Assistant Principal (Pipeline)

Position Overview

The Assistant Principal supports the school in driving academic outcomes for students as a key member of the school’s leadership team. The Assistant Principal leads instruction and helps develop leadership among the school’s emerging leaders. At KIPP, we believe that the Assistant Principal is the School Leader's successor and is actively developed for school leadership. The AP should consider themselves apprentices to the School Leader, and the AP should gradually build the capacity to lead a KIPP school.

Duties and Responsibilities

KIPP Capital Region Assistant Principals report to the Principal and are responsible for helping to create a positive, structured, disciplined school culture and for ensuring that students’ learning experiences are exciting and rigorous. The APs coordinate curricula and instructional content, coach teachers, assess student and teacher performance, and lead professional development. Our APs are also masters of content, experts in building relationships with families, and demonstrate an unwavering commitment to holding high expectations. The core responsibilities of this position include:

• 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, the AP leads the planning and goal setting for the grades/departments they coach and ensures alignment with school-wide goals.
• Provides input into the school-based strategic planning, including identifying what the school’s strategic plan means for their leadership and the people they manage.
• Supports the School Leader in identifying and developing emerging and teacher leaders (Department Heads and Grade Level Chairs) through goal setting, coaching, and providing feedback.
• Supports teachers in understanding processes and roles in student support and intervention and develops systems and structures to ensure that limited time is spent on reactive student discipline.
• Manages parts of the daily school operations (e.g., arrival/dismissal, lunch/recess, school trips).
• Builds owns and directs 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 they coach and a strong understanding of academic standards for all subjects/grades.  Understanding the implications of standards on what a student should know and be able to do, connects teachers with relevant resources to improve their content knowledge. Therefore, a teacher needs to know and be able to facilitate student mastery.
• Studies curriculum and assessment content and further understands how assessments map to content mastery and what is required of students and teachers to accomplish mastery on the evaluations.
• Teaches teachers how to assess student mastery and growth toward college readiness and insists that assessments are used to inform teacher instruction.

Research-based Instructional Practices (Methods and Time):

• Develops standardized best practices in instructional methods and teaches teachers how to match strategies to gaps in student mastery.
• Develops teachers to provide rigorous and high-quality instruction and support School Leaders in planning and implementing enabling systems of the Academic Strategies Pyramid.

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

• Leads data-driven instruction. Assists teachers in determining how data aligns with 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; determines what data is saying about areas of student mastery and growth and identifies 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, Workshops):

• Provides high-quality instructional coaching with frequent and scheduled teacher observations, actionable and bite-sized feedback, and accountability for adjustment in practice.
• Coaches emerging leaders in their instructional coaching practice.  
• May lead or coach others who lead department/content/grade-level meetings that focus on planning for and norming instruction, practicing instructional strategies, and monitoring the department/content/grade level progress.
• 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 implementing the workshop practices.

KIPP Capital Region:

• Perform other duties as outlined by the School Principal
• Committed to furthering anti-racism, equity, and racial justice in all our efforts, and expect all our stakeholders to participate in this work so that we can create a future without limits for our students, together.
• Complies with all charter, federal, state, and local laws, and regulations, including the NYS Department of Education, Department of Health, and NYS Office of Children and Family Services
• Adheres to organization policies and procedures; promotes and supports mission, vision, and values, including developing and participating in internal surveys and data collection for continuous improvement initiatives.

Qualifications

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s Degree required. Master’s Degree preferred from an accredited College or University.
• 3+ years of teaching experience in K – 12.
• 2+ years of experience managing and/or coaching K - 12 teachers.
• An active New York teaching certification or ability to seek reciprocity from another state, preferred.
• Preferred experience working directly with students, preferably required in the charter, private, or public school environment.
• Prior experience working in schools and urban communities is preferred but not required.
• Ability to work a flexible schedule outside of regular business hours.
• Aptitude to create and work within an inclusive environment that honors and supports a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives.

Physical Requirements

The physical demands described here represent those that an employee must meet to perform the essential functions of this job successfully. Reasonable accommodations may enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions.

• Prolonged periods were spent sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
• Must be able to access and navigate all areas of the school and other facilities as needed.
• Specific vision abilities required by the job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and the ability to adjust focus.
• The employee needs to read, write, and speak English fluently.
• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is required to stand, walk, sit, use fingers to type, handle or feel objects, tools, or controls, reach with hands and arms, climb stairs, balance; stoop/bend and reach, kneel, crouch or crawl; talk, hear.
• Dexterity requires writing and operating standard office machines such as computers, printers, copiers, fax machines, phones, and calculators.
• Ability to occasionally lift and move up to 20 pounds.