Executive Director, Academics

Who We Are

New Paradigm For Education (NPFE) is a non-profit Charter Management Organization (CMO) composed of educational practitioners, community advocates, and business leaders who have dedicated years of service to children. NPFE serves 2,100 students in Detroit, Michigan. We specialize in maximizing student learning potential through proven education practices and managing all phases of school design, planning, and program implementation. 

Why New Paradigm for Education 

NPFE is on a mission to ensure that all students in Detroit achieve at the highest levels, supporting educational transformation through increased student achievement, fiscal responsibility, and community support. NPFE’s Mission is to provide a quality education through shared responsibility in a safe supportive environment for all students to meet the needs of a global society. We are committed to excellence and strive to offer a new educational paradigm evident by increased student achievement, fiscal responsibility, and community support.

New Paradigm for Education seeks educators who have a relentless belief that all students, regardless of their race and economic or social circumstances, can perform at high levels, deserve a quality education, have access to high quality instruction and curriculum, and can attain post secondary success. Educators who are driven bv academic achievement, continuous growth, and excel working in a rigorous and supportive environment. We seek culturally responsive educators who have experience working with diverse communities and strong relationship-building skills that they apply to understand their students, families, and communities.

What You’ll Do

We are seeking to identify Executive Director(s) who will dramatically increase our ability to serve students by leading a number of critical functions that are critical to developing our staff, students, and academic structures. Our Executive Director(s) are unparalleled academic achievement-oriented educators with deeply ingrained optimism and belief in educational equity.  

The Executive Director(s) will report to the Chief Academic Officer.

Responsibilities

Guided by the vision of the CAO, lead the instruction, curriculum, assessment and data functions of the academic team:

• Lead the instruction, curriculum, assessment, and data functions of the academic team to increase student achievement at every grade level in every course, building the capacity of Directors and principals along the way;

• Align all aspects of curriculum, instructional resources, assessment, and teacher development in content pedagogy towards excellent student outcomes and educational equity in underserved communities for students of color;

• Managing a team of Leaders, develop and execute on a vision for deeply developing teachers’ content knowledge and implementation of data-driven instruction; execute the vision by maximizing professional development opportunities;

• Lead a high performing team of curricular, content, and building leaders towards increased student learning outcomes within all subject areas, evidenced by a reliable and effective internal assessment system that drives strong results on external assessments;

• Innovate around solutions for how to improve results across all grade levels and courses by using result-oriented data driven instructional skills;

• Stay informed and proactive about innovative solutions and opportunities to increase student achievement and further the instructional program at NPFE;

• Support the strategy for analyzing assessment data across the year to ensure NPFE and its leaders are consistently monitoring progress and adjusting based on what students have learned;

• Ensure curriculum, pacing charts, and assessments are aligned to the state of Michigan expectations and Common Core and implemented with fidelity and adjusted as necessary;

• Ensure leaders are building coach capacity across NPFE schools or their respective schools to effectively support teachers and improve instruction aligned to instructional priorities; and

• Use data to identify trends and practice worth sharing across NPFE and to gauge efficacy of leaders, coaches, and teachers in service of outcomes for students.

Alongside the CAO, empower and develop leaders: 

• Own all aspects of leading, inspiring, managing, and developing a team - each of whom manage teams of dynamic, driven, and diverse individuals; 

• Lead a team to set clear, ambitious, and measurable short and long term goals and priorities for each school that align with NPFE’s mission, instructional principles, priorities, and coaching principals to invest their teams in achieving these goals and priorities and communicating effectively about progress across all constituents; 

• Design and directly facilitate robust professional development, alongside the CAO for Directors, principals, teachers, and other school-based leadership team members; 

• Train and coach leaders to effectively move the practice of the members of their school-based leadership team(s), and subsequently, individual teacher instructional practice and students’ academic achievement, through high-leverage and consistent observation and feedback cycles; and

• Lead a team and their respective leadership teams and staff, to monitor the academic progress of all scholars and analyze student achievement data to drive instructional decisions and change course as needed to ensure transformational academic outcomes.

Design and execute network-wide initiatives that support the overall growth and development of our school leaders:

• Support all network leaders in creating a positive, academic focused culture where all staff give and receive feedback fluidly – both positive and constructive – as part of daily practice to move the entire school forward;

• Develop all network leaders toward building positive relationships with their team members that are grounded in a clear vision, interpersonal connections, and the belief the teachers are the key lever for toward moving instructional outcomes; 

• Support all network leaders to develop culture, operational, and communication systems that create a school environment where school teams operate with clarity, conviction, and a spirit of continuous growth; and

• Support and lead NPFE’s growth and expansion through various activities; and 

• Any ancillary activities that support the mission and vison of NPFE. 

Qualifications

The following qualifications are all required (unless noted below as preferred); candidates who do not meet these requirements will not be considered. 

• Deep, passionate and action-oriented belief in our mission to support all of our scholars to and through college grounded in the value and vision of academic programming;

• Demonstrated success leading a team of senior level staff members towards outcomes;

• Demonstrated success leading large number of students towards academic achievement in a K-12 setting;

• Demonstrated ability to lead and manage a highly effective team towards academic results;

• Solves problems strategically while weighing the advantages and disadvantages of each approach with a network-wide lens;

• Influences others to produce high quality work in the effort to increase student outcomes and a culture of achievement;

• Ability to manage multiple projects and prioritize effectively;

• Strong communication and collaboration skills, including ability to present to, and influence, adults;

• Coordinated and coached senior level staff members;

• Prior teaching experience (current/valid teacher certification preferred); and

• Master’s Degree or above