Director of Academic Readiness

About The Commit Partnership

The Commit Partnership is a collective impact organization dedicated to making Texas a place where economic opportunity is shared and not determined by race place or socioeconomic status. We collaborate with education practitioners and community leaders to improve educational outcomes from early childhood through postsecondary education aiming to increase living wage attainment across Dallas County and the state of Texas.

Our True North Goal is that by 2040 at least half of all 2534yearold residents of Dallas County irrespective of race will earn a living wage. The Commit Partnership drives this vision by improving student achievement workforce readiness and postsecondary completion rates ensuring more individuals are prepared for economic mobility and longterm success.

Position Summary

Under the general supervision of the Managing Director of Academic Readiness the Director of Academic Readiness will be responsible for systemic change management and implementation of innovative and highimpact strategies aimed at improving academic outcomes in grades 412 in Dallas County. The Director of Academic Readiness will lead Commits efforts to strengthen district capacity in curriculum and instruction pedagogy and datainformed instruction across grades 412. This role focuses on supporting the development and of strategies aligned with Commits rigorous curriculum and instruction priorities. The Director will work closely with district teams to support the buildout of sustainable instructional practices that drive improved student learning outcomes.

Additionally the Director of Academic Readiness will be a cofacilitator of the Dallas County Math and RLA District Leader Working Group and Middle School Working Group the collaborative systems change community of practices for Commits local Dallas County district partners.

This role requires deep content expertise in teaching and learning specifically secondary math and RLA a strong understanding of curriculum and experience with leadership development including instructional coaching. The ideal candidate will support districts in developing cohesive instructional strategies and aligning supports to researchbased best practices.

The salary range for this role is $110000 $126000.

Key Responsibilities

Instructional Strategy & Pedagogy

• Support Influence and support districts in with implementing highquality instructional and researchbased instructional strategies at the systems level.
• Help districts build and scale systems that ensure aligned rigorous instruction in math and RLA focusing on deep content understanding and learning.
• Guide Build capacity of district leaders in designing and implementing effective pedagogy that supports all learners including multilingual learners and students requiring intervention.
• Support districts in using data to inform instruction.

Collective Impact and Capacity Building

• Develop manage and execute department plans by providing strategic thought partnership technical assistance and capacitybuilding support for districts and other partners seeking to implement innovative evidencebased strategies focused on increasing outcomes across grades 412.
• Provide strategic guidance to district leaders on highimpact instructional practices.
• Develop relationships to get meaningful time with systems leaders share key data and best practices and lead courageous conversations on systems change within education.
• Convene and facilitate external meetings with high levels of engagement of systemsleaders that activate and drive toward outcomes for key initiatives and strategies (examples outlined above).

Professional Learning & Knowledge Building

• Design and facilitate content for district leaders focused on secondary math and RLA pedagogy.
• Lead learning series and collaborative convenings for Math/RLA and any future instructionaligned convenings to strengthen instructional leadership across districts.
• Create tools frameworks and resources to help districts support instructional coherence and drive continuous improvement in teaching and learning.

CrossTeam Collaboration & Leadership

• Manage a multistaff team towards achieving individual strategic goals aligned to team and organizational outcomes and develop staff members towards professional development goals and expectations ensuring efforts are executed in alignment with committed academic readiness priorities.
• Work alongside Commits EC12 Early Learning and Educator Effectiveness team to ensure a cohesive approach to instructional improvement.
• Other duties as assigned.

Education and Experience Required

• Bachelors Degree required.
• Five to eight years of experience in education or educationadjacent sectors at a systemslevel

Preferred

• Masters Degree in business education policy or other related field preferred.
• Proven record of achieving ambitious results in previous role including managing a team of direct reports to accomplish ambitious results
• Familiarity with PK12 education system particularly in secondary in Texas.
• Previous experience as a campus principal and districtlevel leadership in Teaching and Learning
• Familiarity with the Texas AF Accountability system

Language Skills

• Ability to understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of most immediate.
• Ability to communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters.
• Ability to describe in simple terms aspects of his/her background immediate environment and matters in areas of immediate need.

Knowledge Skills and Abilities

• Ability to read and write in Standard English.
• Ability to establish and maintain cooperative working relationships with others.
• Ability to interact with people of various social cultural economic and educational backgrounds.
• Ability to listen perceptively and convey awareness.
• Ability to interact diplomatically with the public in a continuous public contact setting.
• Ability to work as part of a team and in a team environment.
• Ability to maintain levelheadedness in the face of resistance and contrary opinions.

Work Environment

Generally works in an office environment but may occasionally be required to perform job duties outside of the typical office setting. The noise level in the work environment is usually quiet to moderate. The employee is not exposed to any adverse environmental conditions.

Physical Activity & Requirements

While performing the responsibilities of the job the employee is required to talk and hear. The employee is often required to sit and use repetitive motions of the wrists hands and/or fingers. This is a sedentary position however the employee is occasionally required to stand walk reach with arms and hands grasp climb or balance and to stoop kneel crouch or crawl and lift up to 10 pounds. Hearing talking and vision abilities required by this job include perceiving the nature of sounds at normal speaking levels with or without correction expressing or exchanging ideas be means of the spoken word and close visual acuity to perform an activity such as preparing and analyzing data and figures transcribing viewing a computer terminal and extensive reading.

About The Commit Partnership:

Our Mission

We believe that through our actions Dallas County which educates 10 of Texas and 1 of the nation can be an inclusive and prosperous region where economic opportunity is shared equitably. Thats why our true north goal is that by 2040 at least half of all 2534yearold residents of Dallas County irrespective of race will be provided the opportunity to earn a living wage.

To increase living wage attainment we must equitably increase educational success aligned with highdemand jobs maximizing the cumulative impact from early education all the way to college career and/or military readiness and accessing and completing a strong postsecondary education. Our staff aligns community stakeholders around this shared future roadmap analyzing data to lift up strategic initiatives that improve policies practices and funding that grow our communitys capacity to serve every student more effectively.

Our Story

Founded in 2012 this partnership is the nations largest educational collective impact organization composed of backbone staff and over 200 partners across Dallas County and the state of Texas working collaboratively to solve systemic education challenges. Our staff aligns community stakeholders around a shared future roadmap analyzing data to lift up strategic initiatives that improve policies practices and funding that grow our communitys capacity to serve every student more effectively.

Together we work to advocate for excellent and equitable public education that ensures all students regardless of race place or socioeconomic status have the power to determine their future and earn a living wage. We do this work through several ventures including Early Matters Dallas North Texas Tutoring Corps Dallas County Promise Texas College Bridge Dallas Thrives Commits Policy Team the Texas Impact Network and several coalitions.

True North Traits

Our True North Traits creates a missiondriven environment and champions us to do our best work each day.

Systemic Impact: You understand the barriers and lived experiences that our students face and are skilled at delivering systemic solutions at scale that address these needs. You achieve significant sustainable results that increase equitable outcomes through your work (including the reallocation or improvement in public funding) and you recognize the difference between activity and impact.

Judgment: You exhibit a relentless students first focus by thinking strategically about what data must be collected analyzed visualized and activated (and what steps must be taken in what order) to cause resources to be reallocated and actions to be taken to systemically overcome the root causes hindering achievement of the Partnerships mission.

Communication: By listening to understand before seeking to be understood youre able to build trust and facilitate collaboration across lines of difference recognizing that both are essential to our success. You are also able to find common ground with diverse stakeholders and can tailor the organizations message to different audiences as needed to influence meaningful change.

Innovation: You can create or meaningfully contribute to the design and of a systemic and transformational strategic plan to solve complex problems often at scale that improves organizational effectiveness and/or closes equity gaps for our students and families.

Equity and Inclusion: You intentionally create spaces where relevant stakeholders have a seat or voice at the table ensuring that each person at the tables thoughts and perspectives are shared valued by all others at the table and reflected in our work. Youre excited to help build and/or contribute to teams where everyone feels welcomed respected valued and highly supported.

Joy: You recognize that people are central to our work striking a balance between people and process and you inspire others with your optimism and thirst for substantive change in service to the mission.

Integrity: You admit mistakes openly share learnings widely and elevate bad news quickly also capable of making difficult decisions in all situations to ensure the success of the organization.

The Commit Partnership is an Equal Opportunity Employer that seeks to hire individuals with backgrounds similar to that of the stakeholders they serve. As an organization that embraces equity and inclusion all employment decisions are based on business needs job requirements and individual qualifications without regard to race color religion or belief national social or ethnic origin gender age sexual orientation gender identity and/or expression marital civil union or domestic partnership status or any other status protected by federal state or local laws.

Commit does not sponsor visas of any kind.