Careers - The Gateway School

Our Commitment to Excellence

Highly qualified teachers, specialists, and therapists with graduate degrees and the necessary certifications in their respective areas of expertise come together at Gateway to transform the lives of students and their families. Every professional demonstrates:

a love of teaching
dedication to Gateway’s mission to teach students the skills, strategies, and content necessary for successful integration into mainstream classrooms
the belief that each student can learn provided he or she receives appropriate and effective research-based instruction

To ensure a high standard of teaching for the benefit of every student, all faculty and therapists participate in an ongoing, intellectually challenging professional development program. Through required course participation, in-house lectures, workshops, individual coaching, and recurrent observations and evaluation, Gateway faculty and therapists acquire the knowledge and instructional skills required for successful remediation of a Gateway student’s reading, writing, math, or other learning disability. Run by Gateway’s Director of Language and Literacy, Heather Ironside, in collaboration with the consultant and staff developer, Lydia H. Soifer, Ph.D., and the program leadership, the primary areas of focus of Gateway’s professional development program are:

direct, explicit, sequential, multisensory instruction
the impact of language on how a student thinks, feels, and learns
how to use language when teaching students with language-based learning disabilities, attention deficit, and other learning disabilities, in accordance with the Classroom Language Dynamics program
diagnostic instruction and how it guides the individualization of instruction
curriculum development, including unit and class planning, to strategically weave together skills, strategies, and content

At Gateway, teachers, specialists, and therapists participate in and contribute to a community of learners that reflects on its practice individually and as a group. Motivated daily by the wonder of each student’s accomplishments, Gateway’s professionals work hard and grow in knowledge and skill as they blend their classroom experiences with their weekly training. Through its professional development program, Gateway guarantees expert instruction for students with learning disabilities.

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Professional Developers

Heather Ironside

As Director of Language and Literacy, Heather is responsible for Gateway’s Professional Development program, the Reading and Writing curriculum, language therapy, and student assessments. She has over 10 years of experience as a teacher trainer, language therapist, and advocate for students and parents at The Soifer Center for Learning and Child Development in White Plains, New York. Heather holds an M.S. in Speech Language Pathology from Emerson College and a B.S. in Linguistics from Georgetown University.

Lydia H. Soifer, Ph.D.

Consultant
Dr. Soifer specializes in the relationships among language, learning, and literacy in children from preschool through high school age. An assistant clinical professor of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Dr. Soifer focuses on early identification and remediation of language-based learning challenges in children. She presents regularly and consults with schools on curriculum and staff training. Her professional development program, Classroom Language Dynamics^©, has been introduced into schools in the tri-state area.