[2026-2027] Principal Elementary School

At KPPS the Principals primary role is to lead a strong coherent school system that delivers a joyful affirming and academically rigorous experience for students and staff.

Principals focus the majority of their time on instructional leadership adult development and school culture systems ensuring that high-quality teaching strong relationships and clear expectations are consistently experienced across the school.

Principals do not do this work alone. They lead in close partnership with the KPPS Regional Office collaborating with regional instructional leaders operations student support teams and talent partners to implement aligned systems analyze data and strengthen school-wide practices. Principals also work as part of a community of practice with fellow KPPS principals engaging in shared learning problem-solving and collective accountability to reduce variability and accelerate student outcomes across the region.

In addition KPPS Principals partner with the KIPP Foundation to align regional priorities with national initiatives leverage network-wide resources and contribute to the continuous improvement of KIPPs instructional leadership and student experience frameworks.

Through these partnerships Principals are expected to both lead their individual school effectively and contribute to the strength and coherence of the broader KPPS and KIPP network ensuring that students and families experience excellence regardless of school or grade.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

School Vision

• Establish communicate and build investment in an ambitious school-wide vision aligned to the KIPP Philadelphia region-wide vision for learning school experience and culture that sets the stage for both children and staff to grow and thrive
• Create a welcoming inclusive school environment and operate with a mindset of families as authentic partners in childrens school experience
• Operate with strong knowledge of the core academic and social-emotional skills knowledge and mindsets that are essential for childrens development and success across middle school ensuring that all students are challenged with rigorous grade-appropriate content
• Ensure that school programming effectively serves all students monitoring and enhancing special education intervention and student support services as needed ensuring compliance with state law
• Set a vision for student culture that ensures all children are affirmed valued and challenged on a daily basis and ensure that all student culture approaches systems and strategies are grounded in equity are clear effectively communicated and are implemented by all staff
• Plan and prioritize time and resources to achieve annual goals and the broader vision of the school analyzing and acting on data on a regular basis to identify plan for and drive the success of key initiatives and improvements in practice
• Prepare an annual operating school budget detailing projected revenues and expenditures conduct regular budget reviews to compare actual spending against projections adjusting for unforeseen changes.

Staff Culture

• Cultivate a positive cohesive leadership team culture grounded in mutual trust by developing and upholding shared norms regarding communication collaboration decision-making use of systems and more and creating opportunities for authentic relationship-building and coordination across workstreams
• Set a vision for adult culture rooted in our core values building a community bound by mutual trust and a shared purpose and pride in the schools vision
• Create and refine systems for communication and collaboration across school staff at large ensuring opportunities for authentic discourse and clarity
• Build relationships with every staff member child and family and create opportunities to understand and respond to staff leader student and family needs and perspectives

Staff Development & Coaching

• Directly coach develop and manage members of the leadership team via 1-1 check-ins observation walkthroughs feedback real-time feedback practice data analysis co-planning and other direct supports
• Create a culture of feedback continuous improvement and safety in trying new approaches
• Ensure teachers have the data development and consistent support needed to provide rigorous affirming high-quality instruction
• Sharpen and norm with APs on classroom analysis and classroom bar via walkthroughs
• Regularly observe and coach instructional coaches (Assistant Principals) to support them in providing high-impact actionable and bite-sized feedback to teachers on a weekly basis
• Ensure teachers can collaborate analyze their practice and their student data and adjust instruction in content teams
• Lead whole-school professional development workshops that drive high-impact improvements in teacher practice
• Cultivate a diverse high-potential school leadership pipeline (from teacher leader to AP to successor)
• Effectively interview select and onboard new staff members
• Operate with an intentional strategy regarding staff and teacher retention cultivating a desire for the team to make KPPS their long-term home

Student Experience & Family Engagement

• Create and model a warm inclusive school environment for students and families with diverse needs and experiences; proactively and positively engage with families throughout the school year and when there are specific student behavioral concerns.
• Be highly present and visible relentlessly ensuring the school has a strong school culture and serving as a model for engaging with students families and staff
• Ensure families are treated as true partners and are effectively engaged in and aware of school systems practices and student programming
• Refine the vision for positive student culture leveraging school context lessons learned and staff feedback to clarify the following:
  • The student experience KPPS is striving for and how this vision ensures students are valued affirmed and challenged everyday
  • The core mindsets adults in the building share about students families and culture work
  • The core mindsets staff are collectively working to foster among students
  • The concrete proactive and reactive practices and systems staff leverage in their work with students to restore trust repair harm build relationships create accountability communicate with all stakeholders (including staff and families) effectively and design and monitor interventions or supports
• Ensure all practices systems and protocols are clearly and consistently codified communicated and executed.
• Support the Dean team and Social Worker in
  • Ensuring that all KPPS students experience a scope and sequence of meaningful school traditions and milestones that foster community joy and collective identity
  • Ensuring KPPS students have access to a wide variety of meaningful after-school activities clubs and groups that align with their interests social needs and aspirations
  • Ensuring the disciplinary process is effectively executed including incident follow up/investigation team determination of next steps informal/formal hearing protocols and AEDY referral
  • Developing individual behavior plans and other supports for students with significant behavior needs (in conjunction with the Assistant Principal of Student Support) and ensure all student culture responses appropriately account for students with individual education plans
  • Ensuring all student safety and movement systems and procedures are fully operationalized communicated and codified including student arrival dismissal and transitions
  • Tracking and monitoring key school culture data coordinating collaboration with stakeholders and implementing responsive plans as needed
  • Effectively managing behavioral and emotional supports through the schools MTSS structure ensuring that students with demonstrated needs have access to evidence-based mental health supports
  • Amplifying KPPSs existing tutoring program ensuring the most critical academic needs are being addressed through tutoring and that the impact of tutoring supports is effectively monitored
  • Ensuring that students and their families or caretakers are connected to community resources and services

Leadership

• Model expectations for leaders teachers and students on school-wide practices for a positive learning culture including modeling our KPPS core values (Children First Community Cultural Competence Ownership)
• Operate with a management approach that centers staff members humanity operating with both high expectations and a high degree of care
• Operate with four core KPPS leadership mindsets:
  • Equity is Everything: Principals approach all of their work with an equity lens. Principals recognize and take responsibility for naming and tackling school and region-wide barriers to inclusiveness.
  • Change Management: Principals lead change fully supporting staff children and families in embracing a new way. Principals drive the investment collective ownership and operational systems needed for change to take root.
  • Make the Weather: Principals recognize and leverage daily opportunities to set the tone for the school and shape staff norms beliefs reactions and values.
  • Talent Mindset: Principals demonstrate a deep belief that people are a schools most precious resource by devoting significant energy to hiring developing and retaining a talented diverse team and cultivating strong staff culture.

WHO YOU ARE

• An experienced transformational leader
  • Experience leading transformational change and driving school improvement initiatives.
  • Demonstrated evidence in successfully leading turnaround efforts in a school setting resulting in significant academic gains.
  • Proven track record of setting and achieving rigorous academic standards aligned with school and district goals.
  • Ability to exercise excellent judgment in decision-making in light of complex and high stakes situations
• A proven people centered coach and leader
  • Ability to recruit hire lead and develop a team of exceptional educators to become future leaders as teacher leaders and school leaders.
  • The ability to envision set and drive a positive collaborative results-oriented staff culture
  • Proof of concretely improving performance of teachers and leaders in a school
  • Operate with a management approach that centers staff members humanity operating with both high expectations and a high degree of care
• Urgent and relentless in setting and holding a high bar for academics and culture
  • You have the ability to set direction and aligned expectations across an entire school and motivate others to action
  • You have demonstrated resilience and focus on student outcomes
  • Ability to articulate a vision for and operationalize the development of a safe healthy and joyful student culture.
  • Constantly models expectations for leaders teachers and students on school-wide practices for a positive learning culture including modeling our KPPS core values (Children First Community Cultural Competence Ownership)
• A leader who centers students and families
  • You love and see the high potential of all children possessing the belief that all students can and will succeed.
  • You operate with cultural competence and a commitment to inclusion anti-racism and the eradication of anti-Blackness 
  • You believe in parents and families as authentic partners in students school experience; ability to forge strong relationships with families
• An excellent instructional leader
  • You are adept at data analysis; ability to extract meaningful insights across school-wide data
  • You possess 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
  • You have a deep understanding of appropriate application and differentiation of high-leverage instructional strategies based on comprehension of child development and pedagogy. 
  • You have experience in implementing best practices for students with IEPS 504 plans and those who qualify for MTSS intervention.

Qualifications :

• Bachelors Degree required
• 3 years of experience leading (Principal experience required) a strong school that serves an under-resourced population.
• Exceptional relationship-building and interpersonal skills with the ability to connect quickly and authentically with diverse stakeholders
• Strong data analysis skills and the ability to use insights to drive decisions and improve systems
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills clear professional and compelling
• Highly organized; able to manage multiple workstreams meet deadlines and maintain accurate information
• Demonstrated ability to navigate change solve problems and work effectively in an ambiguous fast-paced environment
• Commitment to equity belief in the potential of all students and alignment with KPPSs mission and values.
• Openness to feedback continuous learning and personal/professional growth

Additional Information :

Compensation:

• Salary range for this position is $136000-$165750 commensurate with K-12 Principal experience or similar roles in K-12 settings that include a) directly coaching supporting and managing a team of leaders/managers (including instructional leaders) and b) accountability for school-wide performance and compliance.
• All full-time team members at KPPS enjoy a comprehensive health benefits package (including vision and dental a telehealth option and flexible spending accounts) for themselves and their families as well as a 403B matching program for retirement savings.

Note to Applicants: KIPP Philadelphia Schools is an equal opportunity employer. Employees are selected on
the basis of ability without regard to race color religion sex national origin disability
marital status or sexual orientation in accordance with federal and state law.

To apply visit Work :

No

Employment Type :

Full-time