Assistant Principal of Instruction

Who We Are

Serving more than 3,300 scholars in six schools across two cities; Jackson, Mississippi and Nashville, Tennessee, RePublic Schools is the only school network solely dedicated to reimagining public education in the South. 

Part of reimagining education in the South means that we confront the historic inequities that work against our scholars and actively work to dismantle those inequities. We are doing this by intentionally creating environments that embrace, honor, and celebrate our scholars’ identities and experiences, as well as the identities and experiences of every member of our community. 

We are looking for determined Assistant Principal of Instruction (Special Education) at the high school level to lock arms with our RePublic High School team in Nashville, TN for the 2024-25 school year. Candidates must share our unwavering belief that all children can achieve at high levels and change the world. Sound like you?

What You’ll Do

Overview

At RePublic, we believe all means all, and we have a deep commitment to serving students who need us most. In any given year, anywhere from 12-20% of students in our schools require special education services (and in our Nashville region, we are serving a growing ESL/ELL population as Nashville’s community evolves). Our scholars require a diverse range of instructional and socio-emotional supports to meet the highest of academic expectations. The Assistant Principal of Instruction (Special Education) in each of our schools is responsible for designing, implementing, and managing a robust, compliant, and effective vision and strategy for serving scholars with diverse learning backgrounds – and ensuring that staff members have the training and development necessary to ensure all scholars have a rigorous and differentiated learning experience.

The Assistant Principal of Instruction (Special Education) reports directly to the Principal and serves as a critical internal and external-facing member of the school-based leadership team.

Key Responsibilities 

• Special Education Leadership + Management
• Develop efficient and effective systems and processes that enable RePublic scholars to gain access to high-quality special education services, including designing a schedule for, assigning scholars within, and managing logistics of daily school-wide Intervention blocks to ensure that this time is effectively used across the school to provide differentiated supports to scholars at all levels of learning.
• As needed, directly manage a caseload of students to provide educational services to scholars with special needs (both co-teaching in general education classrooms and/or providing service minutes to students in small-group settings).
• Lead and build relationships with service providers (consultants and agencies) to ensure high quality, holistic services are in place for scholars on school caseload.
• Directly manage and coach the school’s Special Education Teachers and ELL/ESL Teachers, and continually improve the effectiveness of teachers through implementing a variety of coaching levers:
• Observe classroom instruction daily and providing “live” real-time coaching and engage in consistent observation/check-in cycles to ensure teachers are able to lead scholars to excellence
• Lead teachers to create rigorous, engaging, and differentiated instructional materials aligned to course and IEP goals, intellectually prepare to ensure strong lesson execution, and analyze student data to monitor progress, close gaps, and ensure dramatic gains for all scholars
• Train Special Education + ELL/ESL Teachers to manage caseloads, write and implement winning IEPs, monitor compliance requirements, co-teach in general education classrooms, and provide direct services to scholars in small-group settings
• Plan and execute professional development at the school level for general education teachers re: how to best serve and differentiate instruction for students with special needs
• Academic Diagnostics + Scholar Progress Monitoring
• Develop systems to track and monitor progress of students with special needs and communicate the progress with key stakeholders (students, staff, and families)
• Develop systems and schedules to manage the implementation of all RTI (Response To Intervention) testing at the school level for all students, including diagnostic reading assessments, MAP assessments, and high-stakes state assessments
• Reporting + Compliance
• Ensure Special Education and ELL processes at the school are well-managed and compliant with all regulations from host districts and state departments of education.
• Ensure 100% compliance of all IEPs on school caseload: ensure all IEPs are authentically compliant and written with excellence. This includes writing and collaborating with others to write high quality IEPs, as well as holding robust IEP meetings with all team members present and contributing.
• Manage case management communications across teams, including content compilation, monthly compliance communication, weekly performance indicator data, and other communication needs that may arise.
• Maintain communication and relationships with district and state partners who support school’s work in student supports

Who You Are

Our ideal Assistant Principal of Student Supports has an unwavering belief that our students can achieve at an exceptionally high level. Beyond that, he/she is:

• Leading for Racial Equity – We believe that racism’s legacy in education is most entrenched in the South. We look at ourselves first, reflect, and talk about the role racism plays in our lives. We work to be constantly anti-racist in our words and actions.
• Deeply committed to serving our kids. You have elected to work with historically underserved students, and do this work because you believe that all students, regardless of background, are capable of excellence – and that it’s on us as adults to get our kids there. You can speak knowledgeably about our mission, and demonstrate a commitment to our educational model. You understand that educational inequity is more pronounced in the South than anywhere else in the nation, and you want to work with RePublic in part because of our commitment to this region.
• Strive for Excellence – We believe achieving excellence is a challenging journey. We maintain high standards and endeavor towards excellence each day.
• A special education guru. You have at least 3-5 years of special education (and ideally, general education) teaching experience with a demonstrated track record of exceptional student outcomes. You have deep experience and a contagious passion for serving students with diverse special needs.
• A laser-focused systems builder who designs airtight systems and processes that endure over time and maximize efficiency. You anticipate where a system will break down before it ever stands a chance, and you know that the systems you create are high-stakes from an instructional, legal, parent engagement, and compliance perspective.
• A detail maven and masterful executor. Your personal organization system ensures you get things done. You sweat the smallest of stuff, communicate effectively in all forms, and plan fervently backwards to meet timelines, achieve big goals, and manage complex projects with many moving pieces (and lots of involved stakeholders) across a finish line.
• Pursue Growth – We believe that we can and must get better. We constantly seek to both support each other and also improve our work.
• A data fiend. You look for and are able to discern trends that drive your decision making, and you evaluate the effectiveness of these interventions based on how the data changes.
• A growth-minded tinkerer. You are self-aware and humble enough to understand where you rock, where you need to pick up your game, and how this impacts the people you lead. You seek feedback constantly because you’re hungry to get better, and you take extreme ownership of the outcomes of the people you coach and manage.
• A gritty problem-solver. You keep it cool when things are crazy, approach problems with viable solutions, and know when you need to roll up your sleeves to support your team.
• Become Better Together – We believe that each member of our community brings a unique and valuable perspective. We honor and celebrate these perspectives, and we know that our differences make us stronger.
• A people leader. Ideally, you’ve coached, directly managed, and demonstrably moved the effectiveness of other adults before taking this job. You build relationships across lines of difference, inspire and motivate others to buy into your vision, navigate challenging conversations with finesse, make tough calls, communicate effectively in all formats, give and receive feedback fluidly, and model/hold a high bar for adult excellence and exuberance.
• Create Joy – We believe that joy is the undercurrent of the work we do. We choose to see and create the joy that is within us and around us, and we actively work to spread that joy to others.
• Other qualifications:
• A bachelor’s degree with a preference for a graduate degree in a related field.
• Required: Valid Special Education teaching license / certification in TN, MS, or in states with reciprocity; endorsement in ESL/ELL strongly preferred.
• At least 3-5 years of teaching experience in K-12 special education or ELL/ESL with a track record of impressive student achievement results required; experience teaching general education courses strongly preferred.
• At least 1-2 years of leadership experience directly managing + coaching adults required, experience managing the special education / student supports program at a school strongly preferred.
• Familiarity with state and federal law and regulations around student support services strongly preferred

Read Full Description