Principal

Hamilton County Schools•Chattanooga, TN

About The Position

Hamilton County Schools is committed to excellence for every student. With nearly 75 schools across the district, we are focused on helping all students thrive and experience a future without limits. Learn more about our schools and our Opportunity 2030 strategic plan. Learn more about working for Hamilton County Schools at careers.hcde.org and get to know us and our strategic plan, Opportunity 2030. The purpose of this job is to provide effective instructional leadership and school operations. Major responsibilities include instructional leadership, people centered management, organizational management, student development, facility maintenance and management, fiscal management activities, and developing effective community relations. East Lake Academy of Fine Arts is a 6-8 magnet school located in Chattanooga, TN. We are a community school and offer a wide range of activities before and after school for our students including aquaponics and Tech Goes Home. We work on building capacity and preparing future leaders for promotion opportunities. We support our teachers through a new teacher mentor program with informal support and feedback. We have monthly opportunities for professional development including technology, classroom management, and curriculum planning. Our teachers enjoy stipends for extra planning before and after school and on weekends. We are looking for teachers who take initiative and who are coachable, flexible, student-focused, collaborative, and team players.

Requirements

Master’s degree and current valid Tennessee administrative license are required.
Successful classroom teaching experience and successful administrative experience are required.
Demonstrate excellent verbal and written communication skills to deal effectively with students, educators, parents, and community members.
Demonstrate excellent planning, organizational, problem-solving, decision-making, and time management skills.

Responsibilities

Instructional Leadership
Clear & Compelling Vision
Collaboratively creates and communicates a clear, compelling vision of high academic achievement and growth
Establish a clear focus and inspire others by gaining buy-in and commitment
Serve as a change agent by actively challenging the status quo to eliminate opportunity and achievement gaps
Inspire and lead new and challenging innovations for high achievement and growth
Build and maintain high expectations for continuous student growth and academic achievement with supportive accountability systems
Sustain a data-driven vision by setting challenging goals with appropriate, relevant milestones for progress monitoring
Conduct classroom observations, identify effective instructional planning and delivery instruction and provide actionable feedback that results in improved student learning
Build capacity of educators to provide all students a rigorous standards-based curriculum that is culturally responsive
Ensure students master grade-level standards by aligning curriculum, instruction and assessments
Build systems for professional learning communities and high quality common planning
People Centered Management
Balanced Leadership and Capacity Building
Provides clear expectations for staff performance and communicates success and needed improvements regularly.
Create structures that systematically gather input and empower teachers as decision makers
Implement and monitor a rigorous evaluation system and use educator evaluation data to inform, assess, and adjust differentiated professional learning plans, performance improvement plans and goals
Maintain a robust talent management system that displays effective recruitment, interview, and selection skills that lead to quality hiring decisions
Develop structures for mentoring used to induct, support, retain, grow and extend effective educators based on evidence of student and educator outcomes
Empower teachers to use their collective strengths, skills and experiences to own and lead teams, trainings and innovative initiatives
Family Involvement and Communities
Include a diverse set of educators and stakeholders in school improvement planning and decision-making
Develop structures to actively involve families in the education of their children targeting academically focused engagement
Strategically utilize, align, and measure community resources and partners to equitably support the school’s mission, vision, and goals
Ensure that the school community communicates regularly with families regarding student progress and needs
Partner with community allies to provide whole-child supports
Organizational and Systems Management
Culture of Care within a Purposeful Community
Foster a safe, orderly, culturally responsive and equitable learning environment for all stakeholders
Communicate effectively with all stakeholders
Resolve conflict positively and directly
Embrace diverse points of view and foster an environment that is comfortable with dissent
Develop structures to actively engage student, staff, parent, and community voice with a keen awareness to the voices that are often overlooked
Reflect regularly, accurately assesses personal strengths and growth areas, and seek feedback and professional development to improve
Management
Collaboratively create and monitor school action plans with an intentional focus on prioritizing marginalized students and subgroups
Collect, analyze, and uses multiple forms of data to make decisions
Identify problems, analyze root causes and develop effective resolution strategies
Systematically monitor and adjust progress toward established goals and facilitate procedures and practices leading to improvement by utilizing a continuous improvement process
Demonstrate the ability to prioritize appropriately
Demonstrate the flexibility to adapt leadership behavior to the needs of the current situation
Demonstrate an awareness implicit bias and the ways that bias hold systems of marginalization in place
Establish, communicate, and enforce a set of standard operating procedures and routines that ensure school safety and are aligned with district, state and federal policy
Perform all budgetary responsibilities with accuracy, transparency, and in alignment with school action plans
Allocate resources equitably
Equality & Ethics
Articulate the value of diversity and equity within a purposeful community
Communicate and operate from strong ideals and beliefs about schooling grounded in ethical decision-making
Exhibit a commitment to equity and create a sense of urgency to close achievement gaps and prepare all students for college, career, and life
Embed cultural competence in all aspects of school instruction and practices
Leverage educator strengths to engage all students in meaningful, culturally aware, and relevant learning opportunities