Overview
Ascend principals are the academic and culture leaders of our schools. They create school-wide visions, drive educational outcomes, and advance educational equity through the educators they lead. In short, they bring the Ascend mission to life. Our principals are passionate about developing their staff and rally their leaders and teams to achieve ambitious school goals. Through the intentional creation of vibrant school communities, principals inspire staff and students to engage in rigorous and purposeful learning. They succeed when those under their care succeed. They develop enduring and joyful relationships with students, teachers, parents, community members, and other network teammates, and they build and maintain a strong presence for their schools in the local communities.
The principal role is an ideal opportunity for a collaborative and flexible thinker eager for feedback and professional development to play a central leadership role in growing and shaping one of our high-performing public charter schools. As an Ascend principal, you will assume a critical leadership role within a broader network committed to ensuring our students have the knowledge, confidence, and character to succeed in college and beyond.
Why Ascend
Ascend is the largest Brooklyn-based public charter school serving nearly 6,000 K-12 students in 16 schools. We exist to serve every student – to help them embody their inherent excellence by providing rich, joyful learning experiences that unlock a life of boundless choice.
Access to education is a social justice issue. As educators, we center justice and live out our commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism (DEIA) by ensuring that our students have the skills, tools, and confidence they need to thrive today and in the future. We are proud to have a workforce that mirrors the diversity seen in our students. Working at Ascend provides a community focused on developing an environment of support and belonging. Educators collaborate closely and encourage each other to achieve great outcomes.
Our schools honor, nurture, and challenge the whole child. Ascend fosters critical thinking skills and a love of learning through an inquiry-based learning approach, Responsive Classroom model, and anti-racist education. Students at Ascend benefit from a rich and rigorous liberal arts curriculum that nurtures natural curiosity about the world and guides them to think critically and independently.
Ascend invests in employees by providing ongoing professional development, coaching, and career pathways in our schools. We are proud to provide a generous benefits package, which includes flexibility in our healthcare plan, and 403(b) matching starting at year one. At Ascend, we care about our workforce’s mental health and offer services covered by insurance and additional time off for our staff to utilize for their personal care.
Responsibilities
Curriculum and instruction
- Develops school’s ability to foster a culturally responsive classroom
- Collaborates with curriculum and instruction team to plan and execute curriculum and instruction that fosters student growth, creativity, and agency through aligned culturally relevant materials and pedagogy
- Leads a team of secondary leaders to strengthen teachers’ knowledge of highest priority standards and inquiry-based instructional practices
- Drives partnership with the student services coordinator and the special education team to ensure that all students, including those with exceptionalities, have the access and support needed to achieve
School culture
- Establishes and leads a culture that results in a love of learning, student agency, and full range of student learning and growth
- Builds an engaged, diverse, and inclusive school community
- Creates, leads, and maintains a culture that encourages team members to innovate in an effort to ensure equity gaps are eliminated and college and career readiness is a reality for all students
Racial equity mindset
- Creates and sustains a race equity culture, including skill building and leading self and others through awareness, growth, and development
- Continuously strengthens personal and staff knowledge in academic standards and their DEIA considerations in conjunction with the curriculum team in order to promote effective instructional design
- Cultivates a diverse, high-potential school leadership pipeline
Strategic leadership
- Works collaboratively and thinks flexibly to support and improve systems and decision-making processes that strengthens outcomes
- Creates and strengthens a data-driven culture that relentlessly seeks continuous improvement
- Creates, strengthens, and maintains academic and culture systems and procedures
Effective teaming
- Establishes, manages, and develops strong teams that collaborate, communicate, and work together for Ascend students and its community
- Fosters and facilitates positive relationships and collaboration with network and school-based leaders to advance efforts that support achievement for all students and to advance Ascend’s mission and goals
- Observes and coaches instructional staff and leaders to drive pedagogical growth and student achievement
- Plans and leads professional development that results in improved pedagogy and student achievement
- Utilizes meaningful feedback from students, staff, families, and the community to strengthen school programs and practices
- Creates and executes coaching plans and evaluations to ensure development of all staff
Whole student focus
- Establishes, fosters, and sustains a culture of academic success and social-emotional development through partnerships with students, staff, families, and the community
- Creates and sustains a warm, welcoming, and inclusive environment for scholars, families, and staff
- Creates and implements a vision that exhibits a deep belief in the potential of all students and leads to improvement for all learners
- Engages families and the community in support of each child's learning and the school's learning goals
Operational management
- Creates and executes systems and processes to support the short- and long-term goals of the school and supervises the effective use of resources
- Develops systems and structures to hire and retain diverse, highly-effective staff
Technological fluency
- Selects, uses, and coaches others in the use of effective technological tools to strengthen school results and student achievement
- Leverages technology platforms to inform planning and decision-making in support of school goals and operations
Staff and reporting relationships
The principal reports to the managing director of schools and supervises all school staff members.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree, with advanced degree preferred
- At least three years teaching experience with a proven track record of elevating student achievement
- At least two years experience leading, managing, and coaching a team of adults and demonstrates ability to drive results through the supervision of others
- A hunger for feedback and self-improvement
- A high level of ownership over the overall outcomes of the scholars they lead
- Ability to be a bold, tireless, and engaging change agent and culture creator
- Self-awareness, demonstrating an accurate idea of one's own strengths and weaknesses and an ability to treat all members of the school's community with respect
- Skilled in content, pedagogy, and data-driven instruction as evidenced by quantitative and qualitative data
- Strong collaboration, interpersonal, and communication skills, including an ability to work effectively with people from diverse backgrounds and with diverse perspectives
- Strong organizational, self-management, and problem-solving skills, with the ability to handle many responsibilities simultaneously
- Alignment with the educational philosophy and core beliefs of Ascend Learning
Compensation
Initial salary offers for this position range from $130,000 - $150,000. Salaries are determined using an equitable compensation scale that accounts for years of experience and levels of attained education.
Diversity at Ascend
Ascend is committed to building a diverse and inclusive community, both through our hiring practices and our focus on creating a culture and environment where diverse perspectives, ideas, and identities are valued and integrated into our way of working and educating students. Ascend staff represent a wide diversity of racial, socio-economic, gender, religious, and national identities—opening a window to the entire Ascend community on the richness of humanity. We welcome all applicants who share our mission and vision to join us in our deeply consequential work.
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