Director, Middle Grades Jobs

Under general supervision of the Chief Regional Impact Officer, EC-12, the Director, Middle Grades Initiatives will be responsible for systemic change management and implementation of innovative and high-impact strategies that increase student achievement in grades 4-8 in Dallas County ISD’s.

In this role, the Director, Educator Effectiveness will develop and implement a strategic plan to increase student achievement through systems change in 4th through 8th grade.

Additionally, the Director, Middle Grades Initiative will be a co-facilitator of the Dallas County Learning Community, the collaborative, systems change community of practice for Commit’s local Dallas County district partners. Throughout the school year, Commit convenes 12 district superintendents and their senior leadership team to common goals for student achievement and sharing best practice strategies to support student success.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

Collective Impact and Capacity Building

• Convene and facilitate external meetings with high levels of engagement of systems-leaders that drive towards outcomes for key initiatives and strategies (examples outlined above).
• Support the development of key partner organizations, coalitions and their staff that will implement educator effectiveness and strategic staffing initiatives in their local communities.
• Develop, manage, and execute department plans by providing strategic thought-partnership, technical assistance, and capacity-building support for districts, institutions of higher education, and other partners seeking to implement innovative, evidence-based strategies focused on increasing student outcomes in grades 4-8.
• Develop relationships to get meaningful time with systems-leaders to share key data, best practices, and lead courageous conversations on systems change within education.

Strategic Thinking and Policy

• Track and interpret implications of education research and policy at the federal, state, and district levels, as well as innovative and influential organizations.
• Consistently socialize data internally and externally across numerous mediums and differentiate by stakeholder audience (legislators, funders, district leaders).
• Regularly collect, analyze, and review data in numerous ways (longitudinally, disaggregated by demographics, compared to local/state benchmarks) to highlight best practices, and bring to light focus areas of improvement.
• Align public (state/federal) and private philanthropic resources to support the design and development of innovative strategies and policies internally and externally.
• Analyze and synthesize the findings from the portfolio of strategies to determine the impact, challenges, and opportunities for subsequent efforts.
• Build and maintain authentic relationships with elected and/or state agency officials with regular two-way feedback loops on key strategies and initiatives.
• Collaborate with the Commit policy team to identify potential policy implications and areas of support, co-developing strategic plans for legislative sessions based on local proof points.

People Management

• Manage a multi-staff team towards achieving individual strategic goals aligned to team and organizational outcomes and develop staff members towards professional development goals and expectations.

Education and/or Experience Required:

• Bachelor’s Degree required.
• Five to eight years of experience in education or education-adjacent sectors at a systems-level.

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed must be representative of the knowledge, skills, minimum education, training, licensure, experience and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

About The Commit Partnership:

Our Mission

We believe that through our actions, Dallas County – which educates 10% of Texas and 1% of the nation– can be an inclusive and prosperous region where economic opportunity is shared equitably. That’s why our true north goal is that by 2040 at least half of all 25-34-year-old residents of Dallas County, irrespective of race, will be provided the opportunity to earn a living wage.

To increase living wage attainment, we must equitably increase educational success aligned with high-demand jobs, maximizing the cumulative impact from early education all the way to college, career, and/or military readiness and accessing and completing a strong postsecondary education. Our staff aligns community stakeholders around this shared future roadmap – analyzing data to lift up strategic initiatives that improve policies, practices, and funding that grow our community’s capacity to serve every student more effectively.

Our Story

Founded in 2012, this partnership is the nation’s largest educational collective impact organization, composed of backbone staff and over 200 partners across Dallas County and the state of Texas working collaboratively to solve systemic education challenges. Our staff aligns community stakeholders around a shared future roadmap – analyzing data to lift up strategic initiatives that improve policies, practices, and funding that grow our community’s capacity to serve every student more effectively.

Together, we work to advocate for excellent and equitable public education that ensures all students – regardless of race, place, or socio-economic status – have the power to determine their future and earn a living wage. We do this work through several ventures including Early Matters Dallas, North Texas Tutoring Corps, Dallas County Promise, Texas College Bridge, Dallas Thrives, Commit’s Policy Team, the Texas Impact Network, and several coalitions.

Our Values

Our core values create a mission-driven environment and champion us to do our best work each day.

Integrity - To best serve students, families, and the community we will act honestly and ethically in how we make both internal and external decisions, present data, and communicate with partners.

Equity & Inclusion – We seek to help transform systems in ways that ensure every student has access to the resources they need. We do this by actively and explicitly working with others to create more equitable outcomes and processes.

Students First - Our decisions are guided by multiple stakeholders, but ultimately rest upon one question: What is in the best interest of students?

Systemic Impact – We are patient and persistent as we identify the most effective approaches to help create lasting systems change. Once identified, we prioritize and relentlessly attack systemic challenges with efficiency and excellence.

Humility - We embrace the fact that our community’s success depends on our ability to work cohesively with each other and to constantly learn.

Joy – It is important we bring a constant sense of optimism and have fun while taking on this difficult work.

The Commit Partnership is an Equal Opportunity Employer that seeks to hire individuals with backgrounds similar to that of the stakeholders they serve. As an organization that embraces equity and inclusion, all employment decisions are based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion or belief, national, social or ethnic origin, gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, marital, civil union or domestic partnership status, or any other status protected by federal, state, or local laws.

Commit does not sponsor visas of any kind.

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