Director of Testing

Gaston County Schools•Gastonia, NC

6d•Onsite

About The Position

Under limited supervision, performs a variety of supervisory, professional, and administrative tasks in directing the administration for all kinds of State and local tests for the district, and facilitates improving student achievement through administering State and local tests and assessments smoothly. Work involves providing departmental leadership, working closely with Accountability Department, other divisions, school, regional, and State testing coordinators. Employee also works with inside and outside agencies to share information and determine the most effective means of administering all kinds of tests. Employee supervises testing coordinators, and testing personnel.

Requirements

Extensive knowledge of educational laws, policies, rules, regulations, best practices and trends, and regulations related to testing procedures and standards.
Thorough knowledge of testing and evaluation in general.
Special knowledge of North Carolina testing programs including regular EOG tests, EOC tests, and all alternative tests for special needs students, as well as local tests and assessments.
Thorough knowledge of program guidelines and professional standards.
Considerable knowledge of the North Carolina Standard Course of Study/Common Core and Essential Standards.
Considerable knowledge of School Board policies, procedures, and standards regarding education and testing.
Considerable knowledge of the current legislature, literature, trends, methods, and developments in the areas of assessment and testing.
Considerable knowledge of the ethical guidelines applicable to the position as outlined by professional organizations and/or federal, state and local laws, rules, and regulations.
General knowledge of the principles of organization, supervision, and administration.
General knowledge of database, statistics, and graphical software available.
Skilled in training and supporting school administration, testing coordinators, and other staff.
Ability to compare and/or judge the readily observable, functional, structural or composite characteristics (whether similar or divergent from obvious standards) of data, people or things.
Ability to prepare correspondence, reports, forms, charts, graphs, statistical analysis, etc., using prescribed formats and conforming to all rules of punctuation, grammar, diction, and style.
Ability to speak to a variety of people with poise, voice control, and confidence.
Ability to apply principles of logical or scientific thinking to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions; to interpret an extensive variety of technical instructions in mathematical or diagrammatic form; and to deal with several abstract and concrete variables.
Ability to record and deliver information, to explain procedures, to follow oral and written instructions.
Must be able to communicate effectively and efficiently in a variety of technical and professional languages including statistical and educational research terminology.
Must be able to maintain confidentiality of district, school and student performance data.
Ability to utilize mathematical formulas; to add and subtract; multiply and divide; utilize decimals and percentages; and to apply the theories of algebra, descriptive statistics, statistical inference and statistical theory.
Ability to deal with people beyond giving and receiving instructions.
Must be adaptable to performing under stress and when confronted with persons acting under stress.
Ability to maintain complete and accurate records and to develop meaningful reports, charts and graphs from them.
Ability to use common office machines and word processing, spreadsheet, and file maintenance programs.
Ability to establish and effective working relationships as necessitated by work assignments.

Nice To Haves

Master’s Degree preferred.
Outstanding references from current and former supervisors required.

Responsibilities

Organizes, directs, and evaluates all subordinates in the Testing Administration department.
Sets goals for the department, and directs testing administration programs.
Executes, monitors, and evaluates the progress of the programs.
Develops an annual written testing plan for the school system and disseminates to each school before the beginning of the school year.
Creates annual testing schedule, delivers the schedule to the schools on time, and produces testing administration reports based on State testing schedule and local assessment needs.
Works closely with other departments, schools, regional, and State testing coordinators.
Directs and coordinates the work of testing coordinators and testing personnel.
Provides leadership in administering all types of State and local tests and assessments.
Provides leadership in school and district procedures for state and federal accountability models.
Trains school testing coordinators.
Guides school testing personnel in administering the tests; makes sure that all the tests and assessments are administered smoothly and appropriately.
Secures all testing materials and documents through guiding all testing coordinators, and testing personnel to follow State and local testing ethics and rules.
Collects, processes, certifies, and submits all test data and other information to NCDPI for the purpose of state and federal accountability measures.
Prepares and provides materials to the Chief Accountability Officer for presentations to the Board of Education, principals, teachers, parents, and community groups.
Attends regular meetings of the Board of Education as designated by Chief Accountability Officer.
Conducts staff meetings.
Attends other related meetings.
Drafts letters, memoranda, and required NCDPI forms for the Chief Accountability Officer and Superintendent, as needed.
Reviews and edits departmental reports and other school system documents.
Supervises the maintenance of records, reports, inventories, and documentation of costs for budget preparation and to ensure the fiscal responsibility of the organization and is accountable for testing materials.
Stays current with professional journals and research papers; attends seminars, conferences, and workshops to continuously update professional knowledge.
Performs special projects as assigned by the Chief Accountability Officer.
Performs other related work as required.