Immediate Principal in Residence

  • Full-time
  • Start Date: Immediate opening
  • Department: School Leadership

Company Description

Founded in Houston in 1994, KIPP has become a national leader in partnering  with families and communities, 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.

In 2018, KIPP schools in Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio joined forces to become KIPP Texas Public Schools, a nonprofit public charter school network, accelerating student academic outcomes and impacting more students across Texas. As a unified, statewide organization, KIPP Texas can more effectively leverage the talent, resources, instructional expertise, financial strength, and advocacy in the public charter school movement, in order to have an even larger impact with educationally underserved communities across the state.

In the 2020-2021 school year, KIPP Texas Public Schools will educate more than 31,100 students in 59 schools, placing the district among the top 50 largest in the state. KIPP Texas will continue to prove what is possible for its students, communities, and state, with a goal of growing to educate 100,000 students and achieving a 75% college graduation rate for alumni.

The mission and vision of KIPP Texas is grounded in five Core Values as its cultural North Star:

As a Team & Family, we:

Champion Equity
Chase Excellence
Persist with Purpose
Bring Joy
Rise Together

KIPP Texas is part of the national KIPP network of 255 college-preparatory public charter schools educating early childhood, elementary, middle, and high school students. KIPP schools are part of the free public school system and enrollment is open to all students. 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 families.

Job Description

The goal of a school leadership pathway is to build and sustain high performing schools. KIPP Texas is investing in a residency program to ensure that there is a transparent pathway to leadership with consistent succession plans and an equitable process for promotions. With a structured on-ramp to school leadership and targeted coaching and support, leaders will develop the skills necessary to thrive as principals. 

The KIPP Texas Principal in Residence program is a one- or two-year, regionally-operated residency to prepare aspiring principals in the adaptive, technical, and managerial skills to lead a KIPP TX school as either a Successor or a Founder. Those in the one-year program are on an accelerated track to become a Successor at the school at which they are placed or a Founder at a school in community they will found in.  Those in the two-year program are placed in schools with Mentor School Leaders.  PIRs are full-time members of their residency school leadership teams and will have daily opportunities to practice the skills and competencies required to lead high-performing schools.

The PIR program operates within a set of KIPP TX leadership development programs, all with the goal of strengthening the leadership pipeline and developing a transparent pathway to leadership. 

PRINCIPAL-IN-RESIDENCE ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES OVERVIEW:

A Principal in Residence is an aspiring principal preparing to lead a KIPP TX school in 1-2 years. PIRs are committed to and actively contribute to the success of their placement school and act in alignment with school leadership team vision and priorities.

The PIR’s role mirrors that of an Assistant Principal for the majority of the development program, namely: coaching and developing teachers, teacher leaders and deans and contributing to the overall academic and cultural vision of the school. In some cases, a PIR who enters the program without teaching experience in KIPP TX may also have teaching responsibilities to enhance their instructional leadership expertise.  Towards the end of their time as a PIR, the role mirrors more of School Leader, with clear responsibilities fully owned by the PIR at the school-level.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES: 

1. Model and support implementation of the school’s vision and goals

  • Supports the development of the School Leader’s school-wide vision and takes an active role in investing and mobilizing teachers to achieve the collective goals of the school; owns the implementation of select school priorities in support of the school-wide vision

  • With guidance from the School Leader, leads the planning and goal-setting for the grades/departments that s/he coaches and ensures alignment with school-wide vision and goals

2. Contribute to school-wide planning and prioritizes time to accomplish goals

  • Provides input into the strategic planning of the school, and identifies areas of ownership for self and direct reports

  • Effectively plan to meet goals through prioritization and excellent time management and coach others to do the same

3.  Develop emerging leaders with School Leader’s guidance

  • Supports the School Leader in identifying and developing emerging teacher leaders (Content Team Leaders and/or Grade Level Chairs) through goal setting, coaching and providing feedback    

4. Model strong staff and student culture and manage school-wide character development and behavior management systems

  • Supports teachers in understanding process and roles in student support and intervention and develops systems and structures to ensure that limited time is spent on reactive student discipline

  • Manage parts of the daily school operations (e.g. arrival/dismissal, lunch/recess, school trips, extra-curricular school activities, school events, facility maintenance)

  • Acts as the first Leadership Team contact on student intervention and parent engagement hierarchy; determines next steps for issues that rise above the teacher/grade level/department chair

5. Collaborate with School Leader to hire diverse, highly-effective teachers and school staff

6. Build own and direct reports’ instructional knowledge of standards, content and instructional methods.

Content (Standards, Curriculum, and Assessment):

  • Develops deep mastery over the academic standards in the subjects/grades for which he/she coaches, and strong understanding of academic standards for all subjects/grades.  Understands the implications of standards on what a student should know and be able to do, connect teachers with relevant resources to improve their content knowledge,  and therefore what a teacher needs to know and be able to do to facilitate student mastery 

  • Studies curriculum and assessment content and further develops understanding of how assessments map to content mastery, and what is required of students and teachers to accomplish mastery on the assessments

  • Teaches teachers how to assess for both student mastery and growth towards college readiness and insists that assessments are used to inform teacher instruction 

            Research-based Instructional Practices (Methods and Time):

  • Develops own and teacher’s knowledge of best practices in instructional methods and teaches teachers how to match particular strategies to gaps in student mastery

7. Develop teachers to provide rigorous and high quality instruction and support School Leader in planning and implementing enabling systems of the KHPS Academic Strategies Pyramid

Data Analysis (Data-driven Instruction and Progress Monitoring):

  • Lead data-driven instruction. Help teachers determine how data aligns to end-of-year goals (what is being assessed and how it maps to standards); break-out data to analyze how different student groups are performing; determine what data is saying about areas of student mastery and growth; and identify specific instructional actions and adjustments to fill students’ knowledge and skill gaps and a timeline to do so 

Teacher Instructional Development (Instructional Coaching, Content Teams, and Workshops):

  • Provide high-quality instructional coaching with frequent and scheduled teacher observations, actionable and bite-sized feedback, and accountability for adjustment in practice

  • Coach emerging leaders on their instructional coaching practice  

  • May lead or coach others who lead department/content/grade-level meetings that focus on planning for and norming on instruction and culture, practicing instructional strategies, and progress monitoring the department/content/grade level

  • Recommend to the School Leader what school-wide professional development will be the highest leverage in improving student results; lead engaging, actionable, adult-learning workshops; and hold staff accountable for implementation of the workshop practices  

8. Prioritize Assistant Principal’s own success and sustainability by engaging lifelines and renewing to get stronger

9. Support student recruitment, enrollment, and retention activities as needed. 

10. Other duties as assigned

In addition to their school-based performance goals, PIRs are actively developing the leadership skills and competencies outlined in the Development Roadmap. They actively seek growth on the Roadmap and in their journey to school leadership through one-on-one coaching, site visits on their campus and other campuses, formal professional development and by engaging lifelines. PIRs also actively participate in the KIPP TX PIR cohort.

Qualifications

Education and Experience

  • Minimum of a Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university (required)

  • At least 2 years of teaching experience (required)

  • At least 1 year of school-level leadership experience (required)

  • Strong record of helping students achieve academic success and holistic growth (required)

  • Fluency in Spanish (preferred)

Competencies

  • Student Focus: Belief that all students, regardless of background, have the ability to go to and through college; demonstrated commitment to the school’s unique community

  • Direction Setting: Ability to set direction for a team and motivate others to action

  • Achievement Orientation and Performance Management: Demonstrated student achievement results in own classroom and from teachers that he/she manage

Skills

  • Proficiency in Microsoft Office applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook)
  • Proficiency using computers, printers, copy machines, and fax machines
  • Excellent organizational, verbal, and written skills
  • Ability to travel throughout the KIPP Texas regions(for programming, residency and development opportunities) and the PIR’s placement city

Additional Information

Compensation and Benefits:

As a full time KIPP Texas employee you are eligible to participate in all KIPP Texas’ benefit plans. KIPP Texas offers a robust variety of benefits choices, including medical, dental, and vision options, as well as life insurance, fertility, and disability plans starting as low as $25/month.

KIPP provides equal employment opportunity for all applicants and employees.
As an equal opportunity employer, we hire without consideration to race, religion, creed, color, national origin, age, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status or disability

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