Principal in Residence - Ascend Public Charter Schools

Ascend principals in residence (PIRs) work closely with their mentor principal as the academic and cultural leaders of an Ascend school. Our PIRs are passionate about developing their staff and rally their teams to achieve ambitious school goals. Through the intentional creation of vibrant school communities, PIRs inspire staff and students to engage in rigorous and purposeful learning. They succeed when those under their care succeed, and they develop enduring and joyful relationships with students, teachers, and parents.

In addition to shadowing their host principal and getting coaching by their principal and network leaders, PIRs participate in hands-on, collaborative professional development sessions throughout the year, which are led by network directors with backgrounds in school leadership or other relevant specialized expertise. As part of this training, PIRs engage in individualized stretch projects that support a growth area aligned to the needs of the school. Additionally, they serve as an assistant principal for at least one grade or department within their host school, leading and managing all aspects of the assistant principal role. PIR will mentor a small cohort of AP.

The principal in residence role is an ideal opportunity for a dynamic and visionary individual to play a central leadership role in growing and shaping one of our high-performing public charter schools, part of a broader network committed to ensuring our students have the knowledge, confidence and character to succeed in college and beyond.

Join us as we foster our students’ innate curiosities, encourage discussion and debate, and guide students to think, imagine, debate, and create.

Why Ascend

Ascend is the largest Brooklyn-based public charter school serving nearly 6,000 K-12 students in 16 schools. We exist to serve every student – to help them embody their inherent excellence by providing rich, joyful learning experiences that unlock a life of boundless choice.

Access to education is a social justice issue. As educators, we center justice and live out our commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism (DEIA) by ensuring that our students have the skills, tools, and confidence they need to thrive today and in the future. We are proud to have a workforce that mirrors the diversity seen in our students. Working at Ascend provides a community focused on developing an environment of support and belonging. Educators collaborate closely and encourage each other to achieve great outcomes.

Our schools honor, nurture, and challenge the whole child. Ascend fosters critical thinking skills and a love of learning through an inquiry-based learning approach, Responsive Classroom model, and anti-racist education. Students at Ascend benefit from a rich and rigorous liberal arts curriculum that nurtures natural curiosity about the world and guides them to think critically and independently.

Ascend invests in employees by providing ongoing professional development, coaching, and career pathways in our schools. We are proud to provide a generous benefits package, which includes flexibility in our healthcare plan, and 403(b) matching starting at year one. At Ascend, we care about our workforce’s mental health and offer services covered by insurance and additional time off for our staff to utilize for their personal care.

For more information on Ascend Public Charter Schools’ model, approach, and core values, please visit our website.

Curriculum and instruction

• Develops school’s ability to foster a culturally responsive classroom
• Collaborates with curriculum team to plan and execute curriculum and instruction that fosters student growth, creativity, and agency through aligned, culturally relevant materials and pedagogy
• Partners with principal to lead a team of secondary leaders to strengthen teachers knowledge of highest priority standards and inquiry-based instructional practices
• Manages partnership of leadership team and special educations team to ensure that all students, including those with exceptionalities, have the access and support needed to achieve

School culture

• Establishes and leads a culture that results in a love of learning, student agency, and full range of student learning and growth
• Builds an engaged, diverse, and inclusive school community
• Creates, leads, and maintains a culture where team members innovate in an effort to ensure equity gaps are eliminated and college and career readiness is a reality for all students

Racial equity mindset

• Creates and sustains a race equity culture, including skill building and leading self and others through awareness, growth, and development
• Continuously strengthens personal and staff knowledge and expertise in effective instructional design and academic standards with DEIA considerations in conjunction with the curriculum team

Effective teaming

• Establishes, manages, and develops strong teams that collaborate, communicate, and work together for Ascend students and community
• Observes and coaches instructional staff, and leaders leading to pedagogical growth and student achievement
• Leads coaching and development for a group of assistant principals
• Plans and leads professional development that results in improved pedagogy and student achievement at school site and for network training days
• Utilizes meaningful feedback of students, staff, families, and community to strengthen school programs and policies
• Creates, executes, and evaluates diagnostic assessments, plans, coaching, and evaluations to ensure development of all staff

Strategic leadership

• Works collaboratively and flexibly to create, evaluate, and improve systems and decision-making processes that strengthens outcomes
• Creates and strengthens a data-driven and data-hungry culture that relentlessly seeks continuous improvement
• Creates, strengthens, and maintains academic and culture systems and procedures

Whole student focus

• Establishes, fosters, and sustains a culture of academic success and social-emotional development through partnerships with students, staff, families, and community
• Creates and sustains a warm, welcoming, and inclusive environment for scholars, families and staff
• Creates and implements a vision that exhibits a deep belief in the potential of all students and leads to improvement for all learners
• Engages families and communities in support of child’s learning and school learning goals

Operational management

• Supervises effective use of resources and creates and executes on systems and processes to support the short and long term goals of the school
• Develops systems and structures to hire and retain diverse, highly-effective staff

Technological fluency

• Selects and uses technological tools and coaches others in their use to strengthen school results and student achievement
• Leverages technology platforms to inform planning and decision-making in support of school goals and operations

Staff and reporting relationships

The principal in residence reports to the principal.

• Bachelor’s degree, with advanced degree preferred
• At least three years teaching experience with a proven track record of elevating student achievement
• At least two years of experience leading, managing, and coaching a team of adults that demonstrates ability to drive results through others
• A hunger for feedback and self-improvement
• A high level of ownership over the overall outcomes of the scholars they lead
• Strong collaboration, interpersonal and communication skills, including working effectively with people from diverse backgrounds and with diverse perspectives
• Strong organizational, self-management, and problem-solving skills with the ability to handle many responsibilities simultaneously
• Self-awareness, with an ability to treat all members of the school’s community with respect and an accurate idea of one’s own strengths and weaknesses
• Ability to be a bold, tireless, and engaging change agent and culture-creator
• Skilled in content and pedagogy as evidenced by quantitative and qualitative data
• Demonstrated success using data to drive instruction
• Alignment with the educational philosophy and core beliefs of Ascend Learning

Compensation

Initial salary offers for this position range from $105,000 - $115,000. Salaries are determined using an equitable compensation scale that accounts for years of experience and levels of attained education.

Diversity at Ascend

Ascend is committed to building a diverse and inclusive community, both through our hiring practices and our focus on creating a culture and environment where diverse perspectives, ideas, and identities are valued and integrated into our way of working and educating students. Ascend staff represent a wide diversity of racial, socio-economic, gender, religious, and national identities—opening a window to the entire Ascend community on the richness of humanity. We welcome all applicants who share our mission and vision to join us in our deeply consequential work.