26-27 School Leader

We anticipate beginning interviews in mid-to-late January 2026 and the full process concluding by March 2026 with July 2026 start dates. Applications received after January will be considered on a rolling and as-needed basis.

Heres what youll be doing:

Instructional Leadership

• Drives and owns all instructional results for all students
• Strong content knowledge: knows essential content rigor of standards and highly effective teaching strategies well enough to establish and maintain a standard and coach it; can readily adapt to leverage resources across less-known or more nuanced subject areas
• Develops the capacity of leaders in driving results and developing teacher/leader capacity through  observations walkthroughs real-time coaching and data analysis through O3s focused on student data and coaching towards goals weekly walkthroughs and frequent observation of leader work
• Leads weekly conversations with the school leadership team focused on progress monitoring student achievement data and establishing strategies to meet school-wide goals; delegates system of instructional leadership expectations to the team
• Develops intervention systems that address gaps in sub-groups of students based on race gender SPED or other identity markers.
• Maximize the impact of formal PD time (including Content Team Meetings) by ensuring all sessions are well-planned and ample practice is prioritized such that it results in improved teacher effectiveness

Student Culture

• Establishes a clear vision for excellent school culture and regularly articulates this vision to leaders students staff and families
• Consistently reinforces high expectations for all students all the time
• Actively develops a school culture where students find joy in learning and where students are joyful and engaged
• Creates a culture in which teachers build strong and lasting relationships with students especially the most challenging
• Develops upholds maintains and course-corrects clearly articulated systems for how the school culture will function (e.g. behavior recognition consequences)
• School meets all org-mandated federal and state student compliance expectations

Staff Culture

• Establish a clear vision for excellent school culture and regularly articulate this vision to leaders students staff and families
• Consistently reinforces high expectations for all staff all the time
• Actively develops a school culture where teachers find joy in teaching and student learning
• Develops clearly articulated systems for how the staff culture will function (e.g. staff attendance coverage etc.)

Community Engagement

• Engages families and community stakeholders proactively and productively as partners in school goals. Performs this through various opportunities for families to engage (e.g. virtual and in-person Town Hall events)
• Creates a culture and expectation that teachers reach out to parents and enlist their proactive support in their childs long-term success 

Talent Management

• Actively seeks to recruit cultivate and retain high-quality candidates; prioritizes building a diverse staff and emphasizing staff that share similar backgrounds as our students
• Identifies top-performing teachers and leaders at regular points throughout the school year and works strategically to retain them
• Manages struggling performers through goal setting and increased support and manages out underperformers where necessary.

Strengthen the Network

• Provides input to strengthen regional support seeks to cultivate a partnership rather than an us-them relationship and proactively works to ensure a true feeling of team and family throughout the organization. Specifically:
• Collaborates with Achievement Directors and other Teaching & Learning TEAMmates to monitor achievement data and inform the instructional leadership development of Assistant Principals
• Prepare for and participate in regional selection progress monitoring calls and professional development
• Collaborates in a forthright manner with the Talent team to make sure hiring needs of their campus and other campuses are met
• Ensures that all school functions (ops electives instruction leadership etc.) have systems to coordinate and communicate with one another
• Attends monthly school leader PD to hone content and instructional expertise

Qualifications :

Bachelors Degree

• Demonstrated student achievement results from teachers and leaders that youve managed and coached
• Demonstrated success in developing leadership capacity in others 
• Demonstrated resilience and focus on student outcomes
• Ability to set direction across an entire school and motivate others to action 
• Adept at data analysis; ability to extract meaningful insights across school-wide data using pertinent software applications. 
• Expertise in what the school-wide academic standards and state assessments require of students knowledge and skills to demonstrate mastery; able to translate student mastery requirements into instructional plans and strategies  
• Deep understanding of appropriate application and differentiation of high-leverage instructional strategies (e.g. make kids sweat pacing stretch it etc.) based on comprehension of child development and pedagogy 
• Command of instructional design and the benefits and tradeoffs of school design decisions in driving student achievement 
• Preparing and maintaining accurate records. 
• Operating standard office equipment. 
• Operating classroom technology equipment (ie. smartboards projectors Chromebooks computers). 
• Strong critical thinking and problem-solving skills

Physical Requirements

The usual and customary methods of performing the jobs functions require the following physical demands:

• Prolonged periods of working at the computer and sitting at a desk.
• Travel to various school locations in Newark Camden Paterson and Miami.

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of this job.

Additional Information :

KIPP Team & Family offers a market-competitive starting salary range at $120000 for a Principal in Residence and starting at $128000-$143000 for a School Leader and may increase based on experience. Salary ranges at KIPP are set based upon the role level and function using benchmarks in the education and non-profit sectors and allow for growth within the role.  Individual compensation within this range will be set based on a variety of factors including but not limited to: relevant professional experience and qualifications; education skills and training and market conditions.  

In addition to a competitive salary we offer a generous benefits package including but not limited to the following:  

• Robust benefits that include medical dental and vision 
• Optional participation in the KIPP NJ 403b retirement plan including matching contributions
• A school-issued laptop
• Generous Time-Off including 3.5-4 school vacation weeks (depending on the year) allocated sick and personal days and an extended summer break 
• Up to 12 weeks 100% parental leave for primary caregivers
• Employer paid life insurance
• Extensive optional ancillary benefits including short term and long term disability and accident and hospital indemnity

Our organization is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race color sex gender age religion national origin citizen status marital status physical or mental disability military or veteran status sexual orientation gender identity or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. Our organization will make a reasonable accommodation to known physical or mental limitations of a qualified applicant or employee with a disability unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the operation of the organization. No questions on this application are asked for any unlawful purpose.

#LI-NJ

Remote Work :

No

Employment Type :

Full-time