Principal or Vice Principal Middle School Principal
Job Description
Reports to: Managing Director of Schools
Location: STRIVE Prep – Westwood – SW Denver, CO
THE CHALLENGE
Do you want to inspire a shared vision that rallies STRIVE Prep – Westwood’s school community to co-create a high performance, inclusive culture that leads to breakthrough results for each student, and moves the school from a yellow to a blue rating in 3 years?
OVERVIEW OF THE ROLE
STRIVE Prep is a Denver-based community of K-12 public charter schools, that challenges every student to discover and develop the skills, knowledge, and confidence necessary to succeed in college and beyond. STRIVE Prep – Westwood serves 340 brilliant students in the Southwest Denver community, including 64% emerging bilinguals, and 12% students with varying special needs. The Principal of STRIVE Prep – Westwood will be the cultural and instructional leader of the school and will lead the team effectively to create exceptional outcomes for each student by inspiring a clear vision and accountability for success. The Principal will build deep relationships with and leverage the strengths of students, families, staff, and community to co-create and implement: 1.) A school climate that fosters safety and learning, respects and supports the cultural identity of students and families, and builds strong restorative practices school-wide for both student and adult culture that reflects the pride of a Westwood Panther; and 2.) An aligned academic plan that makes it possible to lead the school from a yellow to a blue rating in three years, and enables the lifelong success of each of our students and 43 team members who are Learning to Change the World.
THE MUST HAVES
Do the following must haves resonate with how you are wired and demonstrable in your unique talents and experiences? If so, we invite you to apply and can’t wait to learn more about you!
- You find fun in the doing the impossible: You have an unyielding belief and trust in the brilliance of each student and team member which enables you to collaboratively set high standards of excellence with clear expectations for achieving them. You make these standards a reality daily through a disciplined approach to execution that focuses and holds students and staff accountable to a narrow set of the most important goals and initiatives. You generate high and contagious energy throughout the school because everyone knows routinely whether or not we’re winning and collaborates to course correct when we’re not.
- This is not your first rodeo: You have deep experience as a school principal and have a history of moving students and staff to transformational gains in challenging contexts (ie. turnaround, students with significant opportunity gaps, etc.). You’ve also had disappointing failures and draw upon all your lessons learned routinely to craft impactful strategies to fit the unique context of your school challenges. Your proven mastery of the change management process critical in any school improvement effort has earned you the reputation for being the calm in the eye of the storm.
- You are a people whisperer: Your experience has shown you that an investment in people and culture can lead to transformative change in a school. You value diverse perspectives, seek feedback to inform the work, and innately keep those on the margins top of mind, which enables you to truly maintain an inclusive school environment. You proactively build meaningful and authentic relationships with your Managing Director, teachers, support staff, parents, students, & community members. You intentionally build context, and authentically listen to others without judgment or offense–which enables you to individualize your approach and manage effectively across lines of difference.
ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS
With the must haves driving your daily approach to the work, the successful Principal will manage a school leadership team of five that supports a staff of 43 overseeing instruction, operations, culture, and student services. The Principal will collaborate with their supervisor, the Managing Director of Schools, to identify strategic priorities for year one and beyond.
Academic Program::
- Lead an effective, student achievement focused administration team of 5-6 people.
- Implement the network’s common curriculum, ensuring teachers have internalized and are prepared each day to deliver the rigorous, comprehensive, standards-based curriculum in alignment with the Common Core State Standards
- Model and ensure high quality observation/feedback cycles, student work analysis protocols, and real-time coaching.
- Lead and oversee a rigorous system for student assessment, data tracking, and appropriate student interventions.
- Design and deliver comprehensive professional development during summer training and throughout the school year.
- Oversee all supporting logistics for the academic program, including staffing structure and schedule.
- Partner with the network team to recruit and select high quality teachers and staff.
Student Culture:
- Set, model, maintain, and monitor a vision for strong student culture.
- Build and sustain rituals, systems, and structures that prioritize and promote student safety and college access and preparation.
- Implement network-wide systems to support student conduct and discipline.
- Lead community gatherings that set the tone for the academic program.
- Oversee extracurricular activities, including after-school sports, partnerships with outside providers, and other areas of interest.
Staff Culture:
- Model and hold adults accountable for excellence.
- Care for and empower staff members.
- Model professionalism.
Talent Management
- Own and prioritize staff retention
- Oversee the evaluation of all staff members twice annually
- Regularly collaborate with Talent Team on hiring strategies and cultivation of quality candidates
- Collaborate with Talent Team to determine hiring competencies for each role upon posting
- Prioritize recruitment within your school and leveraging the staff for referrals
- Designate time in weekly schedule for in person interviews, candidate follow up and recruitment
Community:
- Ensure excellent family engagement and satisfaction based on intentionally building meaningful relationships with families and students that respects and values their social and cultural identities..
- Ensure high levels of student attendance.
- Engage external partners to add value to the students’ experience.
Network Leadership:
- Regularly collaborate with other principals and Central staff.
- Be a network leader, always considering the needs of the network and the needs of the campus.
- Effectively implement network programming.
MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS (OR PREFERENCES WHERE NOTED)
- Understand, appreciate and can pull from at least 3 years of teaching experience. Have demonstrated proven school leadership skills in urban settings with an emphasis on data-driven instruction and demonstrable gains in student achievement (required).
- Can pull from at least 5 years of demonstrated experience in a school leadership role, including at least 2 years in challenging contexts (strongly preferred).
- Demonstrated success developing and retaining staff (strongly preferred).
- Speaks Spanish fluently (required)
- Bachelor of Arts or Sciences degree (required)
COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS
- Competitive compensation package.
- Annual performance-based raises.
- Participation in the Colorado PERA retirement program, including a PERA 401k contribution option.
- Funding of 100 percent of individual medical benefits and a wide range of insurance plans.
- Approximately three weeks of summer vacation, approximately four weeks of school holidays and vacations, and eight days of paid time off annually.
DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION
STRIVE works to make a college prep education for all students in our community the norm, rather than the exception. We are committed to building and sustaining a diverse team by maintaining hiring and recruiting processes that are free from bias and seek to provide each candidate with a unique and equitable opportunity for employment. STRIVE is an equal opportunity employer and actively encourages applications from people of all backgrounds.
Our culture of inclusion is rooted in the belief that when we create the conditions that align…
- Your unique gifts (Bring your full self, skills/knowledge, & unique lens on the work)
- Your purpose/desire for impact(What challenges do you most want to tackle?)
- The organization’s needs(STRIVE’s strategic goals and value we seek from this role)
…then you will have the opportunity every day to leverage your individual and collective team strengths to ensure our students are Learning to Change the World. We create these conditions with intentional, strengths-based coaching through an equity and inclusion lens, and a culture that leverages the rich diversity of our team to inform the work and achieve breakthrough results for our students.
