ABOUT KIPP TEXAS PUBLIC SCHOOLS

KIPP Texas Public Schools is a network of 59 public charter, open-enrollment, pre-k-12 schools educating nearly 34,000 students across Austin, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. Together with families and communities, our mission is to create joyful, academically excellent schools that prepare students with the skills and confidence to pursue the paths they choose —college, career, and beyond—so they can lead fulfilling lives and build a more just world.

Founded in Houston in 1994, and operating as KIPP Texas since 2018, our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracism in our classrooms, in our offices, and in the communities we serve is unwavering. We are looking to hire a diverse team of dynamic, collaborative, and dedicated individuals with an unyielding belief that every child will succeed. Join our Team and Family and champion equity, chase excellence, persist with purpose, bring joy, and help us rise together.

KIPP Texas is part of the national KIPP network of 255 college-preparatory public charter schools in 20 states and the District of Columbia. Nationwide, KIPP students complete four-year college at a rate of 36 percent, comparable to the national average for all students and approximately three times higher than the average of students from low-income communities.

The Opportunity

The Executive Chef (EC) has responsibility for all food-related activities throughout the district and is responsible for menus, food purchasing, and recipes. The EC will supervise kitchen staff, develop and monitor the food budget for the department, and the Labor budget for the Back of the house. All while maintaining the highest professional food quality and sanitation standards.

KIPP Texas is committed to providing students with balanced, nutritious, and delicious meals to foster the joy of eating wholesome, freshly prepared foods. Candidates will be passionate about child nutrition and nutrition education and will view nutrition awareness as a key component in preparing our students for High School graduation and beyond.

Key Responsibilities

• Develops recipes and plans menus for all cafeterias within the district to be in compliance with the NSLP programs.
• Schedules and coordinates the work of cooks and other kitchen employees to assure that food preparation is economical and technically correct and within budgeted labor and food cost goals.
• Approves the requisition of food products (including commodities) and non-food supplies and establishes controls in a manner that ensures high-quality/cost-effective product flows efficiently through the system with limited waste.
• Works with vendors and community partners in order to incorporate locally grown food into the menu.
• Cooks or directly supervises the cooking of items that require skillful preparation.
• Ensures proper equipment operation/maintenance.
• Establishes and maintains a regular cleaning and maintenance schedule for all kitchen areas and equipment.
• Ensures that high standards of sanitation, cleanliness, and safety are maintained throughout all kitchen areas at all times.
• Safeguard all food preparation employees by implementing training to increase their knowledge about safety, sanitation, and accident prevention principles.
• Prepares necessary data for the applicable parts of the budget; projects annual food, labor, and other costs and monitors actual financial results; takes corrective action as necessary to help assure that financial goals are met.
• Manages daily operations through the use of the foodservice dashboard, including the development of metrics, targets, and techniques of collecting data, the use of systematic problem solving, and the implementation of corrective actions. Work includes the daily update of the department dashboard.
• Manages inventory using systematic techniques such as PAR levels, Re-order points, and Re-order quantities in order to keep food costs within budget, ensure the quality of our product, the efficient flow of product through the system, and the productivity of labor.  
• Develops policies and procedures to enhance and measure quality; continually updates written policies and procedures to reflect state-of-the-art techniques, equipment and terminology.
• Oversees special catering events, coffee shop operations, and offers culinary instruction, and/or demonstrates culinary techniques.
• Ability to lead and manage a diverse group of people.
• Interviews, selects, trains, supervises, counsels, and disciplines all kitchen employees.
• Schedules conduct performance reviews and decide on pay increases.
• Ensures all services to stakeholders are conducted in a highly professional and efficient manner.
• Provides training and professional development opportunities for all kitchen staff.

Skills

• Above-average communication skills.
• Ability to read, analyze and interpret general business periodicals, professional journals, technical procedures, or governmental regulations. 
• Ability to write reports, business correspondence, and procedure manuals. Ability to effectively present information and respond to questions from groups of managers, committees, suppliers, members, and employees.
• Bilingual (Spanish/English) is preferred.
• Working knowledge of all standard Microsoft Office and Google programs. 
• Proficient in Outlook, Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.

Preferred Education/Experience:

• Applied Associate's degree in the culinary arts or in a related area, such as hospitality or Bachelor's degree (B. A.) from four-year college or university; or four years related experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Three to five years of industry and management experience, preferably in a large-scale production environment  
• Great customer service skills.
• Previous experience in a K-12 school environment is preferred.

Compensation and Benefits

In addition to a competitive salary scale, a part of KIPP Texas’ competitive benefits options, KIPP offers all employees an $0 HMO plan for the employee only. In addition to our $0 plan, KIPP provides a $600 employer contribution towards a Health Savings Account and a variety of other supplemental benefits such as Dental, Vision, Short and Long-Term Disability, Pet Insurance, Life, etc.