Senior Vice President Of Teaching And Learning

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 275 schools, nearly 16,500 educators, and more than 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 organization.

About Our Values:

Focus on Excellent Results: Winning for Children and Families – Denying people of color and people experiencing economic hardship excellent outcomes from public organizations is longstanding and only perpetuates inter-generational racism and poverty. We pursue excellence at a world-class level because our children and families deserve nothing less. We focus on excellent results, generated by excellent daily action, because intentions alone will not enable our children to lead fulfilling lives.

Courageous Action: We do Hard Things All day, Every Day – Our work is centered on reversing the impact of generational racism and poverty on children of color from low-income families. This work is inherently challenging and will never be easy. Our mission requires that, through concerted action, we embrace, confront, and overcome adversity.

Resilient Solutions Focus – Find a Way or Make One – We doggedly pursue solutions to every problem we confront. For every problem, we find or invent a solution. We are smart, optimistic, and thoughtful in crafting solutions, but also timely, recognizing that our children only have one life to live. We embrace a growth mindset, believing that simply because we have not achieved our ultimate aims today does not mean that we cannot tomorrow. We chase the continuous improvement of ourselves, our interpersonal relationships, our teams, and our organization.

About The Position

The Senior Vice President, Teaching and Learning leads the holistic K-12 academic vision for all 27 KIPP regions, oversees the KIPP Foundation Teaching and Learning (TL) Team, and is responsible for student learning and outcomes across the KIPP Network. This role is responsible for ensuring a cohesive instructional strategy, inclusive of a common curriculum, a shared assessment, and a common vision for instructional excellence, is in place in every KIPP school across the country. This role drives student achievement outcomes across K-12 in all subject areas and for special student populations. Additionally, the SVP, Teaching and Learning collaborates with the KIPP Schools Leadership team, including the Chief Schools Officer, Chief of Staff, and SVP, Regional and School Support to lead student growth and achievement. The SVP, Teaching and Learning, reports directly to the Chief of Schools.

Key Responsibilities and Duties

Vision Setting

• Develop the K-12 instructional vision for all KIPP schools, including the execution of regional curriculum and instructional initiatives with support of the TL Senior Leadership

• Identify opportunities to improve current instructional practices, in collaboration with KIPP Foundation and regional academic leaders using rigorous student growth and achievement data

• Invest KF and regional leaders in national academic and student success goals and oversee implementation plans to ensure student success

• Lead design processes to determine, develop, and enable implementation for high quality common curriculum for grades 9-12

Teaching and Learning: Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment

• Oversee implementation of the curriculum and assessments across all content areas for all KIPP schools, including K-4, 5-8, and 9-12 grade bands, in collaboration with TLS team members, regional and school-based academic leaders

• Manage and lead curriculum-expert directors responsible for supporting common curriculum and professional development across elementary schools, middle schools and high schools

• Drive our common K-12 assessment strategy and ensure consistent and effective data use across the Teaching and Learning team

• Manage and forge external relationships with curriculum and teacher development partners

• Develop, lead and oversee innovative learning initiatives, including learning management systems, online assessment and student achievement benchmarks, in addition to curriculum and instruction support for all teachers to provide all KIPP students with a high quality, impactful learning experience

Team Management

• Lead the Teaching and Learning (TL) Team, including Academic Operations, Professional Development, and Content Directors, including all hiring decisions and promotion criteria

• Manage the TL Vice Presidents of Literacy & Humanities and STEM to ensure the growth and development of all team members and cohesive collaboration across all academic content areas, including regular team meetings and semi-annual individual performance reviews

• Manage the KIPP Foundation Diverse Learners team, including special education, multi-lingual learners, and remediation & intervention services

• Manage the Teaching and Learning Assessment Team to ensure an aligned assessment strategy and effective data use drives our academic strategy.

• Collaborate and plan with the KIPP Foundation School Support Team to coordinate implementation of instructional vision in schools.

Professional Development

• Oversee strategic coaching and support to regional academic leaders to address student data and student outcomes, including regular academic meetings with regional and school leaders

• Oversee national professional development to ensure implementation of unified curriculum and best practices to improve classroom instruction and drive student achievement

• Design and implement national professional development and professional growth strategy for teachers and leaders

Skills

• Mission & Student Focus: Demonstrated commitment to education equity; a passion for KIPP’s mission; desire and ability to uphold KIPP’s values (Focus on Excellent Results, Courageous Action, and Resilient Solutions Focus)

• Team Leadership & Talent Development: Set a tone and culture that enables team leadership to maximize individual strengths and address areas for development; foster a talent culture that plans for succession and retention of key players and communicates an employee value proposition to promote performance, sustainability, and engagement.

• Operational & Project Management: Can effectively manage complex projects with multiple stakeholders to deadlines while balancing multiple short- and long-term projects; demonstrates disciplined, independent, and innovative approach to translating strategy into priorities and project plans, even in unstructured spaces; continually applies strong attention to detail to the execution of all projects and constantly looks for ways to improve and to scale learning quickly.

• Critical Thinking and Strong Judgement: Ability to problem solve and to navigate and lead through complexity; effectively leverages data effectively for strategic decision-making and driving improvement; can make courageous yet necessary decisions in the interest of students and families with experience working with and in the interests of communities of color;

• Relentless Focus on Solutions and Results: Set culturally competent and ambitious goals with team to achieve measurable outcomes; create an environment in which all systems and processes support high levels of efficiency to ensure that chief priorities are accomplished successfully; champions the ongoing spirit of improvement and professional growth across the organization while holding teams accountable to results.

• Stakeholder Management and Influence to Impact: Has the interpersonal, diplomatic, relationship building, and communications skills necessary to develop successful working relationships with diverse constituents, including region school leaders and senior leaders; ability to engage and drive senior leadership and key stakeholders toward target outcomes without direct authority; can effectively share complex information and translate for end users; responds promptly to concerns and ensures that stakeholders are aware of actions that are being taken and explains the rationale for decisions and/or outcomes to the stakeholder

• Instructional Fluency in K-12 Content Areas: Strong K-12 instructional and coaching expertise including deep content knowledge in math or literacy, general pedagogical knowledge, knowledge of culturally relevant teaching practices and familiarity with current research.

• 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.

Experience and Qualifications

• Bachelors’ degree required; Master’s degree in education or related education field, preferred

• Minimum 10 years exemplary teaching experience with strong student achievement results

• Minimum 10 years exemplary coaching and leading effective professional development for adults

• Minimum 10 years effective team management and leadership experience

• Prior experience as a Chief Academic Officer or Principal/School Leadership Management in similar network-wide academic role preferred.

Work Conditions

• Travel requirements: 25-30%

• Full-time exempt role

Location

It is preferred, but not mandatory for this role to be based out of a KIPP Foundation office. This role also offers the option of working from a remote office full-time. KIPP Foundation offices are in NYC and Chicago.

Compensation and Benefits.

In compliance with local law, we are disclosing the compensation, or a range thereof, for roles in locations where legally required. Actual salaries will vary based on several factors, including but not limited to external market data, internal equity, and relevant experience. The salary range for this position is $240,000-$283,000. In addition, KIPP Foundation provides a variety of benefits to employees, including:

• 25 holidays for + 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/attractions, backup 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, life/disability insurance, and flexible spending accounts

KIPP Foundation embraces the opportunity to build a workforce that reflects the diversity of the students and communities with whom we work and the world that around them. Being an equal opportunity employer means that we take seriously our responsibility to consider qualified candidates on the basis of merit, without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, mental or physical disability, and genetic information, marital status, citizenship status, military status, protected veteran status or any other category protected by law.