Job Description

The mission of Success Academies is to reimagine public education. From the classroom to the halls of government, this means finding profoundly different approaches to how we structure, implement and support schooling. We re-conceive every aspect of school design, from writing rigorous new curricula to drawing regularly on the advances in technology and business that are transforming every sector except education. 

This year marks the 15th anniversary of Success Academies and the launch of our mission to reimagine public education as an excellent, efficient and equitable pillar of American society. During this time, Success Academies has grown faster than any charter network in the nation, building a vibrant network of 47 elementary, middle and high schools. Our over 20,000 children – mostly poor and minority – are out-performing students at top city and suburban schools across New York State. Within the next decade, our goals are even more ambitious: to grow to 100 schools and to educate 50,000 children across New York City in a uniquely holistic pre-k-12 system, bringing transformational change here and across the country through extraordinary school quality. A short-hand for the sum total of the factors that shape our scholars’ educational experience, schools quality is our responsibility as educators -- developing students (starting in kindergarten and culminating in 12th grade) who are thoroughly prepared at every stage of their journey, from elementary school to middle school; from middle school to high school; and ultimately, to excel in higher education and in life. At 100 schools, we will graduate 3,000 scholars each year who are prepared to enter, persist and graduate from college and eventually to lead in business, government and civic realms. 

In support of our ambition, our Network Schooling department has been working to become the engine of schooling excellence through its management of schools and school quality, its execution of K-12 schooling services and support, and its engagement of our families. Truly reimagining and rapidly scaling schooling excellence to achieve extraordinary school quality requires Schooling to do even more -- more transformational change in “what we do” and “how we do the work”. It also requires more dedicated leadership and management capacity to plan, shape and drive this change as we deliver on the day to day. To best position us to tackle this challenge, we will establish Schooling Planning & Management, a new capability within Schooling that will support our Chief Schooling Officer in devising, leading and executing new and different strategies to help achieve our schooling excellence goals while ensuring continuous improvement in Schooling’s performance. 

Our intent is to swiftly establish the Schooling Planning & Management capability and source requisitely skilled talent which includes a new leadership position, Head of Schooling Planning & Management. This position will report into our Chief Schooling Officer, LaMae de Jongh. As a key member of the Schooling Management Team, this role must work closely with many constituents, including Network and School Leadership and will have responsibility for: 

Schooling Planning and Performance 

• Stewardship of Schooling’s departmental planning and goal setting that involves the establishment, continuous build-out and maintenance of a multi-year departmental strategy and roadmap that allows achievement of our schooling excellence goals and mitigation of our enterprise risks. 

• Execution of Schooling’s departmental planning to ensure optimal alignment with our overall enterprise-wide strategy, the deployment of our resources and financial investments. 

• Direct day to day management and execution of certain cross departmental change initiatives. 

• Leveraging work done to date, definition, maintenance and reporting on key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor Schooling financial and non-financial performance. Once established, use of KPIs to analyze gaps and trends in our Schooling performance, and working with the Chief Schooling Officer and Schooling Management Team to take appropriate actions. 

• Hand in hand with monitoring Schooling performance, continuous identification, assessment and mitigation of risks that may impact performance and sustainability; establishment of a process to assess the impact that Schooling’s work is having on mitigating enterprise risks. 

Schooling EDGE Office 

• At Success Academies, we have embraced a systematic approach to problem solving and process improvement using Danaher Corporation’s patented methodology -- this approach is Success EDGE; Schooling Planning & Management will be Schooling’s EDGE Champion -- leading on applying this methodology within Schooling to effect the desired transformational change. 

• Working closely with our Chief Schooling Officer, Schooling Management Team and Success EDGE Office, definition and prioritization of the highest impact, yet highly inefficient processes to apply EDGE tools and processes within Schooling; and the application of EDGE methodologies and execution of EDGE projects to help realize targeted and radical improvements. 

• Competency development within Schooling in EDGE processes and tools with emphasis on Problem Solving Process, Visual and Daily Management, and Transactional Process Improvement. 

Project Unity Office 

• Establishment of dedicated day to day oversight of the planning and execution of work to preempt current and ongoing labor related threats, which is a “must” for Success Academies’ sustainability. 

• Coordination across a broad base of constituents, including third party advisors and consultants, to execute against the plan while integrating the measures being taken into the natural rhythm of our day-to-day operation. 

• Executive Leadership and Board-level reporting and updates on an agreed upon cadence. 

The Head of Schooling Planning & Management will be responsible for leading and managing a team that will support the day to day execution of the work. He/She will need to set out clear expectations, roles and responsibilities for team members and hold them accountable for delivering agreed upon outcomes. The Head of Schooling Planning & Management is someone who … 

• Exhibits leadership and managerial excellence, and the ability and desire to cultivate this capacity in others; 

• Effectively collaborates with broad base of constituents to achieve desired outcomes; â— Has exceptional communication skills; 

• Is flexible and comfortably adept with managing complexity and ambiguity; â— Is a quick study and is eager to learn schooling; and 

• Is committed to our dual mission of disrupting public education to provide greater access to high quality education.