JDE: 2.24

Executive Director for Secondary Schools

Purpose Statement

The Executive Director for Secondary Schools is responsible for providing leadership and support to the district secondary schools; ensuring alignment of secondary schools' Plans for Continuous Improvement with the school district's strategic plan; optimizing resources for secondary school communities to achieve the school and district goals. The Executive Director for Secondary Schools builds capacity, provides leadership development, and executive coaching  to secondary school leaders across the district.  The goal is to increase and accelerate the overall effectiveness  of the instructional service delivery system for students; so as to significantly increase student achievement.

Job Title:  Executive Director for Secondary Schools

Salary Range: Grade 21

Benefit Summary: A

Contract: 279 Contract / 12 months

Reports To: Assistant Superintendent

Wage/Hour Status:  Exempt

Minimum Qualifications:

• Experience:  Five (5)  years of successful experience in school administration and/or teaching experience in secondary education.
• Education:  Masters  in Education, Educational Leadership, or related field. 
• License: Iowa Board of Education Examiners (BOEE) Professional Administrator License and Evaluator License.

Essential Functions 

Board & Community Relations: 

• Provide information to board members upon request, as directed by the Superintendent or Assistant Superintendents. 
• Promote a positive image that supports the vision and mission of the district. 
• Demonstrate effective interpersonal skills in relating to and communicating with staff, families, school board, community and media. 
• Promote an open collegial environment among staff and develop positive staff morale.

Budget: 

• Identify and communicate staffing needs through consultation with appropriate district administrators. 
• Support budget decisions and expenditures for assigned schools.
• Ensure alignment of resources with the system's priorities and strategic plan for assigned schools. 

Communication: 

• Maintain a positive and effective working relationship with the Superintendent, Board, Assistant Superintendents, leadership teams, principals, coworkers, employees, outside agencies and organizations, and the general public.
• Effectively communicate with colleagues. 
• Provide outstanding customer service. 
• Maintain good judgment and decision making when dealing with supervisors, principals, co-workers, District officials and employees, and outside agencies and organizations, and the general public.

Personnel Management: 

• Supervise, monitor, and evaluate performance of secondary principals, ensuring adherence to established policies, procedures and standards; advises and assists subordinates, as necessary, resolving problems as situations arise. 
• In coordination with  Human Resources, provides support to secondary administrators in staffing of all secondary positions and ensure support for inducting and retaining personnel. 
• In collaboration with Human Resources, provides assistance and support to building principals in evaluating and supporting marginal staff. 
• Assess principal quality and effectively plan for, facilitate, and/or execute school leadership transitions as needed (including succession planning).
• Promote an open collegial environment among staff and develop positive staff morale.
• Provide input to the superintendent of schools and the assistant superintendent (s) in the selection and assignment of school administrators.

Policy, Reports & Law: 

• Maintain an aligned 6-12 grade instructional program that addresses state, local, and federal requirements to ensure academic achievement.  
• Monitor and interpret the impact of proposed or enacted legislation related to secondary programs. 
• Provide input on the development of policies and administrative guidelines for areas of responsibility, and support the implementation of programmatic goals and objectives on a district-wide basis.
• Assist with the review, development and maintenance of current policies and administrative guidelines related to secondary programming.
• Prepare and present agenda items and related information related to secondary programming. 

School Organizational Climate: 

• Promote a positive image that supports the vision and mission of the district. 
• Promote an open, collegial environment among staff and develop positive staff morale. 
• Use collaborative decision-making with the staff, when appropriate, and within given time constraints.
• Demonstrate sensitivity in dealing with employees, applicants, and community members from diverse cultural backgrounds. 
• Demonstrate effective interpersonal skills in relating to employees, applicants,  school board, and community, and skills in anticipating, managing, and resolving conflict. 
• Appropriately assess school district climate in conjunction with employees, parents, and others; use findings to maintain or improve conditions. 

Secondary Schools Management:

• Develop an overall strategic plan for the district’s secondary schools. Defines critical issues, identifies resource requirements, and sets bold, measurable, and achievable goals focused on student academic growth.
• Foster meaningful relationships with families and community stakeholders to support the learning of all students.
• Differentiate resources and support to schools in accordance with their building needs and student achievement goals
• Leverage the resources of Central Office departments and teams and coordinate their delivery in the best interests of principals, their leadership teams, and schools' building improvement plans
• Pursue the district's goals for diversity, equity and inclusion, with a particular focus on ensuring equitable access to high-quality instruction for students and eliminating disproportionality.
• Develop the ability of principals and their instructional leadership teams to develop, implement and monitor a strategic plan that helps meet student achievement goals. This includes assisting principals and their teams in engaging in root cause analyses, developing theories of action and building coherent multi-year strategies.
• Support building leaders in data analysis and goal setting and the development and implementation of their school's building improvement plan BIP, including the change management process needed to implement transformation initiatives at the school-level.
• Work with school leaders to closely monitor school improvement through a cycle of continuous improvement and sound management practices.
• Assess the leadership capacity of each principal by developing an individualized administrator professional development Plan (IAPDP) conducting regular performance evaluations to support the goals in the IAPDPs.
• Support, maintain and evaluate the implementation of standard work (MTSS, PLC, PBIS, SRG, Curriculum, Professional Growth).
• Provide frequent, actionable feedback to assist principals and their leadership teams in improving in their leadership practice and achieve better results.
• Serve as liaison between principals and the Assistant Superintendents. 
• Work with principals to resolve school-based concerns and problems.
• Consider differences within the school’s instructional practices to determine whether effective variations should become part of the school’s core program. 
• Consider and adapt to the effects of social and technological developments on teaching and learning. 
• Monitor implementation of safe school programs and resolve situations between schools, parents, and community.
• Monitor school progress through feedback from students, teachers, principals, directors, superintendents, the Board of Education, business leaders, consultants and parents. 
• Receive suggestions, advice and general feedback on the operations of schools; helps ensure an open line of communication across the school system hierarchy, bringing insight from all levels to incorporate in policy and decision-making. 
• Conduct on-site observations of assigned schools in the system; provides feedback, support and suggestions to principals; conducts and documents formal evaluations of principals.
• Assist principals with decision-making and problem solving; plans and develops programs to be implemented across assigned schools; assists in the implementation of district initiatives; monitors the results of programs implemented; develops policies, standards and a vision for assigned schools.
• Plan, organize, facilitate  professional development and training for principals.
• Assist principals in the development of appropriate professional development programs. 

Other Functions

• Develop a high-performing community of principals who leverage one another's strengths and support one another in achieving shared goals. This may include via principal meetings, peer mentoring, and/or individual job-embedded coaching focused on instructional leadership.
• Utilize current research in instructional leadership as a foundation for leadership coaching, feedback and development.
• Facilitate the secondary district leadership teams (DLT) in support of the district’s strategic plan, academic goals, and building improvement plans.
• Reinforce the mission of the district as well as cast the vision for district initiatives and standard work.  
• Collaborate with the Assistant Superintendent in developing communication systems that ensure the smooth flow of information (both vertically and horizontally), enable energy to be concentrated on the highest-priority goals for each school, and ensure best practices are shared across schools.
• Maintain confidentiality of privileged and sensitive information when received and distributed to appropriate designees as directed by the Superintendent or designee. 
• Attend professional growth activities to keep abreast of innovations related to position. 
• Exercise proactive leadership in promoting the vision and mission of the District and empower others to make decisions and carry out responsibilities in support of the District’s objectives. 
• Build synergistic partnerships among principals, managers, supervisors, employees, parents, businesses, and other community stakeholders. 
• Serve with other educational leaders on work groups, committees, and project action teams that directly support schools. 
• Maintain an organized work environment.
• Performs additional duties as assigned by the Assistant Superintendent.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Specific knowledge based competencies required to satisfactorily perform the functions of the job include:
• Instruction and assessment practices
• Child development, brain development and best practices in education
• Curriculum development
• Safety practices and procedures
• Conflict resolution
• Crisis de-escalation techniques

• Specific skill based competencies required to satisfactorily perform the functions of the job include: 
• Interact effectively with students, teachers/staff, the community  and parents
• Adhering to safety practices
• Operating standard office equipment including using pertinent software applications, preparing and maintaining accurate records
• Using district approved crisis intervention techniques

• Specific ability based competencies required to satisfactorily perform the functions of the job include: 
• Ability to schedule a significant number of activities, meetings and/or events
• Ability to establish and maintain constructive relationships
• Ability to work with a significant diversity of individuals and/or groups
• Ability to problem solve
• Budget management
• Adaptability to changing work priorities
• Maintaining confidentiality

Working Environment 

Mental Demands/Physical Demands/Environmental Factors:

The usual and customary methods of performing the position functions require the following physical demands:  significant lifting, carrying, pushing, pulling, climbing, reaching, driving, standing and walking. Working conditions may include extreme temperatures and humidity.  Hazards may include exposure to communicable diseases. This position requires one to maintain emotional control under stress. 

Responsibility

Responsibilities include: working independently under broad organizational guidelines to achieve unit objectives; directing other persons within a department, large work unit, and/or across several small work units; directing the use of budgeted funds within a work unit; utilization of some resources from other work units is often required to perform the job’s functions.  There is a continual opportunity to significantly impact the organization’s services.

Supervision

Carries out supervisory responsibilities in accordance with the organization’s policies and applicable laws. Is responsible for the overall direction, management, coordination, and evaluation of employees as assigned. 

Terms of Employment

Work year established by the Superintendent; Salary according to schedule adopted annually.

Clearances

Background Clearance

Evaluation

Job performance will be evaluated annually, as per district policies and procedures

The foregoing statements describe the general purpose and responsibilities assigned to this job and are not an exhaustive list of all responsibilities and duties that may be assigned or skills that may be required.

Approved by:     Justin Mohr                                           Date: October 9th, 2024

Ankeny Community School District is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.  It is the policy of the District to provide equal employment opportunities and not to illegally discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, religion, sex, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, color, age or marital status in its employment and personnel practices.  The job categories where the representative groups are underrepresented.