Company Description
KIPP Public Schools is a national network of public charter schools that prepares students with the skills and confidence to create the future they want for themselves, their communities, and us all. We are a network of 280 schools, nearly 15,000 educators, and 175,000 students and alumni.
Our mission: Together with families and communities, we create joyful, academically excellent schools that prepare students with the skills and confidence to pursue the paths they choose-college, career, and beyond-so they can lead fulfilling lives and build a more just world.
Our vision: Every child grows up free to create the future they want for themselves and their communities.
The KIPP Foundation is a nonprofit organization that supports KIPP schools across the country. The KIPP Foundation trains and develops outstanding educators to lead KIPP public schools; provides tools, resources and training for excellent teaching and learning; promotes innovation; and facilitates the exchange of insights and ideas across KIPP and other public schools and organizations.
Job Description
Position Overview
Research increasingly points to the importance of the 9th grade experience and students having a strong transition to High School. A strong HS GPA has become an essential part of ensuring that 9th graders are set up to have a strong start to High School. GPA has also become more important than ever with the rise of test optional policies for post-secondary applications. Because of this increased value, HS GPA and the 9th Grade experience is a critical priority for KIPP High Schools. The Sr. Manager of High School Academic Health has the opportunity for tremendous impact on KIPP High Schools and students across the country; ultimately to improve student’s academic health and access to the strongest post-secondary options after high school.
The Sr. Manager of High School Academic Health, directly reporting to the Director of Strategic Projects on the High School Team, would be responsible for coaching school-based leaders to lead their school’s 9th Grade On-Track teams. These school-based teams develop and refine progress monitoring and intervention systems that improve 9th grade student GPA, failure rates, attendance and a sense of belonging. The coaching work would involve coaching a set of KIPP high schools to use improvement cycles (plan, launch, monitor and respond to data) to codify best practices that are leading to results. As a member of the High School team, this person will deliver a variety of implementation supports to regions, support in developing and executing the long-term academic health vision for KIPP High Schools and will hold leaders and teachers accountable in order to support One KIPP, and ultimately student achievement across KIPP high schools.
This role would be perfect for an experienced instructional coach that has a track record of developing meaningful coaching relationships that lead to strong student performance outcomes. They believe in the importance of the 9th grade experience and feel passionate about supporting 9th graders in their transition to High School. They are a data driven leader that is fluent in data analysis and building coaching meetings around data. They may have served as a grade team lead, instructional coach, Assistant Principal, or in another leadership capacity at a High School.
Key Responsibilities and Duties
Coaching and supporting leaders to drive academic health outcomes:
- Set annual and quarterly coaching goals with academic health leader focused on essential academic health outcome measures.
- Lead virtual coaching calls with academic health leader focused on implementing ongoing improvement cycles that enable leaders to regularly reflect on and respond to real-time data from their schools.
- Monitor school-level progress and performance, both remotely and on-site, to ensure clear lines of sight into what is happening on-the-ground and to provide a pathway to improvement for the academic health leader.
- Provide direct feedback to leaders on their school On-Track meeting to drive results on key 9th grade outcome measures.
Planning and executing with Director to support long-term academic health vision:
- Create and lead cohort meetings (both virtual and in person) with the subset of schools focused on sharing learnings, in-progress data, and professional development
- Develop high-leverage resources for network leaders to utilize (i.e. turnkey PDs, one pagers, agendas, trackers) that not only serve as a model of excellence but also provide a direct value-add to the network.
- Design and execute a long-term strategic plan to improve academic health systems and practices across KIPP High Schools
- Plan and execute high quality leader facing professional development (both virtual and in person) around high value topics related to High School.
Monitoring and evaluation of improvement cycles
- Collaborate with colleagues on the Data and KIPP Forward (Post-Secondary) teams to develop and improve data collection systems on key aim and driver metrics.
- Collect data and artifacts from improvement cycles to determine impact on academic health outcomes
- Learn key principles of Continuous Improvement and Improvement Science and integrate it into coaching cycles.
Provide regular feedback and support to teammates on all aspects of HS work, including curriculum and assessments, leader and teacher training, college match supports, high school design, and more to ensure we are collectively having the intended impact we seek in an environment that is collaborative, and accountable for student results.
Contribute to One KIPP design and implementation through differentiated, targeted support and training to our regions such as regional or school-based professional development, train the trainer, change management, and on the ground coaching and support, especially as it pertains to 9th Grade Success.
Qualifications
Skills and Mindsets Qualifications
- Mission & Student Focus: Passion and demonstrated commitment to education equity; a passion for KIPP’s mission; desire and ability to embody KIPP’s brand values (affirmation, joyful excellence, community, collective power, and optimism); consistently upholds organizational values at KIPP Foundation
- Achievement Orientation: Ensures clarity in goals and accountabilities while working with agility and creativity to drive toward deadlines and outcomes-focused metrics; sets goals with the belief that all students deserve access to and can be successful with rigorous academic coursework, such as Advanced Placement.
- Project Management and Change Leadership: Track record of managing others to outcomes, leading change, and holding the line with school leaders to drive toward collective goals
- Stakeholder Management: Adapts personal leadership approach to influence others. Stimulates others to act and accomplish goals, even when no direct reporting relationship exists. Gains the trust of key stakeholders by active listening and seeking to understand their views and needs.
- Knowledge of GPA and Grading: Applies a broad understanding of high school gradebook policies, grading practices, and student/teacher grade interventions to improve school academic health outcomes. Believes that student grades should be a combination of mastery and academic habits.
- Professional Development: Skilled at crafting coaching agendas and professional development that improve leader practices and drives outcomes.
- Self-Awareness and Continuous Learning: Continuously reflects on their practice and seeks constructive feedback and other opportunities for self-development. Uses curiosity to understand the scope of a problem and to develop creative solutions.
- Cultural Competence & Commitment to Equity: A proactive cultural leader and team player who thrives on collaboration and learning; can effectively collaborate with teammates across lines of difference.
Qualifications and Experience
- Bachelor’s Degree Required; Master’s degree preferred
- 5+ years’ experience working in high schools, with a combination of teaching experience and leadership experience; 9th grade preferred
- Experience in managing teachers, grade level team or grade level team leads preferred
- A record of results of high quality, inclusive coaching at the high school level and with diverse communities as evidence via student results
- Skilled in planning and executing high quality professional development for a variety of audiences
- Experience using continuous improvement cycles to drive learning and results highly preferred
Additional Information
Work Conditions
- Travel requirements: up to 30% (0-8 days per month) to work with a geographically distributed team and network of regions and schools
- Full-time, Exempt Position
Location
This role also has the option of working from a remote office full-time or to be based out of a KIPP Foundation office. KIPP Foundation office is in NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington DC.
Compensation and Benefits
The salary range for this position is $100,000-$118,000, commensurate with relevant experience.
Our comprehensive benefits package include:
- 26 vacation days + 18 days additional flexible PTO days (flexible PTO increases to 23 days for years 3 and 4 and to 28 days for years 5+).
- 100% paid parental leave
- 100% coverage of the premium for employee and 75% for employee + family’s medical/dental/vision plans.
- Wellness benefits such as fitness reimbursements, discounted tickets to theme parks/attraction, back-up care support for children and adults/elders, and our employee assistance program
- Finance Security benefits include such as a 401K retirement plan with 4% match, employer sponsored legal plans, and life/disability insurance, and flexible spending accounts