Assistant Principal - Elementary School

COMPANY OVERVIEW

KIPP Memphis Public Schools is part of KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program), a national network of tuition-free, open-enrollment, public schools that are successful in helping students from educationally underserved communities develop the knowledge, skills, character, and habits needed to succeed in college and the competitive world beyond. There are currently 275 KIPP schools across the nation serving nearly 120,000 students. Founded in 2002, KIPP Memphis serves over 1,200 K-12 students in our three North Memphis schools and almost 900 alumni on their journeys to-and-through college with our KIPP Forward Program.

As a leader in providing high quality education for students who need us most, the KIPP Memphis team and family serves as a model of excellence and collaborates with other community organizations to raise the overall quality of education in Memphis. The mission of KIPP Memphis 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.

POSITION OVERVIEW

The Assistant Principal’s job is to support the school in driving academic and character outcomes for students as a key member of the school’s leadership team. We expect our Assistant Principals to lead both instruction and school culture and also to be able to develop leadership among the school’s emerging leaders.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Vision and Goal Setting

• Support development of 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, lead the planning and goal setting for the grades/departments that he/she coaches and ensures alignment with school-wide goals
• Contribute to school-wide planning and prioritizes time to accomplish goals o Provides input into the school-based strategic planning including and identifies what the school’s strategic plan means for his/her own leadership and people that he/she manages
• Develop emerging leaders with School Leader’s guidance
• Support the School Leader in identifying and developing emerging and teacher leaders (Department Heads and/or Grade Level Chairs) through goal setting, coaching and providing feedback
• Model strong staff and student culture and manage school-wide character development and behavior management systems
• Support 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

School Operations

• Manage parts of the daily school operations (e.g. arrival/dismissal, lunch/recess, school trips)
• 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

Curriculum and Instruction

• Collaborate with School Leader on hiring diverse, highly effective teachers and school staff
• Build own and direct reports’ instructional knowledge of standards, content, and instructional methods
• Develop 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
• Study 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
• Teach teachers how to assess for both student mastery and growth towards college readiness and insists that assessments are used to inform teacher instruction
• Develop own and teacher’s knowledge of best practices in instructional methods and teaches teachers how to match strategies to gaps in student mastery
• Develop teachers to provide rigorous and high-quality instruction and support School Leader in planning and implementing enabling systems

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

Required

• Master’s Degree in Education or related field required.
• Valid Tennessee Professional Certification at Level 4 or higher in a teaching or service field and in Educational Leadership
• Minimum of 3 years of experience as a teacher, counselor, instructional coach, or similar role in a K-12 educational setting

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Belief that all students, regardless of background, have the ability to go to and through college
• Ability to set direction for a team and motivate others to action
• Demonstrated student achievement results in own classroom and from teachers that he/she manages
• Adept at data analysis; ability to extract meaningful insights across school-wide data
• Expertise in what academic standards and state assessments require of students’ knowledge and skills to demonstrate mastery; able to translate student mastery requirements into instructional plans and strategies
• Deep understanding of appropriate application and differentiation of high-leverage instructional strategies (e.g. gradual release, pacing, stretch it, etc.) based on comprehension of child development and pedagogy
• Strong judgment and stakeholder engagement
• Demonstrated resilience and achievement orientation