Job Description

ORGANIZATION

Butler Academy, or BA for short, is committed to building something extraordinary. We won’t settle for anything less than the most talented, innovative, passionate, and committed educators and support staff we can find. BA’s goal is to engage leaders, teachers, and support specialists committed to closing the achievement gap by making our Academy a dynamic learning environment where every child is genuinely embraced and uplifted. To learn more about Butler Academy, please visit

OPPORTUNITY

The High School Principal position at Butler Academy is analogous to a Dean of Academics or Senior Assistant Dean of Academics position at most schools. The successful candidate will provide academic leadership and report to our Provost. The Principal is responsible for sustaining and improving the culture of high academic excellence at Butler Academy. They are chiefly responsible for implementing BA’s educational design, including standards, assessments, instructional guidelines, and school culture. The Principal will lead their teachers and coaches to achieve high performance through goal setting, coaching, and feedback based on school-wide academic goals, instructional priorities, and individual development goals.

The Principal will also advise, support, celebrate, and mentor individual teachers to improve instruction through:

• Evaluation of student performance data
• Consistent weekly classroom observations and feedback, modeling, and coaching
• Ensuring vertical and horizontal alignment of the curriculum
• Effective communication and promotion of high expectations, and
• Appropriately recognizing and rewarding excellence while also effectively addressing poor performance.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Key Responsibilities of the Principal include:

• Oversee all instruction, assessment, and curriculum development;

• Implement BA’s vision for strong instruction and curriculum across grade levels that is grounded in the academic goal of at least 75% of our scholars achieving at the 75th percentile or higher by their 4th year at BA;

• Know, understand, analyze, and use data to lead teachers in making instructional decisions that align with the academic vision;

• Manage a team of instructional and reading coaches and academic support specialists to unlock their potential and drive a strong core program through the implementation of our Get Better Faster and See It, Name It, Do It coaching models

• In partnership with BA’s Deans of middle and lower schools, achieve vertical and horizontal alignment of BA’s entire program to ensure that scholars and educators experience an integrated, aligned program that develops scholars for success;

• Ensure that BA’s curriculum and pedagogical approach exemplify the BRAVE Core Values by managing revisions to create an anti-racist curricular program, overseeing the development of diverse talent on our instructional team, and inclusive engagement and effective partnerships of stakeholders on all fronts;

• Lead, facilitate, and plan professional development opportunities for teachers at the beginning of and throughout the school year;

• Meeting and listening to the concerns of students and families regularly;

• Collaborate with school staff and other leadership team members to address student discipline concerns and support students’ academic and socio-emotional development;

• Lead and facilitate daily and weekly observations, feedback sessions, planning meetings, and weekly data meetings with teachers;

• Work closely with the President and Provost to identify and monitor annual goals and actively participate in mid-year and end-of-year review meetings.

QUALIFICATIONS

To fulfill these responsibilities, the ideal candidate will be:

An outstanding leader with a track record of achieving excellence with equity.  The successful candidate has to have an impressive track record of results - ambitious goals set and achieved. You must have shown that you have achieved excellence in curriculum/program development while being attentive to equity issues (ensuring that success is equally shared across different demographic groups). The ideal candidate should be an expert in some areas, demonstrate a baseline competence in the core curriculum and have the ability to learn quickly.

A “warm AND demanding” coach. The Principal will support BA in meeting its goals by effectively managing and coaching a team of instructional coaches. As the leader overseeing BA’s curricula, you must be exceptionally strong at setting clear, ambitious goals and effectively coaching leaders and teams to achieve them. You must also be an effective listener and relationship-builder who creates trust with and amongst senior leaders and who successfully coaches leaders through adaptive challenges that may be holding back leaders or teams from fulfilling their potential.

A big-picture thinker who can inspire a team and achieve system-wide change.  As the leader of all our curriculum work, you must guide and inspire the team to achieve our plan. You will need to be vigilant about naming and managing the team to go after areas where we are not delivering and celebrate the areas where we are.

An equity champion and organizational culture leader. Every leader at BA is expected to set the standard for how Butler Academy models our core values and, specifically, what leading for racial equity looks like, especially in the face of the deep levels of inequity and division that still exist in our region and state.

Therefore, you are an empath who works hard to understand the experience of people of all identities at all levels of the organization, you approach issues with an explicit values-based lens, and you are a tested organizational culture leader whose background includes getting to the root of adaptive challenges and tackling equity issues manifested at the systemic level.

IDEAL EXPERIENCES AND QUALIFICATIONS:

＼ The ideal candidate will be a results-oriented, determined, skilled leader with a strong track record of academic excellence;

＼ A minimum of 10 years of professional experience with specific experience in school leadership, curriculum development, or program leadership;

＼ Expertise in curriculum development, program design, and/or pedagogy;

＼ Experience as a teacher, teacher-coach, and school leader preferred;

＼ A demonstrable commitment to pursuing equity;

＼ A strong track record of experience and results as a trusted member of an organization’s senior leadership team;

＼ Excellent communication and influencing skills to interact effectively with all levels of the organization and the school network;

＼ Exceptional strategic, analytical, and critical thinking skills.

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