Mount Tamalpais School seeks a creative, dedicated, collaborative Music Educator with Instrumental Expertise. This educator will empower students as musicians, be an integral part of our Performing Arts team, nurture social-emotional growth, and partner with families, while working collaboratively with colleagues to uphold MTS’s Vision, Mission, and Values.

Key Responsibilities

Teaching & Learning

• Teach K–5 music using developmentally-appropriate approaches, including ORFF (K–3) and instrumental units (e.g., recorder, ukulele, drums); woodwind/brass instrument experience a plus.
  
• Lead beginning band and strings classes and direct middle school instrumental ensembles (band and string ensembles).
  
• Teach middle school enrichment electives with a variety of instrument-based focuses.
  
• Design and deliver clear, well-structured lessons.
  
• Maintain high expectations for effort, achievement, and behavior; cultivate student confidence and a growth mindset.
  
• Establish strong routines and maximize learning time with engaging, purposeful activities.
  
• Differentiate instruction with scaffolds and enrichment so every student is appropriately challenged and supported.
  
• Monitor progress and adjust instruction; provide timely, actionable feedback.
  
• Foster student ownership through creativity, voice/choice, goal-setting, and reflection; promote respectful discourse where students explain thinking and listen to peers.
  
• Integrate technology and innovative tools (including AI) to enhance clarity, efficiency, and engagement in alignment with MTS Mission and Values.
  
• Embed equity and social justice principles by supporting positive identity development, honoring diversity, building critical consciousness around fairness/bias, and empowering students to act with empathy and courage.
  
• Track progress and prepare Growth Reports (report cards) 2x/year for families.
  
  

Performances & Productions

• Coordinate Lower School recital programs and performances
  
• Professionally partner with and help prepare content for music and theater productions as an integral member of the performing arts team
  
• Support musical theater productions with music direction collaboration and/or technical theater contributions, as needed.
  

Community & Belonging

• Serve as a primary point of contact for families regarding music education and instrumental learning.
  
• Build an inclusive classroom community where students feel seen, valued, heard, and safe; explicitly teach empathy, inclusion, and kindness.
  
• Support and participate in schoolwide assemblies, events, and field trips.
  
• Share in collective faculty responsibilities (e.g., recess/lunch duty, aftercare support, and admissions support).
  
  

Professional Growth & Collaboration

• Collaborate with colleagues to strengthen curriculum alignment, ensemble programming, and teaching practice across grades.
  
• Participate in weekend Admissions events (ex: Experience Arts, Music, & Athletics at MTS) and speak to prospective families during tours (teachers are compensated for their participation in weekend Admission events)
  
• Engage in MTS’s Talent Development growth cycle (observations, feedback, reflection).
  
• Participate in ongoing professional learning supported by MTS’s PD budget.
  
  

Successful Candidates

We welcome candidates who bring a combination of professional expertise, personal qualities, and lived experiences that will strengthen and enrich our community. Not every excellent educator will match every listed qualification—if you bring authentic passion for music education and instrumental instruction and many of the strengths below, we encourage you to apply:

• Education: Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred. Music education training/experience preferred
  
• Music background: Strong foundation in music education and instrumental instruction.
  
• Instrumental expertise: Instrumental focus that complements the current team’s choral/string/keyboard strengths.
  
• Teaching experience: Lead-teaching experience with elementary and middle school students.
  
• Performances & production: Experience organizing and facilitating student performances/recitals; musical theater and/or technical theater experience to support productions.
  
• Instructional approach: Ability to balance academic rigor with joy and curiosity—honoring childhood while preparing students for future challenges.
  
• SEL & executive functioning: Experience integrating SEL and executive functioning supports as a specialist teacher, and building community through those practices.
  
• Equity & inclusion: Commitment to cultivating equitable, inclusive, identity-affirming learning environments and contributing to an anti-biased, anti-racist community.
  
• Collaboration & independence: Strong collaborator in a team-based model, with the ability to work independently, take initiative, and remain adaptable, organized, and creative.
  
• Communication: Excellent communication and relationship-building with students, families, and colleagues.
  
• Professional growth: Commitment to continuous learning, innovation, and a growth mindset—with clear joy for teaching this age group.
  
  

Current production rhythm: 2 major musicals annually; 2 middle school showcases; 4–5 recitals per year. Candidates will join the existing performing arts team as a collaborative, integral partner.

The School

Located fifteen minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge in Mill Valley, Mount Tamalpais School (MTS) is a departmentalized K-8 co-educational independent day school serving ~270 students. 

At MTS, we envision a world in which Education Inspires Action. We get closer to our vision by creating the conditions in which Learning is Revered, and Education is Joyful. With open arms, hearts, and minds, we:

• Lead With Kindness

• Honor Childhood

• Practice Active Inclusion

• Celebrate The Journey

• Ask, “What’s Possible?”

MTS students, well prepared for their future while remaining young at heart, bring a multitude of diverse and unique backgrounds to our community. They are motivated learners who love engaging in learning.

MTS Professional Community members are passionate about both what they teach and who they teach. Our departmentalized program allows all teachers to share their passion while focusing on their professional growth. Regardless of department, MTS educators are dedicated to the social-emotional development and wellbeing of our students. Likewise, all adults on campus share a continual commitment to creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive school community.

Our Equal Opportunity Employment Policy

As an academic institution, the School strives to provide equal opportunity for all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, age, religious creed, national origin, ancestry, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, related medical conditions, and breastfeeding), reproductive health decision-making, genetic information, physical or mental disability, medical condition, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship status, or any other basis protected by federal, state or local law. The School prohibits discrimination or harassment based on these classifications. Discrimination and harassment based on a perception that anyone is in any of these protected classifications, or is associated with a person who has or is perceived as being in any of these protected classifications, are also prohibited. This policy applies to all areas of employment, including recruitment, hiring, training, promotion, compensation, benefits and other stated conditions of employment.

To Apply: Send a cover letter and resume to jobs@mttam.org

About Mount Tamalpais School

Mount Tamalpais School, 100 Harvard Ave, Mill Valley, CA 94941 (Telephone 415-383-9434), is a coeducational day school enrolling children in Kindergarten through Grade 8. The suburban community of Mill Valley is 12 miles north of San Francisco in Marin County. Students have access to the museums, theater, opera, symphony, and ballet of the city, and visit the Pacific Ocean and Mount Tamalpais for hiking and nature study. Private bus service is available between the school and local communities; public bus stops are within walking distance of the campus. Mount Tamalpais School is dedicated to the active pursuit of knowledge and to integrity, community service and fairness. We want our students to embrace diversity, honoring the value of each individual's strengths, choices, feelings and ideas. We strive to celebrate the human spirit by being responsible members of our families, our school community, and our world. We are committed to a strong, interactive and multidisciplinary curriculum, designed to challenge and enlighten, and to faculty who serve as guides and role models for our students.

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