Principal or Vice Principal Executive Director
Job Description
Executive Director
Job Title: Executive Director
Classification: FT/Salary Exempt
Reports To: AXL Academy Board of Directors
Salary Range: $110,000-$130,000
For external hire only
Benefits:
- Medical benefits
- Vision insurance
- Dental Insurance
- Life Insurance
- PERA retirement benefits
- Paid time off
- Paid sick leave
About AXL Academy
Aurora Expeditionary Learning (AXL) Academy is a PK-8 Expeditionary Learning Charter Public School located in Aurora, Colorado. Founded in 2008, AXL strives to deliver academic achievement, character development and social equity by using an active instructional model and a strong school culture. AXL meets scholars where they are to engage, empower and help all scholars achieve. For more information, please visit www.axlacademy.org.
Position Overview:
Leadership:
- Enacting Mission and Vision: Maintain alignment between all programs and the overall vision, mission, and core values of AXL Academy.
- Organizational Leadership: Coach and develop AXL Administration to develop, maintain, and enhance all aspects of AXL Academy in alignment with schoolwide goals to ensure all can engage, empower and achieve. Supervises direct reports in a manner that promotes success, efficiency, and on-going development. This includes effective delegation; training, development, and support of staff; establishing performance requirements; and evaluating staff supervised.
- Strategic Planning and Implementation: Consistently plan for efforts to achieve the strategic outcomes of all aspects of organizational health and growth, including but not limited to systems to address achievement gaps and academics, social emotional health and development for all scholars, support services, organizational stability, and financial strength. Lead a professional learning community that focuses on building relationships along with curriculum and instruction as the primary drivers of student achievement and school culture. Maintain alignment between the school’s mission/vision and the policies and strategic direction of AXL Academy’s Board of Directors.
- Board Work: Report to the board and maintain a positive, working relationship with the Board. It is incumbent upon the ED to keep the Board informed of all financial and legal matters, and to work with board members on the various committees. The ED is expected to attend all committee meetings, within reason, and to share updates on the school and bring back recommendations from the committees to be implemented in practice.
Academic Achievement:
Academic achievement and growth is aligned to the AXL vision: Engage. Empower. Achieve. The Executive Director is responsible for fostering a spirit of engagement, empowerment and achievement for staff and scholars. This is accomplished by the following:
- Community Accountability: Foster a culture of accountability, high academic achievement and growth within the AXL community.
- Growth Mindset: Lead initiatives to support and challenge all students by modeling a growth mindset.
- Effective use of student data: Use student achievement data effectively to refine teaching practices in order to improve students’ learning and character development. Establish and maintain expectations for school-wide structures to ensure consistency and equity.
- Equity: Establish and maintain academic culture and supports to ensure equity for all scholars to include but is not limited to equity for: language, gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, socio-economic status, nation origin, disability, citizenship status, religion.
- Standards-Based Instruction: Support standards-based instruction for all to engage, empower and achieve.
Internal Management
- Enforcement of Rules and Regulations: Honor all local, state, and federal laws, rules, and regulations. Appropriately and directly respond when infractions occur.
- School Culture: Develop and maintain a staff culture that embodies the school’s core values and brings the mission/vision to life. Build and strengthen relationships with and among the School’s constituencies, specifically the faculty, parents, board of directors, donors, and the community at large.
- Financial Management: Ensure accurate financial management and oversight to guarantee that AXL Academy secures all needed revenues (including enrollment projections), stays within the board approved budget, and effectively protects assets. Ensure effectiveness of accounting and auditing consultants. Manage and operationalize board approved annual budget and long-term financial goals
- Human Resources: Oversee systems that ensure that recruiting / selection processes benefit AXL Academy; ensure that employment legal requirements are met; and ensure ongoing care and overall HR administration meets the needs of employees and AXL Academy. Oversee employee lifecycle process (Recruiting, hiring, training, supervising, facilitating restorative conversations, and dismissing employees), adhering to Board-approved salary scale, assigning work and duties, and evaluating employee performance and supporting improvement in compliance with SB 191.
- Facilities: Oversee tenant relationship with landlord and ensure timely adherence to terms in contract. Oversee and maintain the building is in good working order and allocate funding to improvements when necessary. Ensure staff and scholar safety at all times.
EXTERNAL RELATIONS:
The Executive Director is the most externally facing employee of the school and much of the role is building and maintaining positive working relationships with external partners.
Development Work: Ensure the financial health and longevity of the school by cultivating relationships with foundations, corporations, and individuals who provide financial support to the school. Ensure that the school meets its short- and long-term fundraising goals.
Authorizer Relationship: Maintain a strong relationship with the school’s authorizer, Aurora Public Schools and maintain compliance (listed below).
Compliance
The Executive Director is responsible for ensuring compliance with different agencies throughout the year to meet deadlines and ensure success for AXL Academy. These include but are not limited to the following:
- Primary contact for authorizing district (APS) compliance
- Benchmarks
- Grant documentation
- Grade and assessment documentation
- Financial records
- Charter Renewal
- Annual audits
- Annual review
- ESS
- Other district reporting requirements
- Colorado Department of Education (CDE) compliance
- Federal Compliance
- AXL Board compliance
- Finance Compliance
QUALIFICATIONS
Requirements:
- Maintain an unyielding commitment to all students’ learning: No limits; no excuses
- Have at least 5 years’ experience in education including curriculum or program development, implementing accountability measures and professional development in support of high quality instruction
- Have at least 2 years’ experience as principal, school leader, executive director, or other similar senior leadership role in an educational institution
- Have a principal’s license
- Have excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Commitment to and experience working with students from diverse backgrounds with unique academic and personal needs.
- Must have in-classroom experience in a K-12 grade, ideally in a charter school or organization
- Demonstrated experience and competence in working with operations, finance, budgets, and financial planning
- Ability to thrive in a diverse, intellectually challenging, fast-paced and collaborative environment.
- Demonstrated record of developing talent.
- Fluency with technology (Email, spreadsheets, infinite campus, Google suite, etc.)
The application process is open until June 10, 2022 unless there is a need to extend the search frame. If you are responding to this ad after that date please reach out to confirm the status of the search.
The Colorado Sunshine Law, 24-6-402 (3.5) requires that the school post a list of all finalists under consideration for the position of executive director, for fourteen days prior to appointing or employing one of the finalists.
This description is not intended, and should not be construed, to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, skills, efforts, or working conditions associated with this job.
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER
AXL is an equal opportunity employer. This means AXL Academy provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without discriminating on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, sex, sexual orientation, transgender status, age, national origin, citizenship status, veteran status, disability, marital status, genetic information or an individual’s membership in any other class or category protected by applicable federal, state or local law.
TO APPLY
To apply, please visit https://www.applitrack.com/axlacademy/onlineapp/default.aspx?all=1 to start your application.
We Engage. We Empower. We Achieve. If you’re looking for a place that values your curiosity, creative autonomy, passion, and dedication to cultivating authentic experiences in learning and equity in education; if you’re seeking colleagues who are big thinkers eager to take on fresh challenges as a team, then welcome to the family.