Engagement : Student Engagement consists of programming designed to keep students on track academically and connected to their school communities.

Acceleration Division

• Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS): DCPS’s approach to acceleration is grounded in a commitment to serving the whole child. The MTSS team supports schools to understand student and staff strengths and needs holistically, and supports their implementation of aligned evidence-based best practices across academics, social-emotional learning, attendance, and behavior.
• Cluster Support Model (CSM): Under the CSM, Central Services’ coaching and support for schools from 19 Content Teams across Central Services are streamlined by Cluster under the guidance and direction of each Cluster Instructional Superintendent. Cluster Support Team (CST) members provide direct services, coaching, and professional learning to schools in alignment with the schools’ strengths and needs and district priorities.
• Acceleration: The Acceleration team works across Central Services and schools to promote a cohesive, streamlined approach to acceleration that is grounded in the whole child and evidence-based best practices including, but not limited to, High Impact Tutoring, expanded summer programming, and school-specific acceleration strategies.

The Athletic Trainer is responsible for coordinating and administering a comprehensive athletic health care program for all student athletes. The Athletic Trainer also is responsible for the prevention of injuries; immediate care of injured athletes; referral of injured athletes to the appropriate medical professional; treatment and rehabilitation of injured athletes; and athletic practice/event coverage. This position is a safety-sensitive position. As a result, throughout employment this position will be subject to the Employee Mandatory Drug and Alcohol Testing Policy.

The Athletic Trainer will report to the Director, Athletics.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

The below statements are intended to describe the general nature and scope of work being performed by this position. This is not a complete listing of all responsibilities, duties, and/or skills required. Other duties may be assigned.

• Serves as a well-trained health-care professional, who is an integral part of DCPS’s athletic program.
• Implements the prevention-of-injury program and immediate treatment for injured students.
• In conjunction with the principal, establishes daily hours of operation for the training room.
• Supervises the training room, which includes the requisition and storage of supplies and equipment, maintaining records and inventory, and assisting the supervisor with the annual budget.
• Recognizes the severity of an injury; administers proper first aid; refers the student athlete for the necessary medical attention; and develops a plan for emergency health care involving students.
• Provides treatment for student athletes and keeps the coach informed of the athlete’s physical and emotional condition as well as the student’s physical problems; and utilizes a wide variety of first aid equipment ranging from bandages and splints to emergency transportation devices.
• Plans and administers therapeutic, strengthening, and corrective exercises, as well as heat and cold therapy, electrical muscle stimulation, ultrasound, and massage methods and techniques; and implements injury prevention skills, such as the building or fitting of protective equipment, taping, and wrapping.
• Renders immediate decisions in the absence of a physician, determines whether a player can continue to play, and provides the coach with the appropriate analysis regarding the status of the player’s injury.
• May be utilized in an administrative capacity in regards to resource efforts for coaches, physicians, administrators, and parents to create and operate an efficient and responsive health care delivery system for student athletes.
• Initiates and administers an athletic student trainer program, which includes instructions and supervision in first-aid techniques, protective taping, wraps and dressings, and use of therapeutic techniques.
• Assists coaches in planning and supervising off-season and in-season conditioning programs, nutrition and weight control programs, and teaching injury prevention skills; and conducts in-service programs for the coaching staff on the care and prevention of athletic injuries.
• Encourages proper nutritional habits for student-athletes, promotes the concept of total physical fitness regardless of the sport, and encourages fitness habits that can persist for a lifetime of vigorous living.
• Counsels athletes to seek proper medical assistance, follow-up care, and/or surgery; and provides sound advice on matters such as drugs, steroids, smoking, rest, drinking, hydration, etc.
• Provides first-aid equipment and/or coverage for visiting teams.
• Receives, reviews, and maintains physical examination records of all student athletes, prepares and processes all injury reports, and maintains contact with athletic students’ referring physician(s).

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree.
• Certified by Board of Certification (BOC), Inc.
• Previous exposure to or experience in the education sector a plus.
• Mastery of anatomy, physiology, hygiene, nutrition, taping, conditioning, prevention of injury methodologies, and protective equipment.
• Mastery of theory, concepts, principles, and practices of first-aid techniques and methods and preventative sports medicine.
• Ability to recognize physical adverse signs and symptoms and to react swiftly in emergency situations.
• Mastery knowledge of a variety of specialized medical equipment and techniques, such as oxygen resuscitators, and external cardiac compression, and ability to use the same.
• Ability to provide medical care for athletic injuries.
• Expert knowledge of and ability to understand medical terminologies.
• Mastery of and skill to communicate orally and in writing in order to provide instructions or advice to the athletic student, coach, and school administrators, and when making recommendations to improve DCPS’s Athletic Program operations to a wide variety of stakeholders; and ability to prepare accurate, clear, concise, logical, and coherent oral or written reports on the status of the student’s injury.

DCPS Values

• STUDENTS FIRST : We recognize students as whole children and put their needs first in everything we do.
• COURAGE : We have the audacity to learn from our successes and failures, to try new things, and to lead the nation as a proof point of PK-12 success.
• EQUITY : We work proactively to eliminate opportunity gaps by interrupting institutional bias and investing in effective strategies to ensure every student succeeds.
• EXCELLENCE : We work with integrity and hold ourselves accountable for exemplary outcomes, service, and interactions.
• TEAMWORK : We recognize that our greatest asset is our collective vision and ability to work collaboratively and authentically.
• JOY : We enjoy our collective work and will enthusiastically celebrate our success and each other.