Job Description

The Deputy Chief (DC) Schools Officer, Superintendent of Schools is charged with leading a cohort of schools to deliver KIPP Texas’ ambitious vision of becoming the highest performing, large school system in the state. Responsible for internalizing and translating statewide strategy into school-level plans and initiatives, the DC Schools Officer, Superintendent of Schools acts as the primary catalyst for strategic implementation. They own the execution of statewide academic priorities to achieve break-through results, foster a joyful and rigorous culture, and guarantee that every school is a place where students can thrive and persist.

The DC Schools Officer, Superintendent of Schools leads and manages a high-performing school management team focused on rapidly improving student outcomes and scaling a culture of excellence. They operate with a focus on organizational health, ensuring every school has the leadership, financial, and operational resources necessary to produce consistent, high-quality results.

The role serves as a statewide system-level leader accountable for portfolio-wide school performance. This role directly coaches and develops senior school leaders, helps shape system-wide instructional leadership strategy, and partners closely with the Chief Schools Officer to drive statewide results. The position is intentionally structured as part of the executive leadership bench, cultivating readiness for future executive leadership opportunities.

Academic Execution and Oversight

• Hold portfolio-level accountability for academic outcomes across a statewide cohort of KIPP Texas schools.
• Interpret and execute KIPP Texas Public Schools’ statewide academic strategy for a portfolio of schools, translating priorities into clear expectations and non-negotiables.
• Demonstrate strong expertise and a proven track record of excellent results as a leader within one or more horizontal educational communities (primary, middle, and/or high school).
• Ensure consistent, high-quality implementation of instructional models, academic systems, and student culture practices aligned to state standards.
• Set and enforce execution expectations across the portfolio of assigned schools, addressing variability in implementation quality and student outcomes across regions.
• Manage change across KIPP Texas and invest internal and external key stakeholders in strategic evolutions, always ensuring that little KIPPsters and academic excellence are at the center of decision making.
• Partner with the Chief Schools Officer and school management leadership to ensure alignment to established multi-year academic, operational, and financial aims.

Leadership and Academic Health Strategy

• Ensure Little KIPPsters enroll, thrive, and persist in their assigned portfolio of schools across KIPP Texas.
• Serve as the portfolio’s instructional leadership expert, with deep knowledge in key horizontal focus areas such as early literacy, STAAR performance, AP courses, Texas state accountability measures, and the effective use of acceleration and intervention tools, among others.
• Lead academic health monitoring across the assigned cohort of schools using multiple data sources to assess instructional quality, student learning, and system effectiveness.
• Lead diagnostic reviews for schools not meeting academic benchmarks and to implement strategic academic interventions.
• Design and provide oversight improvement plans focused on improving teacher classroom effectiveness and student performance.
• Serve as the cohort-level instructional leader, supporting and developing school leader managers and school leaders to implement high-quality teacher development, including, observing, coaching, and professional learning practices across schools.

Lead a high-performing team to deliver transformational educational outcomes for students

• Lead and develop a high-performing team of school leaders and school leader managers who are accountable for academic and operational outcomes across the portfolio of schools in all four KIPP Texas regions
• Drive results across KIPP Texas, including progress tracking, monitoring, and reporting, holding team and self accountable to short and long term outcomes and ensuring instructional excellence, and a joyful student and staff culture.
• Foster a culture of high expectations, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Talent Development and Pipeline Partnership

• Provide direct coaching, development, and performance management to their team, empowering them to effectively coach, develop, and lead their portfolios of school leadership teams to achieve strong results.
• Develop and sustain leadership pipelines through targeted coaching and development practices for leaders focusing on instructional, cultural and operational leadership.
• Partner with KIPP Texas talent teams to address pipeline risks and strengthen leader readiness.
• Promote KIPP Texas talent strategy and recruit, develop, and retain high-performing teachers, assistant principals, school leaders, heads of schools, and regional support team members.

Cross-Regional Collaboration and Organizational Leadership

• Serve as a steward of coherence across geographical regions by identifying gaps, elevating risks, and reinforcing adherence to core academic execution.
• Collaborate with KIPP Texas teams to align supports, remove barriers, and accelerate achievement of organizational health priorities.
• Operate horizontally across KIPP Texas geographic regions to drive consistency, coherence and equity in execution of strategic plans.
• Build and promote the KIPP Texas brand within the market as the face of a portfolio of KIPP Texas schools as evidenced by relationships with parents, funders, community members and stakeholders.
• Build coalitions, relationships, and partnerships with key external stakeholders in support of the organization’s mission and goals.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree, relevant Master’s degree in Education preferred.
• Superintendent certification preferred.
• 10+ years of experience working in K-12 public education, including school leadership experience.
• 7+ years of people management experience, including 5 years of systems-level or executive leadership experience.
• 3+ years experience as Regional/Associate Superintendent type role preferred
• Experience leading K-12 public schools or supporting K-12 public schools in academic excellence.
• Demonstrated record of driving excellent academic outcomes.

_ COMPETENCY AND SKILLS:_ Actively works to to identify and develop leadership competencies and skills in the following areas:

Leader of Vision and Teams:

• Direction-setter
• Team capacity-builder
• Lead learner

Leader of Teacher Quality:

• Expert on teacher evaluation framework and systems
• Relationship-builder

Leader of Content and Assessments:

• Standards and assessment knowledge
• Team curricula proficiency
• Adult professional learning expertise

Leader of Culture and Incident Response:

• Adult trust alongside accountability
• Student community and incident response
• Crisis management

Leader of Operations:

• Overall operations and budget management

Additional Information

What We Bring to the Table

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans with coverage options for employees and their families.
• Competitive vacation and flexible paid time off (PTO) policies.
• Paid family leave.
• Flexible spending account or high-yield HSA.
• Employee assistance programs.
• KIPP also offers the following employee-paid benefits: legal plans, LifeLock identity protection, life insurance and disability insurance.

**Physical Requirements & Work Environment **

• The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
• The person in this position needs to be able to move about inside and outside the school throughout the workday.
• The candidate is expected to attend conferences, meetings and training sessions both virtually and in person within the Region.

Travel Requirements

• Travel Required: Regular travel to school sites, regional offices or external locations for professional learning, meetings and other work related activities. Travel frequency may vary based on time of year and need.
• This role spans multiple geographic regions, and requires travel to them at least once per month.

Additional Requirements:

• Reliable transportation is needed for travel between campuses
  • This includes travel to the other geographical regions in KIPP Texas
• Ability to maintain emotional control under stress.
• Work with frequent interruptions.

KIPP Texas is an Equal Opportunity Employer. KIPP Texas ensures equal employment opportunities regardless of race, creed, gender, color, national origin, religion, age, sexual orientation, or disability. Any individual needing assistance in making an application for any opening should contact the Talent Team.

Federal law requires employers to provide reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities. Please tell us if you require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job or to perform your job duties. Examples of reasonable accommodation include making a change to the application process or work procedures, providing documents in an alternate format, using a sign language interpreter, or using specialized equipment.