Position: Principal/Cristo Rey Dallas College Prep
Reports to: President
12-month exempt employee
Member of the school’s senior leadership team
Principal Roles and Responsibilities (Job Description)
Catholic Identity and Cristo Rey Mission
- Ensures that the school’s Catholic identity, vision and mission drive school decisions and positively support all school stakeholders, ensuring liturgical practices, prayer, and Catholic culture are integrated into school life. Allocates time and resources for the work of Campus Ministry.
- Ensures that all members of the school community are treated fairly, equitably, and with respect and compassion. Protects the rights and confidentiality of students and staff.
- Actively participates in and supports the school-wide leadership team and promotes the integration and importance of Academics and CWSP as part of a college preparatory experience, ensuring clear communication of shared expectations for students.
- Actively participates in Network PD and takes advantage of Network coaching and support.
Teaching and Learning
- Conducts regular classroom observations, using a research-based framework, to maintain a visible and active leadership role throughout the building, as well as to provide teachers and classroom staff with valuable feedback to further develop their professional skills.
- Leads the implementation of the common, rigorous, college-ready CRN curriculum so that all students can achieve at high levels.
- Implements cycles of formative/interim assessments and analysis to monitor student progress, identify and prioritize needs and to determine team and individual responses in alignment to those needs.
- Plans and executes a program of professional development informed by instructional data, school culture data and student achievement that is aligned to the school’s instructional vision and collaborative.
School Culture and Family Involvement
- Develops a school culture that values the unique gifts that all staff, students and families bring, works to guarantee an inclusive school environment, and ensures that parents are welcomed and an integral part of the school community.
- Creates a culture of continuous improvement that focuses on high expectations and high support, drawing particular attention to equity gaps and commits to their elimination.
- Models school values and mindsets and holds self and others accountable to maintaining the standards for adult culture, including actively promoting the regular exchange of affirming and adjusting feedback among members of staff, including vertical feedback provided to managers.
- Develops strategies for meaningful and reciprocal family and community engagement.
Strategic Planning
- Develops a detailed, compelling vision for excellence that encompasses academics, school culture, community engagement, alumni engagement (where applicable), and partnership with corporate work-study, and reflects critical understanding of students’ cultural identities, as well as the Catholic identity of the Cristo Rey Network. Consult with stakeholders to incorporate understanding of context and secure investment, as well as have a plan to leverage the resources of the Cristo Rey Network.
- Establishes concrete, ambitious, meaningful medium- and long-term goals that serve as qualitative and quantitative indicators of students’ college-readiness. Determine the interim metrics for success that can be tracked and achieved to monitor progress toward longer-term goals.
- Backwards plan strategies and align actions, communications, and strategies with the vision for excellence.
- Develops a multi-year strategic plan, in consultation with the president and other key stakeholders, that is backwards planned to achieve the vision of excellence, incorporating knowledge of current realities and progress-to-goals.
- Predicts the needs of staff, students, and families in pursuing the strategic plan, anticipate barriers, and develop measures to ensure effectiveness and plan for contingencies.
- Designs and executes processes and systems for progress monitoring goals and metrics across all critical areas of the strategic plan.
Allocation of Resources and Expectations for School Personnel
- Audits time, personnel and resources to ensure college-readiness for all students.
- Sets and communicates clear expectations for excellence and defines responsibilities for all staff and delegates tasks and responsibilities in ways that are consistent with role definitions and maximizes the impact of teach team member under the principal’s chain of management.
- Develops and executes strategies to improve performance of staff over time and holds staff members accountable, including individual coaching and support plans and performance improvement plans.
- Monitors progress on multiple work streams and individual expectations, acknowledges progress and successes, and intervenes in a prompt, direct, and professional way to address gaps when needed.
- Consistently follows federal and state policy and establishes high bar for professionalism and discretion when handling personnel issues.
Additional Skills
Strong written and oral communication skills
Ability to anticipate barriers and needs
Critical thinking and prioritization
Collaborating with others and gathering input when assessing progress-to-goal and developing strategies and solutions
Motivating and influencing others to achieve
Ability to build relationships with a diverse staff
Desire to receive feedback on their professional growth and ability to transfer feedback to practice
Bilingual (Spanish) highly desirable
Qualifications
· Master’s degree in an educational field preferred
· Three to five years of experience in school leadership preferred
· A commitment to Catholic education
· Demonstrated ability to connect with low-income students and families
· Demonstrated ability to serve as the faith leader of the school
· Proven background in curriculum design, teacher supervision, and data analysis
· Demonstrated understanding of the college qualification and acceptance process
· Background in designing and executing school improvement plans.
· A commitment to personal/professional integrity and moral character
· Fluency in Spanish preferred
Interested applicants should send a cover letter with resume to principalsearch@cristoreydallas.org by January 31, 2021
