Vice President of Academics and Special Services

About the Opportunity

The Academic Team is part of Democracy Prep’s Charter Management Organization and works directly with school leaders and the Academics Team to drive scholar growth and proficiency and to ensure that all schools achieve their end-of-year academic goals. The role of the Vice President of Academics and Special Services is to support school leaders and the Academics team across the network so that academic instruction and the overall academic experience is excellent in all classrooms across Democracy Prep. The Vice President also manages the Special Services team to ensure that academic excellence - including world-class supports and interventions - is in place for all of our students, not just a specific subset. The Vice President works to analyze data across the network to identify key levers that drive excellent academic outcomes and partners with Regional Superintendents, Managing Directors, School Leaders and other key CMO leaders to enact those levers. They work to set the vision and improve outcomes for the Academic and Special Services programs across the network. All of this work serves to ensure that our academic key performance indicators are achieved.

Who You Are: 

• An educator with an unwavering commitment to the Democracy Prep mission of college success and authentic civic engagement for our scholars. 
• An organized leader with strong time management and follow-up skills and a demonstrated ability to take initiative, inspire, motivate and coach others and handle multiple projects concurrently.
• A self-reflective and self-aware teammate who is dedicated to aligning their work with Democracy Prep's commitment to antiracism and who is eager to use these skills to contribute to a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• An excellent communicator, with demonstrated ability to speak and write clearly and persuasively to a variety of stakeholders.
• A strategic and data-driven problem-solver, who thinks critically and plans accordingly.
• A strong coach who has a track-record of success growing and developing a team to advance academic achievement for students. 
• A constant learner who wants to continually grow in their understanding of academic pedagogy, standards and instruction.
• An innovative thinker who is solutions-oriented and creative. A person who will think outside of the box for innovative solutions to support academic excellence for all scholars. 
• An academic expert who is fluent with all parts of academic pedagogy, including standards, assessments, lesson design, and execution
• An experienced manager, with at least 5 years of progressive responsibility managing complex teams. 
• A graduate of a Bachelor’s degree program (required).

What You'll Do

• Work in collaboration with the Academic Team Leadership and Special Services Team Leadership to set a vision for the team, and then share that vision with a variety of stakeholders at the CMO and at our schools. 
• Drive outcomes by tracking data toward high level KPIs about overall school performance. 
• Lead the development and continuous improvement of Democracy Prep’s high-quality curricular materials, ensuring rigorous, culturally relevant, and standards-aligned instruction across all grade levels and content areas.
• Work with leaders across the network to build investment in our strategic plan and vision for Academics and Special Services. Partner closely with the Managing Directors and Regional Superintendents to support leaders across the network.*
• Coach members of the Academic Team and Special Services Team to support school leaders and achieve academic excellence. 
• Manage strategic plan initiatives related to special services, curriculum and instructional systems. 
• Serve as a critical strategic thought partner to our Chief Academic Officer.
• Support the master scheduling process in partnership with other key stakeholders, including ensuring curricular and Special Education bottom lines are met.
• Lead and support effective instructional systems such as grading, lesson internalization, tutoring, assessment and data analysis across Democracy Prep schools. 
• Plan and execute professional development for school leaders and teachers across the network tied to the initiatives outlined in the strategic plan. 
• Ensure tutoring across our schools is strong and is aligned to high priority standards with rigorous instructional materials. 
• Meet regularly with school leaders, curriculum specialists and the Academic and Schools team members to identify and enact instructional priorities at each of the network’s schools, and determine network-wide priorities and initiatives. 
• Identify and work to overcome stumbling blocks to high quality instruction in classrooms across the DPPS network. 
• Collaborate with the rest of the Academic team to enhance the entire team's knowledge of best practices in terms of instruction.
• Ensure all students across Democracy Prep are receiving appropriate at-bats with state exam aligned prep material throughout the year, including providing schools with banks of high-quality state exam aligned prep resources. 
• Set plans for the implementation of high quality curricula with the Academics Team. Work with school leaders and the Schools team to ensure the curriculum is executed with fidelity in service of scholars. 
• Consistently analyze data to ensure bright spots are identified and replicated, and that areas of concern are identified and addressed. 
• Ensure, in partnership with the rest of the Academics team, that sufficient progress is being made in student academic achievement levels tied to network-wide KPIs.  
• Coach and empower Directors to build leader voice and move the needle with respect to their KPIs and student outcomes.
• Work in collaboration with the Directors of Special Services and school leaders to ensure that all compliance needs at DPPS schools across the country are met. 
• Budget and plan for Special Education billing for Democracy Prep schools across the country. 
• Serve as a key member of the Senior Leadership and Executive Team, contributing to organization-wide planning, decision-making, and strategic initiatives.
• Foster strong partnerships with local and national educational organizations, continuously bringing best practices and innovations into the network.

*Democracy Prep is in the final year of a 2020-2025 strategic plan. Academic initiatives within this plan included selecting and implementing high-quality curricula for Math and ELA at our ES, MS, and HS; normed lesson internalization systems; and consistent data analysis and grading norms, among other focus areas. We are currently crafting our strategic plan for 2025-2030 and are excited to continue building upon our academic successes.

Compensation

Salary range is $150,000 - $175,000 commensurate with your experience. Democracy Prep employees are provided with a benefits package that includes medical, vision, and dental insurance, 403B matching, parental leave, a smartphone, and a laptop. 

Democracy Prep is an Equal Opportunity Employer and will not discriminate against an applicant or employee on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, national origin, or ancestry, sex, age, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, veteran or military status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, familial status, domestic violence victim status, or any other legally recognized protected basis under federal, state or local laws, regulations or ordinances. Our mission is to educate responsible citizen-scholars who will change the world. We strongly believe that by building a DREAM team that represents numerous perspectives, backgrounds, and expertises, we can achieve this goal together. This is a value we highly support and strongly encourage candidates of all backgrounds to apply.