Regional Director Of Academic Acceleration

KIPP Texas Public Schools is a network of 59 public charter, open-enrollment, pre-k-12 schools educating nearly 34,000 students across Austin, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. Together with families and communities, our mission is to 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.

Founded in Houston in 1994, and operating as KIPP Texas since 2018, our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracism in our classrooms, in our offices, and in the communities we serve is unwavering. We are looking to hire a diverse team of dynamic, collaborative, and dedicated individuals with an unyielding belief that every child will succeed. Join our Team and Family and champion equity, chase excellence, persist with purpose, bring joy, and help us rise together.

KIPP Texas is part of the national KIPP network of 255 college-preparatory public charter schools in 20 states and the District of Columbia. Nationwide, KIPP students complete four-year college at a rate of 36 percent, comparable to the national average for all students and approximately three times higher than the average of students from low-income communities.

You can see all our job opportunities at https://kipptexas.org/join-our-team/.

Duties and Essential Job Functions:

• Monitor the quality, and impact of high dosage tutoring and acceleration programming across a portfolio of schools
• Analyzes portfolio data on a cycle, action plans, and communicates with the appropriate individuals using data to drive decisions and actions at the campus and regional level
• Spends 75% of their time observing acceleration and tutoring classrooms and provides clear, actionable feedback and support to the school-based leaders and tutors and/or tutoring partners
• Observes and/or facilitates content team meetings, as requested & provides feedback that leads to improvement of the content team meetings
• Create a portfolio and school-specific plans to increase the number of students who are at- or above-grade-level, including exceptional cohorts, students with dyslexia, and English language learners
• Partner with state and regional teams to build and drive a regional academic strategy that ensures ALL students meet their achievement goals in a learning environment that is joyful, equitable, and academically excellent
• Communicate and invest shareholders in the vision and strategy across a portfolio of schools to ensure that all instructional staff, students, families, and other stakeholders know and understand the vision for excellent instruction and acceleration
• Collaborate with and support regional teams with executing on Academic recovery acceleration strategy
• Ensure all tutors and tutoring partners are oriented to the KIPP Texas Public School’s approach to academic recovery
• Provides resources and/or training on scientifically based strategies to schools for the purpose of identifying exceptional students and for intervention in their academic progress
• Researches a variety of information (e.g. current practices, instructional materials, methods, curriculum guidelines, etc.) for the purpose of building school-based capacity in alignment to achievement outcomes
• Participates in meetings, workshops and seminars for the purpose of conveying and/or gathering information required to perform functions
• Performs other related duties, as assigned, for the purpose of ensuring the efficient and effective functioning of the work unit

Responsibilities

• Equity: Exhibits a commitment to equity through modeling of equitable practices, and being a conscious disruptor of inequitable practices both at the school and organizational levels;
• Instructional Expertise: Identifies effective practices in the first teach and in acceleration classrooms, and understands pedagogy that results in improved student learning outcomes;
• Data-driven: Uses multiple data sources to differentiate the types of instructional supports and interventions needed for individual students, specific student groups, schools, and across a targeted group of schools;
• Achievement Focus: Sets challenging goals, demonstrating persistence and overcoming obstacles to achieve goals without confusing effort for results;
• Demonstrated ability to deal with sensitive and difficult situations and information; in interpersonal problem-solving, decision-making, and leadership skills; to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing, and to manage and work with a team to accomplish mission and goals. Ability to maintain confidentiality with sensitive information.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:

• Experience as a school or systems level instructional leader
• Three or more years of teaching experience with proven results
• Expert-level knowledge of curriculum as it relates to content, courses, standards alignment, and assessments
• Strong ability to coach others towards improvement regardless of reporting relationship
• Well-developed communication and problem-solving skills
• Experience developing and leading professional development
• Experience analyzing data and using results to increase student mastery
• Advances equity and academic excellence for all students to include students with disabilities
• Knows, effective instruction, strategic planning, and developing a professional community of learners
• Experience in resource allocation for education programs, human resources, physical/equipment resources, working with teachers, curriculum specialists, principals on instructional/curricular issues, program evaluations, integration of literacy, and implementation of standards-based curriculum.
• Strong knowledge of pedagogical practices to ensure high levels of engagement and academic mastery for students with low academic performance
• Knowledge of school turn-around, leadership development as well as instructional/curriculum theory and practice

Required Education and/or Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree required from an accredited institution
• Experience as a school-based or systems-level leader with a proven track record of student achievement results
• Must have experience in implementing highly effective systems of acceleration in a school or across a system of schools

Preferred Education and/or Experience:

• Master's or other advanced degree preferred
• Preference will be given to candidates with experience leading school turnaround work
• Any equivalent combination of education and experience that meets the minimum requirements

Physical Requirements:

• The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the functions.
• Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer/laptop.
• Attending conferences or training sessions.

Work Environment:

• Typical office environment with frequent interruptions.

Travel Requirements:

• Ability to travel to various locations, travel time approximately 0% - 5%

Compensation and Benefits:

In addition to a competitive salary scale, a part of KIPP Texas’ competitive benefits options, KIPP offers all employees an $0 HMO plan for the employee only. In addition to our $0 plan, KIPP provides a $600 employer contribution towards a Health Savings Account and a variety of other supplemental benefits such as Dental, Vision, Short and Long-Term Disability, Pet Insurance, Life, etc.

Funding:

The Regional Director of Academic Acceleration will be funded directly from the Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief (ESSER) grants awarded by the Texas Education Agency under the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (ESSER II) and the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ESSER III). This position will be funded 100% from the ESSER II and III allocation for administrative expenses through September 30, 2023, and may continue to be funded through September 30, 2024, depending upon the availability of ESSER grant funds. At the end of the grant period, this position may be eliminated unless other sources of funds are secured to maintain this position or a similar position. The employee must sign this job description acknowledging receipt of the job description and signing their acknowledgment that this position is grant-funded and is temporarily aligning with the terms of the grant period.