Director of Aspiring Principals Program - Washington, DC and Charlotte

Director, Aspiring Principals Program - Washington, DC and Charlotte

Organization Description

New Leaders is a national non-profit that ensures high academic achievement for every student by attracting and preparing outstanding leaders and supporting the performance of the urban public schools they lead at scale.

New Leaders rigorously selects high-quality emerging leaders with strong instructional skills to join its urban Principal training program. The training includes demanding coursework and a yearlong, hands-on Residency where the New Leaders hone their skills and put theory into practice daily. After the training year, the New Leaders team works with these new Principals to support them in driving their schools to 90% or higher school-wide student proficiency. New Leaders prepares its emerging leaders in instructional, operational/managerial, and cultural change/transformational leadership, all with the goal of ensuring that at least 90% of the students in New Leader-led schools achieve academic proficiency and graduate college-ready.

New Leaders currently runs programs in Baltimore, California's Bay Area, Charlotte, Chicago, Jefferson Parish, LA, Memphis, Milwaukee, Newark, NJ, New Orleans, New York City, Prince George's County and Washington, DC. Please visit our web site www.newleaders.org to learn more about our organization and visit the "News/Reports" section for media coverage about New Leaders.

Our ideal candidates understand and actively support the importance of a workplace which thrives on diverse cultural backgrounds, ethnicities, heritage and race, gender and sexual orientation, abilities, and ideas–someone who embraces the fact that differences make us stronger, and who is committed to creating and maintaining an open and equitable work environment inclusive of everyone.

Position description

The Director of the Aspiring Principals Program (APP Director) will play a pivotal role on the City New Leaders team. The APP Director will report to the Managing Director of Program and work closely with all Charlotte New Leaders staff to implement the core component of the New Leaders programmatic continuum, the Aspiring Principals Program. This individual will be responsible for delivering high-quality national curriculum, designing and delivering locally relevant curriculum for Resident Principals, and providing individualized coaching to the Residents.

The APP Director will report to the local Managing Director for Programs and will work closely with all City New Leaders program staff, particularly other APP Directors, to ensure the success for the Aspiring Principals Program. The APP Director is also expected to work closely with the national program team to provide ongoing feedback and input on the national APP curriculum so that the New Leaders curriculum meets the needs of all learners and develops Residents to become high-performing principals. The APP Director will work directly with New Leader Resident Principals and Mentor Principals to ensure that all New Leader Residents who are endorsed for the principalship meet the New Leaders performance standards. The APP Director will serve as the chief academic resource for the program and be involved with all aspects of the program including: Identification and Selection, Curriculum Design and Delivery, APP Comprehensive System Development, Adjunct & Consultant Collaboration, Partner Relations, and Program/Resident Evaluation.

Key Responsibilities:

I. Curriculum Design and Delivery:

• Facilitate up to two weeks of Summer Local Inductions, one week of local December Seminar, bi-weekly local Residency Seminars, and other learning experiences as needed
• Collaborate with the national School Leadership Development team to adapt nationally-developed curriculum to meet the needs of the City context
• Ensure that Residency Seminars are designed to maximize opportunities to apply and practice the 15 Leadership Actions—the essential actions that we believe Residents must deeply practice and master in their Residency year in order to be ready to take those actions in leading a school as a high-performing principal
• Participate in nationally-delivered Virtual Learning Seminars in order to support the ongoing learning of Residents and ensure that they experience seamless curriculum across all methods of delivery
• Attend all national gatherings in order to become familiar with the curriculum as well as the strengths and needs of each Resident; when possible, collaborate with national School Leadership Development team to support content delivery at national gatherings (minimally two full weeks during summer and two additional weeks throughout the year)
• Develop and submit specific Design Templates (detailing all aspects of the Local Seminar, Induction, December Seminar, etc. with all resources used) for all In-Person Residents Sessions
• Manage self, program, and Residents at an extremely high level in all situations

II. School-based Coaching and Leadership Development:

• Conduct school visits to observe and coach the 15 Leadership Actions with each participant in his/her residency site and support on-the-job leadership experiences
• Negotiate and communicate with Mentor Principals to support on-the-job leadership experiences for Residents
• Collaboratively set performance goals with Residents to provide methods by which to monitor progress
• Ensure Residents are gathering required evidence in an ongoing way to demonstrate their readiness for the principalship

III. Professional Learning and Program Improvement:

• Attend all nationally and locally held training sessions for APP Directors, which may include two to four week-long training sessions during the summer and two week-long sessions during the school year and ongoing Community of Practice calls with other APP Directors up to twice a month
• Support the Managing Director of Program with the evaluation of effective practices in the Residency program through the design of feedback loops to inform ongoing program design and improvement

Other Program Activities:

• Support the overall goals of the City New Leaders team as an active and engaged team member, communicating regularly with colleagues responsible for the other components of the program continuum to ensure alignment
• Actively support program team events (recruitment and admissions, community meetings, fundraisers etc.)
• Develop and submit (in a timely manner) Weekly Schedules, Monthly Coaching Reports, etc. that detail any/all plans, coaching actions, Next Steps, and Follow-up of support for Residents

Skills, Experiences & Competencies

• Demonstrated passion and belief that all students can achieve success through education strong commitment that great schools are led by great leaders
• Demonstrated ability to drive student achievement results and to manage/lead adults to drive student achievement within their schools
• Demonstrated understanding of adult leadership development and delivering high quality professional development design, planning, execution and evaluation
• Demonstrated ability to work well with people with a very wide diversity of demographic and cultural characteristics; must be capable of achieving results while maintaining an inclusive, collaborative leadership style
• Demonstrated excellence in oral and written communication
• Demonstrated strong personal leadership capability, including facilitating adult leaders, interpersonal relations, relationship building and management, and coaching, including building trust among adults and giving candid feedback to adults including engaging in difficult conversations
• Strong project management and organizational skills with strong attention to detail
• Self-starter/ self-manager and able to initiate work and meet deadlines with minimum supervision
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment and to produce high-quality work in a timely manner
• High tolerance for ambiguity
• Strong content knowledge (including evidence of proven strategies) in: personal leadership, instructional leadership (strong emphasis on literacy and numeracy), and school culture leadership
• Familiarity and connections of current local, state, and national education reform practices is a strong plus

Qualifications

• Three years plus experience leading professional development in an adult leadership setting
• Three years plus school administration and/or leadership experience
• Significant teaching experience and at least three years plus experience as principal, head of school, or district administrator in an urban school/district
• Be able to model effective school leadership, teaching and professional development
• Be able to consistently promote inquiry and reflection
• Be committed to lifelong learning and seek professional development opportunities for growth
• Hold a commitment to ensuring high academic achievement for all children and to the mission of NL

Important Application Notes

If you are planning to apply for more than one position,

Please specifically address each position you are applying for in your cover letter.

If after submitting materials you decide to apply for an additional position, please re-write your cover letter to reflect this and resubmit. If you do not indicate your interest in a position, you will not be considered for it.

Although we encourage you to apply for any positions you are both interested in and consider yourself qualified for, we ask you to be careful when attaching yourself to more than one requisition.

Your cover letter should include:

• An explanation of your interest in the New Leaders mission
• An explanation of your interest in the position for which you are applying
• An explanation of anything unusual in your resume (more than one year employment lapse or a major shift in your career interest)

New Leaders is an equal opportunity employer. New Leaders evaluates applicants for employment on the basis of qualifications, merit and work-related criteria without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national or ethnic origin, age, sexual orientation, mental or physical disability, pregnancy, childbirth, medical condition, marital or familial status, family responsibilities, veteran status, personal appearance, political affiliation, matriculation, or any other characteristic protected by law. All applicants will receive consideration for employment regardless of such status.

Please note all offers of employment are subject to and contingent upon the successful completion of a background check