Principal or Vice Principal Principal
Job Description
Who We Are
Founded in 2010, SOAR is a Kindergarten-5th grade Denver Public Schools charter school serving approximately 490 students in Denver’s Far Northeast neighborhood.
The Vision of SOAR is for students to create full and meaningful lives, enrich our democracy, and create a more just society. At SOAR:
- We believe students learn best when learning is purposeful, relevant, active, and joyful.
- We believe that diversity of culture, thought, experience, and perspective is reflected in our work.
- We believe that community is built through authentic, respectful, collaborative, and meaningful relationships.
- We believe in cultivating and celebrating creative and critical thinking.
- We believe in and build upon every child’s strengths, talents, and potential.
- We believe in the integration of academic and social-emotional learning.
- We believe in individual and collective responsibility for the success of all students.
Our school offers a holistic approach to education that combines rigorous academic instruction with social-emotional learning and character-building so that our students develop the skills they need to thrive as learners and leaders.
We are seeking an inspiring leader who can focus on student achievement gains and lead SOAR’s students, staff, and community to the next level of academic, personal, and community excellence. Currently SOAR has a yellow rating on the Colorado Department of Education’s School Performance Framework. SOAR’s Principal reports directly to our five-person Board of Directors and leads a talented team of over 50 leaders, teachers and support staff.
Who You Are
You are a school leader who has demonstrated the ability to integrate the high level technical and adaptive skills of school leadership with the emotional intelligence needed to build an inclusive community characterized by psychological safety, belonging and highly effective teamwork and collaboration.
More specifically,
- You are an open, warm, and results-oriented instructional leader who has a track record of leading others toward excellent academic outcomes.
- You hold an unwavering belief that all students can achieve at high-levels if given access to rigorous, culturally relevant content and instructional practices, as well as the right support to access it.
- You deeply value partnerships with families and have experience proactively engaging them to create a school community where students thrive and achieve academic success.
- You have experience with distributed leadership models and are eager to use that experience to create an organizational structure and culture that empowers staff and supports learning and growth at all levels from students to staff, including school leadership.
- You are a visible, hands-on leader who values and encourages diversity of culture, thought, experience, and perspective.
- You have a demonstrated ability to build trusting and productive relationships with students, staff, and families.
- You are self-reflective, an attentive listener, and a strong communicator who is comfortable giving and receiving feedback and taking responsibility for individual and collective successes and challenges. You are willing to take responsibility when your impact is different from your intentions.
- You use (and support others in using) data to help guide decisions about school priorities.
- You have the organizational skills and management savvy to turn abstract ideas into concrete plans.
- You model SOAR’s habits of respect, compassion, perseverance, responsibility, and integrity, and you have a deep commitment to SOAR’s vision and beliefs.
- You have experience delivering significant student achievement gains in a Title I, charter or turnaround school setting and have a State of Colorado Principal License in place by the time the position starts.
Essential Responsibilities
In this role you will…
- Design and lead a comprehensive instructional strategy that ensures standards-aligned, rigorous, culturally relevant instruction is delivered to every student, every day.
- Be the leader of the leadership team. You will design and cultivate a distributed leadership structure (coaching, professional learning, teacher leader pathways) that ensures staff have the skills, support, and accountability mechanisms they need to maintain a relentless focus on mission-critical priorities.
- Regularly visit classrooms to support and monitor instruction and provide consistent feedback to teachers and school administrators on progress toward instructional goals.
- Develop and maintain school wide and leadership team norms and structures for collaboration, data analysis, and professional learning.
- Create a safe, welcoming, and collaborative school culture that attends to the diverse needs of SOAR students, staff and families.
- Co-create plans to achieve SOAR’s vision and culture, and regularly assess and report out progress toward goals using evidence.
- Use data to inform decisions about resource allocation, instruction, professional learning, talent management, and student learning.
- Act as standard bearer for the school’s vision, including reinforcing high expectations for SOAR students and staff, and acting professionally and ethically always.
- Cultivate strong relationships with SOAR students, staff, families and board including actively participating in family and community engagement activities both during and outside of regular school hours.
- Oversee special education services, including an Autism center-based program, to ensure students are receiving high-quality services in compliance with local, state, and federal guidelines.
- Oversee charter renewal process and liaise with Denver Public Schools staff to ensure all state and district requirements are met.
- Perform other duties as required to ensure SOAR is a healthy, happy, and high performing school community.
Experience & Qualifications
Required
- Experience as a Principal, Assistant Principal (or equivalent) or a similar leadership position in an elementary school setting delivering significant student achievement gains.
- Demonstrated experience designing and leading through distributed leadership models.
- Bachelor’s Degree and a current, valid State of Colorado Principal License in place by the time the position starts.
- Success in working with a diverse student population and multilingual learners.
- Demonstrated experience coaching and developing other adults.
Strongly Preferred
- Master’s Degree
- Bilingual skills in Spanish.
Compensation
The salary range for this position is $115,000 – $160,000, depending on years of experience.
This role qualifies for PERA contributions and benefits.
What We Offer
SOAR is an equal opportunity employer (EEO). We offer:
- An annual $5,000 Title 1 bonus for the principal role
- Performance incentives
- $1,000 Health & wellness yearly incentive
- 401(k)
- Health Insurance
- Dental Insurance
- Vision insurance
- Employee Assistance Program
- Life insurance
- Retirement plan
- Paid time off
- Parental leave
- Professional Development
- Tuition reimbursement
- Relocation assistance
