Website Peninsula School
A leader in progressive education since 1925
Position Overview:
Peninsula School seeks an innovative, creative, and dynamic Associate Head of School for Program and Community to join our team. This position reports to the Head of School, and serves as a member of the School’s senior administrative team. The Associate Head of School for Program and Community collaborates across the school community to create, lead, and support opportunities for the systematic advancement of the school’s strategic plan, with a focus on 1) building a school-wide professional culture of learning to continually grow staff capacity to support diverse learners; 2) developing cohesive, progressive educational program that prepares students for the 21st century by nurturing diverse ways of learning, making, and taking action, and grounded in exploration and social justice; 3) expanding opportunities for community outreach and youth engagement in social justice. The successful candidate will provide strategic leadership to implement Peninsula School’s strategic plan on program and professional development.
Key Responsibilities:
● Program: Support teaching staff on innovative curriculum, pedagogy, and practice aimed at fostering a cohesive program reflective of child-centered progressive education.
● Teacher Leaders: Provide strategic leadership and collaborate with teacher leaders to review, reflect on, articulate, and evolve the school’s educational program.
● Professional Development & Support: Build a culture of a professional learning community for staff collaboration and growth in teaching and learning. Develop and facilitate professional development that impacts programs and practices. Support staff in identifying professional growth goals and development.
● Community Outreach, Service Learning, & Student Activism: Foster respectful partnerships with community based organizations, educational institutions, and local communities to promote service learning and community engagement by staff and students.
● Educational Resources & Communications: Communicate Peninsula’s institutional vision, strategies, and lessons about education within and beyond the school.
● Data Driven Decision-Making: Collaborate on the gathering and use of data on practice to inform strategies, assess progress towards goals, and grow professionals.
● Administrative Support and Leadership:
○ Organize required trainings; participate in the emergency preparedness response team; and other responsibilities assigned by the Head of School
○ Attend weekly, monthly and annual Staff and whole school meetings and events
○ Partner with the Head of School and serve on the hiring committee to recruit, hire, mentor, and retain staff who reflect and support a diverse and inclusive school community.
○ Partner with Admissions, DEI Director, and teachers to continue recruiting a diverse and inclusive student and family body. Participate in School Tours, Open Houses, and related dialogues with current and prospective families in community contexts.
Qualifications:
Experience:
● Experience leading instructional work at the primary and/or middle school level.
● Minimum of five years teaching and/or administrative experience, preferably in an
independent school environment at the primary and/or middle school level.
● A bachelor’s degree and master’s degree or equivalent years of experience.
Leadership:
● Enthusiastic leader excited about innovative educational programs and practices for adult and student learning, and who leads through the force of their expertise and commitment to teaching and learning in schools.
● Excellent organizational leadership skills with successful experience developing, implementing, leading, and evaluating educational programs and professional development, as well as managing, and supporting individuals and teams. Skills in team building, conflict resolution, and consensus building and decision-making with multiple constituents.
● Excitement about Nursery-8th grade students and working in a progressive education environment. A belief in the mission, vision and progressive values of Peninsula School.
● Excellent instructional leadership skills. Ability to build an atmosphere of constructive and on-going dialogue about best practices in teaching, learning, coaching, and schooling.
● Systems thinker who understands how decisions impact the whole of an organization with demonstrated capacity for data-driven decision-making.
● Collaborative leader & team player with ability to work collegially with multiple constituencies and foster distributed leadership. Demonstrated personal commitment to professional growth and to receiving and acting on constructive feedback.
Skills & Knowledge:
● Knowledge of adults and children as learners. Instructional coaching skills and capacity to engage a repertoire of mentoring strategies
● Pedagogical content knowledge, and experience in guiding educational inquiry
● Knowledge of the role of culture, social identities, power, and equity in education
● Skills and knowledge of teaching and learning best practices for N- 8th diverse learners
● Cultural humility and cultural competence with ability to examine identity and bias in self and support others to explore the same; and see and confront privilege and discrimination
● Emotional intelligence, empathy, maturity, and ability to work well with a range of people
● Effective oral, interpersonal, written, and presentation communication skills
● Excellent organizational and time management skills
● Problem solver with the ability to consider a broad range of internal and external factors
● Occasional availability on nights or weekends
● Initial and continued criminal background clearance by DOJ and FBI
● Initial and continued tuberculosis clearance
Physical Demands:
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of the job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, the ability to adjust focus, and sound hearing. The ability to speak clearly and coherently is required. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit; use hands, talk and hear. The employee is frequently required to reach with hands and arms. On occasion, the employee is required to stand, walk, stoop, kneel, or crouch. Employee is required to operate a computer and office productivity machinery, communicate across a variety of media, and work in close proximity to others. The role may also require the employee to work in inclement weather during special activities and work at a desk for extended periods of time.
TO APPLY: Peninsula School is an equal opportunity employer and we actively promote the principles and practices of diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout the school community. We offer competitive compensation and a progressive community dedicated to learning and engaged citizenship. We encourage people of under-represented groups to apply (http://www.peninsulaschool.org/dei). Please send a cover letter and resumé, in MS word or PDF format, to hr@peninsulaschool.org.
