Director, K-8 Mathematics

About the Organization 

KIPP Public Schools is a national network of tuition-free public charter schools that prepares students with the skills and confidence to create the future they want for themselves, their communities, and us all. We are a network of 278 schools, nearly 16,500 educators, and nearly 190,000 students and alumni. 

Our mission: Together with families and communities, we create joyful, academically excellent schools that prepare students with the skills and confidence to pursue the paths they choose—college, career, and beyond—so they can lead fulfilling lives and build a more just world. 

Our vision: Every child grows up free to create the future they want for themselves and their communities. 

The KIPP Foundation is a nonprofit organization that supports KIPP public charter schools across the country. The KIPP Foundation helps to develop outstanding educators to lead KIPP schools; provides tools and resources for excellent teaching and learning; promotes innovation; and facilitates the exchange of insights and ideas across KIPP and other public schools and organizations. 

About Our Values: 

Excellent Results for Students: We value results over effort and know that our work is not finished until all students thrive. We maintain high expectations for self, team, and students. We drive outcomes by operating with agility, removing barriers, differentiating support, and prioritizing student-centered solutions—especially for those at the margins. 

Collective Impact: We are one team. We win together. We embody a one-team mindset by working collaboratively across teams, aligning goals, and leveraging the strengths of all teammates. We build trust-based relationships and ensure inclusive decision-making by engaging those closest to the work. We provide clarity through simple, repeatable systems and goals that enable transformational outcomes. 

Courageous Action: Our belief in what we can achieve is unwavering, fueling our optimism and commitment to overcome any challenge. We demonstrate an unwavering belief in students' potential and a commitment to addressing systemic inequities. We approach challenges with resilience, a solutions-focused mindset, and adaptability. We foster a psychologically safe environment centered on trust and accountability where feedback is encouraged. We leverage data to reflect on progress, own setbacks, celebrate successes, and continuously improve to maximize impact. 

About The Position 

The Director, K-8 Math will support KIPP regions’ Math and Instructional Leaders to pursue their regional student achievement and instructional goals by collaborating to build effective regional professional learning and academic systems through 1:1 check-ins, facilitating Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and similar community learning spaces, side by side work in schools and regions, and formal professional development. They will also support with program implementation as regions adopt new curricular or assessment resources, instructional coaching systems, or other academic programs related to math instruction by supporting planning, codifying and sharing effective practices, and collaboratively problem solving and be responsible for tracking curriculum implementation and increasing student outcomes in K-8 Mathematics for a portfolio of KIPP regions.  

The Director, K-8 Math will report to the VP of STEM. They will work in close partnership with KIPP Foundation colleagues and KIPP network leaders, to support KIPP leaders and teachers in their daily work.    

Responsibilities 

Direct support and coaching of regional math/academic leaders to help them:

• Build and refine their lens for excellent and equitable math instruction and math coaching.  

• Create routines and relationships for effective school visits. 

• Coach through layers as coaches of coaches.  

• Monitor, track and analyze student achievement data to drive content development and support math strategy.  

• Monitor and improve the quality of instructional coaching and teacher development. 

• Establish effective professional learning cycles from planning and execution of professional learning experiences, monitoring of participant learning and reactions, school support and implementation of new learning, to impacts on student outcomes. 

Facilitate communities of practice to support program implementation:

• Set and monitor goals for inputs, process, and outputs for communities of practice and regional implementation of aligned programming. 

• Plan and facilitate professional learning experiences for instructional leaders, including formal professional learning and collaborative workspaces. 

• Support implementation of shared learning through 1:1 coaching, on the ground support, resource development and curation, and codifying and sharing effective practices.  

Evaluate and iterate on program implantation in region and design of community of practice:

• Establish a logic model/theory of impact for programs and supports with aligned goals around input, process, and outcomes.  

• Gather, analyze, and respond to data on programming and program impact aligned to logic model/theory of impact.  

• Support regional implementation of effective data practices aligned to program implementation. 

Contribute to the strategy, vision setting, program research and design, and cross team-collaboration in response to Foundation and Network priorities:

• Collaborate with teammates across contents and or teams in programs with shared goals. 

• Participate in cross-team advisory, planning, or similar work in support of KIPP Foundation or Network priorities. Research, design, and lead projects emerging in response to emerging needs or priorities, in partnership with KIPP Foundation and Regional Stakeholders. 

• Manage resource creation and development of supports for specific curricula. 

• Manage partnerships with vendors and partners. 

• Make recommendations into team’s budget planning, and responsible for managing against the grant budget and/or reporting on progress towards milestones.

Skills  

• Student and Mission Focus: Demonstrates passion and commitment to KIPP’s mission and possesses the desire and ability to uphold KIPP’s core values (Focus on Excellent Results, Collective Impact, and Courageous Action) 

• Instructional Expertise in K-8 Math Curricula: Strong math instructional and coaching expertise including deep K-8 math content and pedagogical knowledge, knowledge of culturally relevant teaching practices and familiarity with current research; Demonstrated track record of results in advancing student outcomes. Knowledge of and skilled in effective professional learning and instructional coaching techniques. Understanding of the differences between teaching that is procedural based and focused on telling versus teaching in which the teacher facilitates student learning through rich tasks and understanding.  

• Achievement and Outcomes Orientation: Demonstrated record of setting ambitious goals and achieving them with consistency. Invests in developing teammates’ skills and mindsets to address gaps in achieving team growth; determines what quantitative and qualitative data are most relevant to their goals and supports the team in creating and monitoring systems for collecting, reviewing, and acting upon data to drive outcomes; able to monitor progress, communicating status to the right stakeholders and adjusting plans and use of time to ensure systems are yielding desired outcomes. 

• Instructional Leadership: Highly skilled and experienced in leading the Internalization and Planning process, conducting Observation/Feedback meetings, providing real-time feedback, leading Weekly Data Meetings, setting academic goals and monitoring progress.  

• Strategic Decision Making and Problem Solving: Efficiently defines the right metrics to evaluate work and ensures critical team actions, decisions, and recommendations are driven by data; effectively works with team to resolve issues around data to ensure sound data-informed decisions. Effectively identifies and addresses root causes to the most important problem. 

• Change Management and Communications: Effectively articulates case for change through clear and compelling presentations and translates this into actional plans. Effectively tailors communications and engagement approach for different audiences to deepen investment and drive actions and behavior change that would lead to org-wide goals; acts as a champion for change with cross-team stakeholders. 

Experience and Qualifications 

• 4+ years of math teaching experience.  

• 2+ years of math instructional coaching/curriculum development/program implementation or similar out-of-classroom experience. 

• 2+ years of experience math instructional leadership at a district/regional level or similar role supporting across multiple schools (preferred)  

• Understanding of teaching that is procedural based and focused on telling versus teaching in which the teacher facilitates student learning through rich tasks and understanding 

• Experience teaching or supporting Illustrative Mathematics, Open Up Resources, or Eureka Math2 (preferred)  

• Strong math instructional expertise including deep K-8 math content knowledge, math pedagogical knowledge, knowledge of culturally relevant teaching practices and familiarity with current research.  

• Strong math instructional coaching expertise and knowledge of effective professional learning and instructional coaching techniques. 

• Successful project management experience with demonstrated ability to appropriately scope projects and work plans and to allocate resources accordingly. 

• Track record of exemplary performance in a team-based environment with multiple stakeholders and in roles using creativity, relationship-building with wide range of audiences; achieving results while operating within dynamic, fast-paced environment in the face of ambiguity. 

• Proven track record of exemplary performance in analytic and problem-solving skills; defining problems, framing options, conducting analysis and integrating new information, synthesizing and developing strategies, and implementation plans). 

• Experience developing and leading professional development sessions for adult learners. 

• Experience navigating complex academic and professional learning systems in education and navigating systems change. 

Work Conditions 

• Travel requirements: 40%

• Full-time, Exempt role 

Location 

It is preferred, but not mandatory for this role to be based out of a KIPP Foundation office. This role also has the option of working from a remote office full-time. KIPP Foundation offices are in NYC and Chicago. 

Compensation and Benefits 

In compliance with local law, we are disclosing the compensation, or a range thereof, for roles in locations where legally required. Actual salaries will vary based on several factors, including but not limited to external market data, internal equity, and relevant experience. The salary range for this position is $150,000 - $181,000. In addition, KIPP Foundation provides a variety of benefits to employees, including:  

• 25 holidays for + 18 days additional flexible PTO days (flexible PTO increases to 23 days for years 3 and 4 and to 28 days for years 5+). 

• 100% paid parental leave 

• 100% coverage of the premium for employee and 75% for employee + family’s medical/dental/vision plans. 

• Wellness benefits such as fitness reimbursements, discounted tickets to theme parks/attractions, backup care support for children and adults/elders, and our employee assistance program 

• Finance Security benefits include such as a 401K retirement plan with 4% match, employer-sponsored legal plans, life/disability insurance, and flexible spending accounts 

KIPP Foundation embraces the opportunity to build a workforce that reflects the diversity of the students and communities with whom we work and the world that’s around them. Being an equal opportunity employer means that we take seriously our responsibility to consider qualified candidates on the basis of merit, without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, mental or physical disability, and genetic information, marital status, citizenship status, military status, protected veteran status or any other category protected by law.