Innovation Manager

About KIPP Bay Area Schools

In the San Francisco Bay Area, five KIPP middle schools and two KIPP high schools are closing the achievement gap between low-income students and their more advantaged peers. These tuition-free, college-preparatory schools are located in the under-served neighborhoods of Bayview Hunters Point and the Western Addition in San Francisco, East San Jose, San Lorenzo, and West Oakland. The mission of KIPP Bay Area Schools is to operate high-achieving public schools in educationally underserved communities, developing in our students the knowledge, skills, and character essential to thrive in college, shape their futures, and positively impact the world.

KIPP (The Knowledge is Power Program) began in 1994 in Houston, Texas. Today, there are 125 KIPP schools in 20 states and Washington, D.C. serving more than 41,000 students. KIPP Bay Area Schools currently serves 2,700 students through its seven schools, with a total of 225 employees and annual revenue of $25 million.

Position Overview

The Innovation Manager is responsible for supporting KIPP Bay Area Schools' integration of instructional technology to better personalize and serve the needs of our students.

The Innovation Manager will curate potential technology-enabled classroom and content tools, support professional development, coach teachers and school leaders, and build communities of practice to enable sharing across our region and the KIPP network.

This position will be located at our Regional Support Office (RSO) in Oakland, and the individual will be a critical member of the region's efforts to personalize learning for our students. The Innovation Manager will report to the Chief Growth Officer and work closely with the current Innovation Manager, academic team, and schools.

Roles and Responsibilities

The new Innovation Manager will work closely with the team at KIPP Bay Area Schools to support the organization's strategy and approach to blended learning and innovation. The position will include the following roles and responsibilities:

Curate content and manage potential partnerships

• Curate potential tools. Evaluate quality and relevance of potential technology solutions, against set of clear criteria and needs. Provide recommendations to school leaders and teachers as appropriate.
• Develop third-party partnerships. Identify and negotiate with potential partners to enable adoption of new resources. Build strong relationships to support learning and strong implementation.

Support professional development and adoption across the region

• Work with school leaders. Connect with school leaders to understand their vision and plans for the adoption of digital learning and implications for their schools, teachers, and students.
• Conduct professional development. Help teachers to prepare for smooth adoption of new tools and solutions, including coaching Instructional Specialists how to deliver the PD.
• Support implementation. Oversee internal adoption and execution of new classroom and school-wide solutions. Define learning objectives and monitor progress to optimize success of implementation efforts.

• Partner with Fisher Fellows. Collaborate closely with new school leaders to introduce blended learning options and ideas. Support the development of blended school designs for our region's new schools.
• Build Communities of Practice. Identify best practices and create knowledge-sharing opportunities, both within KIPP Bay Area Schools, and potentially among the broader KIPP network or other blended learning consortia.

Manage resources and build support

• Understand student impact. Understand student engagement and growth, by partnering with school leaders, teachers, data manager, and researchers.
• Collaborate with IT team. Define user needs and work closely with technical staff to enable appropriate investments in access, bandwidth, and hardware.
• Support fundraising. Work closely with development team to secure resources and enable investments in blended learning, technology, and innovation.
• Serve as regional expert. Provide ongoing support, professional development, and guidance to all regional teachers, leaders, and staff on blended learning initiatives.

Skills and experience

· Project management. Able to organize complex ideas, multiple projects, and tasks into manageable workplans. Prioritizes well and manages to completion in a timely manner. Able to coordinate and manage the contributions of others through relationships and influence.

· Relationship management. Able to build strong partnerships and trust, with internal and external stakeholders.

· Problem solving. Able to seek creative solutions in challenging situations. Open to considering different perspectives and being influenced by others.

· Educational technology expertise. Well versed in blended learning and education technology market and key solutions/players. Ideal candidate has classroom implementation experience.

· Teaching and learning experience. Deep classroom experience that enables rich evaluation of solutions and credibility to coach/influence teachers and leaders.

Additional characteristics

· Comfort with working in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment

· Articulate, professional demeanor with strong self-confidence and initiative

· Excellent business writing, communication, and presentation skills

· High proficiency in social media and digital learning solutions

· Detail- and results-oriented team player who is dedicated to getting the job done

· Embody core values: passion, innovation, resourcefulness, respect, effective communication, impact

· Unquestioned integrity and commitment to KIPP Bay Area Schools' mission

Salary

Competitive salary and benefits commensurate with qualifications and experience.