Senior Director of ELA Achievement (9-12)

KIPP — the largest nonprofit network of college-preparatory, public charter schools in the nation—has demonstrated, at scale, that all children have the potential to excel academically regardless of race or zip code. KIPP currently serves over 120,000 students in 270 schools nationwide, including Indianapolis. KIPP Indy Public Schools (KIPP Indy) was founded in 2004 with one class of fifth-grade students and has grown to serve 1,400 students across three schools. Of the students that attend KIPP Indy, 93% qualify for free and reduced lunch, 95% are African American or LatinX, 16% receive special education services, and 15% are designated as Multilingual Learners. As we continue to grow, our mission remains the same: to create joyful, academically excellent schools in which teachers, students, and families are all united around the same goal of preparing students with the skills and confidence to pursue the paths they choose —college, career, and beyond— so they can lead fulfilling lives and create a more just world.

KIPP Indy Public School’s Senior Director of English Language Arts Achievement (Grades 9-12) works intensively with fellow Senior Directors and Directors of English Language Arts Achievement, School Leaders, Assistant School Leaders, academic team leaders, teachers, and students to support students in strengthening their academic skills, intellectual habits, and character traits needed to succeed in the nation’s most competitive colleges, universities, post-secondary programs, and careers.

Develop and uphold literacy vision and strategy

• Support the development and/or revisions of KIPP Indy’s regional vision for excellent literacy instruction across the assigned grade band continuum and larger K-12 space.

• Create a plan for each academic year to increase the number of students who perform at or above grade level, including diverse and multilingual learners.
• Partner with the regional academic team to build and drive a regional academic strategy that ensures KIPP Indy students are college-ready by high school graduation, as measured by SAT benchmark and AP exams.
• Communicate the vision and strategy across KIPP Indy schools to ensure that all instructional staff, students, families, and other stakeholders know and understand the vision for excellent literacy instruction and the regional academic strategy.

Manage and build capacity in direct reports

• Coach, develop, and manage direct reports and/or teaching staff through training, professional development, ongoing one-on-ones, collaborative work, real-time feedback, and performance evaluation structures.
• Support any direct reports with the execution of the strategic vision, stakeholder engagement, professional development execution, progress monitoring and response to data, planning and communication, performance and change management, and other responsibilities as necessary.
• Cascade all curriculum, alignment, implementation, development, and strategy components as needed through direct reports to school and academic teams.

 

Manage curriculum strategy, alignment, and implementation

• Partner with School Leaders to ensure block fidelity through a variety of systems and structures (classroom observations, meeting facilitation observation, PD, etc.)
• Ensure that the region implements the clearly defined assessment strategy aligned with our One KIPP priority, which clarifies what assessments must be administered, when those assessments must be administered, and where data for those assessments must be entered.
• Provide professional development before each school year to School Leaders and other instructional support and teaching staff regarding the region's curriculum and assessment strategy for the upcoming school year.
• Provide ongoing leadership to ensure valid administration of assessments, including by providing expert support of related systems, assessments, and data platforms.
• Facilitate collaborative scoring meetings where teachers grade student work against a clear standard for excellence designed to ensure that teachers internalize what college-ready work looks like for students at a given grade level.
• Partner with school teams to ensure that KIPP Indy can provide increasingly effective assessment resources to teachers each year. This will involve working independently to create and revise assessments, working with outside consultants, and analyzing the extent to which current internal assessments are predictive of external measures.

 

Manage the delivery of professional development aligned with the region's instructional approach

• Co-lead the development and execution of an annual professional development strategy for these content areas (including all staff summer professional development, ongoing shared regional professional development, and content team meetings at campuses).
• Lead the training of School Leaders, Assistant School Leaders, and instructional staff during their professional development days on how to effectively execute the region’s curriculum and content area best practices based on the areas of teacher practice the region is prioritizing during that school year.
• Annually determine the regional expectations for daily lesson internalization, unit internalization, and looking at student work protocols in these content areas, as well as frameworks for instructional staff to lead these meetings.
• Ensure the provided professional development is high quality by a) developing their own capacity to model strong PD delivery, b) by working with outside experts as needed, c) by observing other leaders deliver PD and providing feedback, and d) by reviewing feedback surveys and conducting follow up walkthroughs to determine the effectiveness of PD.
• Support content-specific professional development as a part of specific days outlined on the calendar.
• Throughout each school year, offer a series of professional development sessions aligned to one of the region's priorities.

• This job posting/description may not cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change, or new ones may be assigned at any time with or without notice.

• Minimum 4 years of exemplary teaching experience with strong student achievement results
• Minimum 2 years of exemplary, full-time teacher coaching and adult management experience
• Minimum 2 years curriculum development and management
• Experience with the Science of Reading and associated curricula, as well as Novel ELA (preferred)
• Model of effective and high-quality instruction
• Demonstrated ability to drive student success
• Proven track record of driving significant student score improvements on the SAT
• Experience planning and leading engaging and effective professional development for adults
• Experience in curriculum support, such as assessment writing and/or scope and sequence management
• Strong project management skills, organizational skills, and attention to detail
• Excellent communicator, who can work with internal and external stakeholders

MOST CRITICAL COMPETENCIES

• Focuses upon results and how they are achieved
• Stimulates others to take action and accomplish goals, even when no direct reporting relationship exists
• Uses data to assess areas for improvement accurately and teaches others to do the same
• Accurately scopes and secures resources needed to accomplish projects

The starting salary for this role is $80,000.

Salary is commensurate with experience and includes a highly competitive benefits package. Opportunities for performance-based bonuses are also available.

                              

KIPP Indy Public Schools is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, veteran status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.