Job Description

SCHOOL PRINCIPAL – SECONDARY (6-12)

About Lotus School for Excellence:

Lotus School for Excellence is a K-12, college-prep public charter school with a S.T.E.A.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) focus.

All employees at Lotus School for Excellence (LSE) work together to develop academic, social, and ethical leaders. The thoughts reflected in this description provide structure to the responsibilities and accountability for this position. However, LSE expects to employ professionals who will work beyond job descriptions, creating both a fulfilling career environment and successful outcomes for our students.

Position Summary:

The Secondary School Principal serves as the instructional leader and chief executive of the school. Responsible for the direction, assessment, and evaluation of student progress, instructional and adjunct programs, performance of assigned certificated and classified personnel, operation and maintenance of the school facility, and of the fiscal integrity of all school elements. Identifies goals for the school and delegates duties appropriately. The principal serves as immediate supervisor of employees at the site.

Representative Duties: (Incumbents may perform any combination of the essential functions shown below. This position description is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, knowledge, abilities, or dispositions associated with this position, but is intended to reflect the principal job elements accurately)

Essential Functions

• Demonstrate the ability to establish and maintain an authentic, transparent, authoritative and accessible leadership presence.
• Demonstrate the ability to foster and deepen relational trust among all constituents as a primary resource for school improvement.
• Demonstrate responsiveness in order to strengthen the awareness of inequity, structural issues of race and poverty, and cultural discontinuity; advocate for culturally responsive pedagogy and effective collective responses to the structural issues facing schools and society among teachers and staff, students, families/caregivers, partnerships and community.
• Develop, facilitate and engage the school and community in a cultural awareness that builds individual and collective advocacy with, and for students, and families/caregivers.
• Engage the community in collectively developing, publicizing and adhering to collaborative vision; adhere to the vision in decision making, communicating to school staff and community, hiring, coaching, etc; set processes in place for mutual accountability toward the vision of the school and community.
• Communicate key purposes, beliefs and values of the school and community to ensure sensitivity to the community’s core beliefs and values in decision making; adopt and maintain a culturally appropriate and sensitive demeanor and tone with the community; exhibit the ability to make deliberate and thoughtful decisions and take action based on core community beliefs and vision.
• Include and engage the community in examining and implementing decisions and actions that are in line with the vision; incorporate shared practices that foster mutual respect in actualizing the vision.
• Integrate personal and professional real-life experiences to engage students’ families / caregivers, teachers and staff and community for the purpose of growing and maintaining mutually trusting relationships.
• Engage the entire school community and partners to form and deepen personal and productive relationships with each other.
• Demonstrate optimism and resolve in the face of difficulty; develop methods to communicate and implement systematic choices that take into account institutional barriers to learning and achieving, but frame the work as possible; form and maintain personal and professional relationships to ensure the school community is a place of safety and belonging to share and learn despite challenges.
• Develop, practice and advocate for an individual and organizational mindset that embraces challenges as learning opportunities, persists in the face of setbacks, sees effort as path to mastery, learns from feedback and finds inspiration to ensure continued growth of students, teachers, staff, families and community.
• Support and uphold collective decisions and creatively resolve conflicts and differences in order to engage and move the collaborative agenda forward.
• Demonstrate working knowledge of curriculum and instruction that is appropriate for school and grade level, and focuses on access and equity for all students.
• Participate in peer mentoring and collaboration to nurture the development of professional capital.
• Communicate high expectations, knowledge and positive intent to teachers, staff, parents and students; provide instructional systems that support teachers to achieve and succeed to ensure all students have highly qualified and effective teachers.
• Collaborate with teachers and staff to plan, establish, maintain, facilitate and monitor effective systems for ongoing adult professional development that support the goals of the teachers, staff, 6-12 school as well as the K-12 organization.
• Align fiscal, human, time and material resources to support the learning goals of students and core values; monitor and adjust resource allotments as necessary.
• Maintain the capacity to change direction in order to grow and thrive while retaining the core values of the school and community.
• Evaluate, analyze, design, align, and implement operational and school level structures that support equitable school learning goals and district strategic goals; analyze legal requirements with school operations and governance systems.
• Monitor organizational and programmatic systems that support equitable student academic, civic and social-emotional outcomes; make continuous improvements to organizational systems that better serve the school goals and objectives.
• Demonstrate expertise, insight and appropriate judgment in forming partner relationships and assessing viability of appropriate partnerships for the needs of the school; communicate the value of collaborative problem-solving, of multiple resources in serving students and families, and the importance of shared outcomes.
• Engage partners, students, parents, teachers and staff in mapping the school and community assets, resources, and issues that need to be addressed.
• Foster coalitions and organizational relationships that are beneficial to the school and community for the purpose of maintaining effective democratic governance structures for community partnership work; ensure the participation of family and caregivers..
• Supports the Executive Director via positive communication and relations with parents, teachers, city leaders and community members.
• Actively participates in a variety of meetings within the school, the chartering district (APS), the neighborhood, and surrounding area in a manner that effectively integrates the school into the fabric of the community.
• Perform related duties as assigned.

Ability To:

• Continuously seek quality service and process improvements in order to support a mission and strategic vision.
• Use a consultative approach to resolving work related issues.
• Organize, direct, evaluate and supervise assigned certificated and classified staff.
• Direct activities regarding personnel, the physical plant, budget, student services and activities, curriculum and instruction, and communications and articulation.
• Train, supervise and evaluate certificated and classified personnel.
• Establish, coordinate and maintain communication with community and parent groups.
• Plan, implement, direct and evaluate instructional and categorical programs in accordance with applicable laws.
• Plan and organize work.
• Analyze situations accurately and adopt an effective course of action.
• Complete work with many interruptions.
• Read, interpret, apply and explain rules, regulations, policies and procedures.
• Communicate effectively both orally and in writing.
• Prepare and deliver oral presentations.
• Operate personal computer, related software, and other office equipment.

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Education or a related field
• Four or more years of classroom teaching experience with demonstrated excellence in student achievement
• Three years of school administrative experience
• Successful track record working with secondary students and teachers
• Experience working effectively with culturally and linguistically diverse groups
• Strong decision-making, analytical and organizational skills
• Outstanding written and oral English communication skills
• Strong commitment to building a secondary school curriculum
• Entrepreneurial outlook and charter school commitment

Preferred:

• Master’s Degree
• Current Colorado Teaching License
• Colorado Principal (or Administrator) License
• Charter school administrator experience
• Training and/or experience in group facilitation and process management
• Bilingual

Supervisory Responsibility: Supervises secondary administrator(s), licensed secondary teachers, secondary coordinators and support staff as assigned.

Reports to: Executive Director

Job Type: Full-time (218-day schedule)

Compensation and Benefits:

• $105,000 – $145,000 starting salary / year (BOE)
• Participation in CO PERA program, including a PERA 401k contribution option
• Funding of 100% of individual medical benefits and a wide range of insurance plans
• Approximately 3 weeks of summer vacation, 4 weeks of school holidays/vacations, and 9 days of PTO annually

How to Apply

Please send a resume and cover letter to: bwilliams@lotusschool.org (Executive Director) khamm@lotusschool.org (Human Resources Director)

Bureaus: Colorado. Job Categories: Full-Time. Job Types: Principal or Vice Principal. Salaries: 100,000 and above.