Director / Senior Associate Director of School Management

Uncommon Schools is a non-profit network of 53 outstanding public charter schools in grades K-12 across New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Our mission is to start and manage outstanding urban public charter schools that close the achievement gap and prepare students from low-income backgrounds for success in college and beyond. We are accomplishing that mission every day, with a college graduation rate that is well above the national average and thousands of stories of our students and alumni achieving their dreams.

The Director / Senior Associate Director of School Management Strategy is an essential member of the Uncommon Schools’ K-8 Chief Schools Officer (CSO) Team and will focus on supporting and systemizing the management of our schools. Managed by the Chief of Staff-K8, the role will drive strategy and operation for our school management team and work closely with all of our Assistant Superintendents in all of our regions.

 

·        Advise Chief of Staff-K8 on school management and school initiatives

·        Project manage CSO strategic plan and select initiatives

·        Drive and manage Regional Assistant Superintendents and Principal instructional strategic planning process and execution

·        Develop materials and deliverables to support initiative/project rollout, execution, and monitoring (e.g., dashboard, key performance indicators, templates, etc.)

·        Support innovation projects and processes

·        Supervise Regional School Coordinators that support Assistant Superintendents: includes providing professional development and codifying systems

·        Develop and monitor tasks and key performance indicators for strong schools and initiatives

·        Identify and problem solve school management issues and codify best solutions/practices

·        Develop data reports and stronger systems around data; working with Data Analytics team

·        Drive, consult and support school inspection (evaluation) process

·        Manage CSO communication: creating and managing plan, drafting internal and external messaging, operationalizing the plan, managing stakeholders

·        Develop materials for CSO presentations: executive, senior leadership, and team meetings

·        Gather input from instruction, operations, and HO functions for decision making and business improvements

·        Operate CSO talent work around instructional school leadership: rubric, performance review, recruitment/hiring, etc.

·        Administer CSO, office operations including owning the budget, on-boarding, and home office ad hoc requests

·        Support R&D on best practices and innovation

·        Exceptional and creative problem-solving, critical thinking, and strategic planning skills 

·        Facility to move comfortably between high level strategic thinking and intricate details 

·        Ability to translate and structure complicated or a lot of information in order for effective decision making and progress towards goals

·        Strong project management as well as time and task management skills, enabling multiple and large scale projects to be completed on time 

·        Ability to learn quickly, to pivot when needed, and to be effective in a fast-paced, dynamic, entrepreneurial environment

·        Able to work autonomously and thoroughly with independent self-reflection, as well as take direction as needed 

·        Outstanding ability to lead and drive change, including influencing and motivating others through relationship building

·        Alignment to and urgency around Uncommon’s mission 

 

·        A Bachelor’s Degree required, Advanced Degree preferred (MPA, MBA, or other relevant degree)

 

·        Minimum 5 years of working experience managing complex and/or cross-functional projects

·        Experience in project management, manager, consulting or other relevant field

·        Education background preferred but not required

 

This role may require occasional travel to all Uncommon regions