Executive Director

Florida Atlantic University•Boca Raton, FL

15d

About The Position

FAU Lab Schools seeks an entrepreneurial, data-informed, results-oriented Executive Director to launch and lead The Carl A. DeSantis Center for Educational Strategy and Innovation. The Center was established through a $10 million, five-year catalytic investment from the Carl Angus DeSantis Foundation to scale proven practices from FAU Lab Schools across Palm Beach and Broward counties, throughout Florida, and nationally. The Executive Director will serve as the Center’s chief architect and champion, translating its five-year business plan into annual implementation plans; recruiting and leading the Center team; managing the Foundation grant with fiscal and programmatic accountability; and building measurement systems, partnerships, and revenue streams to sustain the Center beyond the initial investment. The role leads the Center’s operating model and expansion, professional learning and leadership development, school-model replication, measurement and evaluation, grant stewardship, partnerships and dissemination, financial sustainability, and organizational leadership. The position is based in Boca Raton. Salary is commensurate with experience. The position is subject to funding and is open until filled; it may close without prior notice.

Requirements

Master’s degree or higher in education, business, instructional design, organizational leadership, or a related field.
Five or more years of experience as a school district senior leader or principal supervisor, or ten or more years of experience as a school principal and school district leader.
Five or more years of experience building programs or strategic initiatives from concept through implementation, evaluation, and scale.
Experience managing grants or restricted funds, including budgets, compliance, and programmatic and financial reporting.
Demonstrated ability to use data, research, and performance measures to inform strategy and decision-making.
Experience managing complex budgets, personnel, contracts, timelines, and external partners.
Exceptional executive communication, presentation, relationship-building, analytical, and leadership skills.

Nice To Haves

Doctorate in education, organizational leadership, or a related field.
Knowledge of Florida K–12 education, school district operations, and educator preparation and leadership systems.
Knowledge of program evaluation, research design, key performance indicators, dashboards, and decision-science approaches.
Understanding of instructional design, learning science, adult learning, and learning management systems.
Experience developing conferences, institutes, speaker series, or other large-scale professional convenings.
Experience with university–K–12 partnerships, laboratory schools, or STEM, health care, or research workforce pathways.
Demonstrated success in donor stewardship and building partnerships across education, government, business, philanthropy, and health care.
Experience generating sustainable revenue through grants, philanthropy, sponsorships, consulting, licensing, or fee-based programming.
Demonstrated ability to lead multidisciplinary teams and align diverse stakeholders around common objectives.

Responsibilities

Translate strategic initiatives into implementation plans specifying responsibilities, milestones, deliverables, performance indicators, staffing, and costs.
Develop a portfolio of initiatives that balances immediate institutional and partner needs with innovation, measurable impact, scalability, and financial sustainability.
Recruit and onboard Center staff and establish infrastructure, including a Learning Management System, continuing education registration, and event operations.
Identify emerging education challenges, research, technologies, and workforce needs and translate them into programs, services, and partnerships.
Create a process to evaluate, test, launch, refine, and scale initiatives, using evidence to determine which to expand, redesign, or discontinue.
Assess professional and organizational learning needs and develop scalable educator-development, leadership-development, workforce-preparation, and organizational-improvement frameworks.
Expand teacher and leader professional learning with the Stiles-Nicholson STEM Teacher Academy and leadership partners to meet or exceed performance targets.
Develop and award micro-credentials and STEM certifications, and design virtual courses delivered through the Learning Management System.
Design innovation-focused curricula that prepare leaders to anticipate workforce needs and move from compliance management to innovation architecture.
Apply instructional-design, adult-learning, and talent-development principles to produce measurable changes in participants’ practice.
Identify, recruit, and cultivate faculty, practitioners, industry experts, presenters, and nationally recognized subject-matter experts.
Provide consulting and implementation support to partner districts and expand the university lab-school partner network in Florida and nationally.
Support annual Center and research-site visits for school and district leaders, educators, and policymakers.
Develop and disseminate replication blueprints, toolkits, and implementation guides documenting FAU Lab Schools programs and conditions for success.
Engage school districts statewide, with the goal of reaching all 67 Florida school districts over the grant period.
Partner with the FAU Lab Schools’ Research Director to expand Research Communities of Practice and the Action Research Fellows program statewide.
Build and maintain a five-year outcome measurement framework, including definitions, baselines, annual targets, data sources, collection frequency, and responsible staff.
Develop measures of changes in teacher practice and leadership behavior and use valid methods to demonstrate change, including matched pre- and post-assessments, follow-up, and verified student-reach estimates.
Oversee dashboards and decision-support tools that help leaders understand performance, anticipate challenges, and allocate resources.
Partner with faculty, researchers, and data scientists to design studies, evaluate innovations, and advance responsible uses of artificial intelligence and predictive analytics in education.
Establish feedback loops using outcome data, stakeholder input, and financial results to improve programs and guide investment.
Manage the Foundation grant in accordance with its agreement, approved annual budgets, and performance commitments.
Prepare mid-year and year-end programmatic and financial reports comparing actual performance and expenditures with targets, explaining material variances, and documenting lessons and corrective actions.
Oversee accurate tracking and reporting of participants, activities, results, and expenditures by county, and maintain clear separation between the catalytic grant and other awards.
Establish strategic partnerships with universities, school districts, government agencies, foundations, corporations, organizations, and research institutions.
Develop external advisory relationships and networks to identify trends, opportunities, technologies, research, and promising practices.
Position the Center as a trusted convener for education, research, business, government, and philanthropy leaders.
Develop a dissemination strategy encompassing publications, policy briefs, practitioner guides, case studies, digital resources, and state and national conference presentations.
Translate complex research and analytical results into clear, actionable information for practitioners, policymakers, and donors.
Represent the Center with senior university, education, government, philanthropic, corporate, and community leaders.
Collaborate with FAU Lab Schools leadership to develop additional revenue streams and develop business cases for major initiatives.
Support cultivation of foundations, donors, corporations, and government entities that can support or scale the Center’s work.
Manage budgets, personnel, contracts, vendors, and timelines with accountability and fiscal responsibility.
Recruit, develop, and lead a multidisciplinary team across education, research, analytics, professional learning, business development, communications, and program implementation.
Coordinate with FAU Lab Schools’ staff and faculty as needed; establish priorities, responsibilities, performance expectations, and accountability.
Lead cross-functional initiatives involving university units, FAU colleges, and external organizations.
Communicate strategy, evidence, performance, and recommendations to the Superintendent, university and school leadership, and the Foundation.
Foster responsible experimentation, measured results, captured lessons, and translation of successful innovations into broader practice.