In order to build an unstoppable movement to ensure educational excellence for all, Teach For America - Oklahoma City is seeking a Director of Teacher Development for Secondary. Our current reach includes partnerships with the following districts: Oklahoma City Public Schools, Millwood Public Schools, Santa Fe South, Lighthouse Charter, KIPP Reach College Prep, Western Heights Public Schools, and Lawton Public Schools.
To serve kids and families in the Oklahoma City and Lawton communities, we seek an education leader to accelerate our efforts to promote student leadership and empowerment through culturally responsive teaching and practices by serving as a strong staff culture leader, design and execute content development and effectively coach a team of MTLDs towards coaching excellence.
As a manager on our team, the D, TLD will contribute to and advance our team’s work by developing and coaching MTLDs, as well as owning and leading cross-functional efforts to ensure that the region achieves its student achievement, corps member retention and culture, and partnership goals. Additionally, s/he will support our broader regional team in reaching our development, alumni engagement, and human assets goals. In this capacity, the D, TLD may support external communication and relationship efforts in promoting the work of Teach For America in the central Oklahoma community.
The D, TLD will report to the SMD, Program Continuum. Along with SMD, s/he will set vision and strategy for educator coaching and secondary content in the region, as you manage and develop a cohort of 2 instructional coaches and lead all corps member secondary professional development.
This position offers a unique opportunity for someone with strong culture leadership, instructional development, management and relationship-building skills, excel at working with and leading diverse teams, have strong instructional knowledge, and have a record of achieving ambitious results.
Design & Execute Vision for Transformational Instruction in Secondary - 55%
- Design & execute a compelling elementary vision focused on maximizing the region’s impact of immediate student academic success and long-term opportunities
- Set the vision and create regional strategy for corps member professional development, including all PD experiences (e.g., PD Saturdays)
- Support with the design and execution of DEI trainings in the region
- Design and execute individual and group learning experiences to ensure that educators in our network acquire critical instructional and content-specific knowledge, skills, and mindsets to increase their proficiency
- Design and execute Partnering with Families and Community Engagement development for educators
- Diagnose classrooms against a very high bar for content-specific outcomes, instruction, and leadership through the use of observation and analysis of student achievement data
- Monitor student achievement, educator satisfaction, and project completion for direct reports and add/adjust strategy to reach goals
- Collect, create and maintain high-quality instructional tools including long-term plans, assessments, rubrics, etc.
- Build and maintain a database of staff and educator-facing content-related resources (sessions, readings, instructional tools, etc.)
- Cultivate good judgment in your team about trends and causes in classrooms and lead your team to take actions that result in significant changes in classrooms
- Co-manage the Sue Lehmann process for the region
Manage & Develop Teacher Leadership Coaching Team - 30%
- In collaboration with D, TLD - Elementary, set vision around our work supporting teachers and partners in the Oklahoma City region, including: instructional and leadership development opportunities for corps members, district partnerships, corps member matriculation, onboarding and placement
- Cultivate, hire, and coach and develop a strong team of two secondary MTLDs
- Ground your team in the region’s vision and goals, and enable them to plan and execute successfully toward them
- Create an inspiring and inclusive team and corps culture, grounded in the core values, that contributes to our regional staff's connectedness and community
- Point person for CSI, CALI, and NPS analysis and action plans
Partnerships - 10%
- Establish and maintain diverse school district and community partnerships that drive toward a common vision, goals, and values
- Manage strategy for principal relationships and school partnerships to enhance innovation
- Actively work to build authentic relationships with all stakeholders, and to realize our commitment to diversity and inclusiveness
- Cultivate corps members and alumni in order to support a robust talent pipeline for staff positions in the region and throughout Teach For America
- Collaborates with community partners and local leadership to set a vision of excellence for family and community partnerships
- Serve as the point person for corps member retention
- Support the design and execution of a regional alumni teacher development program
- Collaborate with national support team and content specialists in other regions to align on a vision of excellence within the content area, strengthen our capacity for supporting educators across our network, and accelerate student gains in the classroom
- Serve as a regional leader to make decisions that will impact students, corps members, alumni, and staff in response to trends and crisis
Regional Responsibilities - 5%
- Integrate and drive towards Regional Priorities in work
- Support Selection and Matriculation efforts of the region as assigned
- Actively participate and seek out experiences that push your perspective along our DEI outcomes
- Attend and actively engage in professional development conferences and learning groups
- Responsibly steward regional resources through consistent compliance with all employee policies and expectations
- Teach For America corps member and/or staff member experience is highly preferred, but not required
- 5+ years of work experience required
- A minimum of 2 years of work experience leading and managing teams to achieve ambitious outcomes highly preferred
- Deep or increasing knowledge of content and pedagogy
- Strong instructional background and successful experience as a teacher
- Exemplifying Teach For America's core values
- Establishing a vision of excellence and building a culture of achievement
- Making informed, timely decisions and using sound judgment to prioritize actions
- Developing and cultivating relationships and networks in order to achieve results
- Compiling and analyzing vast amounts of data to define opportunities and challenges, draw conclusions, and inform team management approach
- Managing others to effectively track tasks, assess progress, and follow through on the execution of plans
- Strong planning and project management skills, with an eye for the ways details influence culture
- Being intentional in their own learning and development
- Ability to design high impact adult learning experiences that lead to change in the classroom
- Proven success in laterally managing peers across teams toward ambitious outcomes
Work demands
- Willingness to work some weekends and evenings
- Ability to travel to in-person meetings in various Oklahoma cities regularly
Skills
- Believe in our core values and regional vision, mission, and goals, and commit to striving to embody these values and to achieve these outcomes
- Have an understanding and deep belief in fostering culturally responsive educators
- Develop strong peer and managerial relationships such that you can contribute to our team’s ability to hire, engage, develop, and retain a diverse and highly effective staff
- In collaboration with the program continuum leadership team, establish ambitious / measurable goals and aligned strategy for the academic achievement of students, effective partnerships with districts and schools, and the adult learning and instructional leadership development of corps members, alumni, and staff members
- Constantly seek to reflect on progress, learn, and improve; quickly act on individual reflections, feedback, and new information
- Previous teaching and coaching experience, including experience with culturally responsive teaching/coaching, is required.
- TFA Oklahoma staff experience preferred.
- Experience with adult learning design and/or teaching/coaching adult learners required.
- Experience with curriculum development strongly preferred
- Experience working or leading a TFA national or regional institute is strongly preferred.
- Vision-centered, with ability to balance strong outcomes-orientation
- Operating with urgency and sense of possibility
- Great at connecting and building deep relationships with all types of people in all types of contexts
- Excited about spending time coaching and developing people
- When things are extremely busy with lots of competing priorities, makes smart choices about what to prioritize and what matters most
- Professional maturity