Brooklyn Urban Garden School, Executive Director

ORGANIZATION

Brooklyn Urban Garden Charter School (BUGS) is a vibrant, mission-driven, high performing public middle school serving students in grades 6–8 in Brooklyn, New York. Founded in 2013, BUGS was created by a group of community-members on the belief that young people learn best when education is hands-on, interdisciplinary, and deeply connected to the real world. Rooted in environmental, social, and economic sustainability, BUGS integrates rigorous academics with project-based learning, community partnerships, and authentic problem-solving that prepares students to thrive in high school and beyond.

BUGS serves a diverse student community and is committed to equity, inclusion, and educating the whole child. The school’s small, relationship-centered environment fosters curiosity, joy, and belonging for students and adults alike. With a dedicated staff, engaged families, and a strong charter foundation, BUGS is poised to continue strengthening its academic outcomes, organizational systems, and long-term sustainability while staying true to its founding vision.

To learn more about Brooklyn Urban Garden Charter School, please visit: www.bugsbrooklyn.org.

OPPORTUNITY

This is an exciting moment for a collaborative, mission-aligned leader to guide Brooklyn Urban Garden Charter School into its next chapter.

As Executive Director, you will steward a school that sits at the intersection of academic rigor, sustainability education, and community connection. You will provide direct supervision and strategic leadership to a talented Principal, partnering closely to advance instructional excellence and operational effectiveness. In collaboration with a committed Board of Trustees and a passionate staff, you will strengthen what makes BUGS distinctive while ensuring the systems, resources, and relationships are in place for long-term success.

BUGS is a strong, values-driven organization that is ready for what comes next including—deepening and expanding the program to potentially add grade levels, exploring a new or permanent facility, sharing BUGS’s sustainability-centered curriculum and practices with other schools or organizations, or pursuing new partnerships that extend the school’s impact beyond its walls. The Executive Director will help the community imagine and shape these possibilities, ensuring that any growth or evolution remains grounded in BUGS’s mission, culture, and commitment to students.

This role is ideal for a leader who believes schools can be joyful, values-driven spaces that have an ethical responsibility to equip ALL students with the skills and dispositions necessary to create a greener and fairer future; who is energized by shared leadership; and who brings both strategic clarity and human warmth to complex work. If you are inspired by community-centered education, motivated by sustainability and equity, and ready to build alongside others with humility, care, and purpose, this role offers the opportunity to make a lasting impact on students, families, and educators.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Key Responsibilities of the Executive Director include:

Mission, Vision & Strategic Stewardship

• Champion and embody the BUGS mission and sustainability-centered vision across all aspects of the organization.
• Partner with the Board and school leadership to steward the school through its next chapter—helping the community imagine, assess, and pursue future possibilities (such as program growth, facilities transitions, or expanded impact) while ensuring all decisions remain grounded in BUGS values, charter commitments, and student needs.

Oversight and Partnership of the Principal & Academic Programming

• Supervise and serve as a close thought partner to the Principal, who leads teaching, learning, and school culture.
• Ensure that organizational strategy, resources, and systems are aligned to instructional priorities, creating the conditions for joyful, rigorous, and equitable academic outcomes.
• Support the Principal through collaboration, clear role alignment, and shared problem-solving.

Organizational & Operational Leadership

• Oversee day-to-day and long-term operations, ensuring strong systems across facilities, compliance, staffing, and administration.
• Lead operational planning that balances stability with adaptability, positioning BUGS to respond thoughtfully to opportunities such as expansion, relocation, or new partnerships.
• Oversee the effective management, evolution, and evaluation of academic and operational systems to ensure they meet the needs of students, staff, families and strategicchool goalsoutcomes.
• Support inclusive programming and instructional design that effectively serves students with IEPs, English Language Learners, and economically disadvantaged students.

People, Culture & Talent Development

• Sustain a positive, mission-aligned adult culture rooted in trust, collaboration, accountability, and sustainability.
• Lead human resources strategy including hiring, evaluation, professional learning, and staff support, ensuring that BUGS attracts, develops, and retains talented educators and leaders as the organization evolves.

Financial Health, Development & Board Partnerships

• Steward the school’s financial sustainability through responsible budgeting, long-term planning, and transparent fiscal management.
• Cultivate philanthropic support and external partnerships that strengthen BUGS’s impact—whether through fundraising, grants, community collaboration, or sharing the school’s sustainability-centered practices with others.
• Develop and execute a diversified fundraising and partnership strategy that sustains and fuels priorities such as enrichment and facilities growth.
• Serve as a warm, inspiring, and credible ambassador to families, funders, authorizers, and community partners.
• Serve as a trusted partner to the Board of Trustees—strengthening governance practices, surfacing risks proactively, and maintaining clear boundaries between governance and management.

Community Engagement & External Leadership

• Inspire, and explore with, the local community and broader educational sector around what it means to Educate for Sustainability.
• Serve as a warm, credible ambassador who builds durable relationships with families, students, staff, co-located schools, authorizers, funders, and community partners.
• Engage stakeholders in meaningful dialogue about BUGS’s future, cultivating shared ownership and collective vision.
• Expand community partnerships that strengthen enrollment diversity, extend BUGS’s reach, and deepen its impact within Brooklyn and beyond.

PRIORITIES

A successful first year in this role for the new Executive Director will include:

• Build a strong, values-aligned leadership partnership with the Principal and Board of Trustees, establishing clear roles, shared goals, and a collaborative decision-making rhythm that supports both academic excellence and organizational health.
• Strengthen the foundation for what comes next by assessing and reinforcing key operational, financial, and governance systems—ensuring BUGS is stable, compliant, and well-positioned to pursue future opportunities such as program expansion, facilities planning, or broader sharing of its sustainability-centered model.
• Align resources to student learning and school culture by supporting the Principal in advancing joyful, rigorous, and equitable academic outcomes, and ensuring that staffing, budgeting, and systems consistently reflect instructional priorities.
• Engage the community in shaping the next chapter by deepening trust and communication with families, staff, and partners, and facilitating inclusive conversations about BUGS’s future direction and growth possibilities.
• Advance long-term sustainability and impact through a refined development and fundraising strategy, strong authorizer relationships, and thoughtful exploration of partnerships that extend BUGS’s mission while preserving its close-knit, student-centered culture.

Requirements:
In order to fulfill these responsibilities, the ideal Executive Director candidate will be:

• A mission-aligned, values-driven leader with a deep commitment to BUGS’s sustainability-centered educational model and belief in joyful, equitable, community-rooted schooling.
• An experienced organizational leader with a track record of guiding schools, nonprofits, or mission-driven organizations through moments of transition, growth, or evolution—bringing both strategic clarity and steadiness in the face of possibility.
• Experienced in building and executing fundraising strategies (grants, donors, partnerships) that materially improved program quality or organizational stability.
• An organization-wide operations leader in a nonprofit or school setting with multiple stakeholders and a high pace of decision-making.
• Steady, reliable, and have the ability to “get things done” while building a healthy culture.
• A collaborative nonprofit leader skilled in working across functions—partnering with various leaders to ensure strategy, systems, and resources are aligned to advance mission-driven outcomes.
• A systems thinker and operator with experience overseeing finance, operations, compliance, and governance, and the ability to design and strengthen structures that allow an organization to adapt and grow responsibly.
• A leader committed to “parallel process” where administrative decisions and projects, like those of our students, consider the environmental, social and economic systems at play and acknowledge BUGS role in modelling and creating the path to a sustainable future in all it does.
• A trusted relationship-builder and community ambassador who communicates with warmth, transparency, and credibility; builds authentic partnerships with families, staff, boards, funders, and external stakeholders; and represents the organization with integrity.
• An equity-centered, culturally responsive leader who understands how race, clas