About the Organization
KIPP Public Schools is a national network of tuition-free public charter schools that prepares students with the skills and confidence to create the future they want for themselves, their communities, and us all. We are a network of 279 schools, nearly 16,500 educators, and nearly 210,000 students and alumni.
Our mission: Together with families and communities, we create joyful, academically excellent schools that prepare students with the skills and confidence to pursue the paths they choose—college, career, and beyond—so they can lead fulfilling lives and build a more just world.
Our vision: Every child grows up free to create the future they want for themselves and their communities.
The KIPP Foundation is a nonprofit organization that supports KIPP public charter schools across the country. The KIPP Foundation helps to develop outstanding educators to lead KIPP schools; provides tools and resources for excellent teaching and learning; promotes innovation; and facilitates the exchange of insights and ideas across KIPP and other public schools and organizations.
About Our Values:
Excellent Results for Students: We value results over effort and know that our work is not finished until all students thrive. We maintain high expectations for self, team, and students. We drive outcomes by operating with agility, removing barriers, differentiating support, and prioritizing student-centered solutions—especially for those at the margins.
Collective Impact: We are one team. We win together. We embody a one-team mindset by working collaboratively across teams, aligning goals, and leveraging the strengths of all teammates. We build trust-based relationships and ensure inclusive decision-making by engaging those closest to the work. We provide clarity through simple, repeatable systems and goals that enable transformational outcomes.
Courageous Action: Our belief in what we can achieve is unwavering, fueling our optimism and commitment to overcome any challenge. We demonstrate an unwavering belief in students' potential and a commitment to addressing systemic inequities. We approach challenges with resilience, a solutions-focused mindset, and adaptability. We foster a psychologically safe environment centered on trust and accountability where feedback is encouraged. We leverage data to reflect on progress, own setbacks, celebrate successes, and continuously improve to maximize impact.
Job Description:About The Position
The Director, Student Development is a newly envisioned role responsible for designing, piloting, and scaling a coherent student development strategy that builds students’ knowledge, skills, and beliefs for college success across the secondary continuum. This role centers on purpose development—helping students understand who they are, why they are pursuing specific postsecondary pathways, and how to persist toward their long-term goals. Reporting to the Chief, College Advancement and Partnerships, the Director will lead the research, design, and implementation of developmentally aligned assessments, interventions, and programming, with an initial focus on the junior year and a clear multi-year vision for expansion into grades 9–12. This role blends research, curriculum design, assessment, and implementation leadership, working closely with regional and school-based partners to ensure student development practices are high-quality, evidence-informed, and feasible at scale.
Responsibilities
Student Development Strategy & Assessment
Conduct research and synthesize best practices related to student development, purpose, identity, and college readiness.
Design a senior-year 360° student development assessment to measure students’ knowledge, skills, and beliefs related to college success.
Establish clear mastery benchmarks and assessment processes to evaluate student growth over time.
Lead end-of-year analyses to assess student mastery and inform continuous improvement of programming and interventions.
Program Design, Piloting, and Scaling
Design and pilot first-year junior interventions focused on strengthening student purpose through targeted development practices.
Execute and refine junior-year interventions, incorporating data, feedback, and implementation learnings.
Expand student development interventions across grade levels, including:
Planning and implementing purpose-focused programming for seniors, sophomores, and freshmen
Applying student development strategies to senior-year college application and transition supports
Ensure interventions are developmentally appropriate, culturally responsive, and aligned to postsecondary outcomes.
Curriculum, Resources, and Professional Learning
Create approaches, resources, tools, and guidance to support high-quality implementation of student development practices in schools.
Design and deliver content-based professional development for regional and school-based staff.
Partner with instructional leaders to integrate student development strategies into existing structures (e.g., seminars, advising.).
Cross-Team Collaboration and Implementation Support
Partner closely with other KIPP national and regional teams to ensure alignment between student development programming and broader postsecondary success strategies.
Collaborate with regional teams to support implementation, gather feedback, and address implementation challenges.
Use qualitative and quantitative data to provide targeted feedback to regions and schools to improve student outcomes.
Continuous Improvement and Impact Measurement
Design evaluation approaches to assess short- and long-term outcomes of student development programming.
Monitor implementation fidelity and effectiveness across regions.
Use data and insights to iterate on program design, tools, and professional learning.
Skills and Mindsets
Mission and Student Focus: Demonstrates passion and commitment to KIPP’s mission and possesses the desire and ability to uphold KIPP’s core values (Focus on Excellent Results, Collective Impact, and Courageous Action)
Strategic Decision Making & Problem Solving: Efficiently defines the right metrics to evaluate work and ensures critical team actions, decisions, and recommendations are driven by data; effectively works with team to resolve issues around data to ensure sound data-informed decisions. Effectively identifies and addresses root causes to the most important problem.
Effective Work Management: Sets a clear vision for new or complex bodies of work. Develops and implements agile project plans, navigating difficult situations or conflicts while maintaining effective relationships with all stakeholders; creates and ensures systems are in place for knowledge management.
Self Management: Demonstrated record of setting ambitious goals and achieving them with consistency. Invests in developing teammates’ skills and mindsets to address gaps in achieving team growth; determines what quantitative and qualitative data are most relevant to their goals and supports the team in creating and monitoring systems for collecting, reviewing, and acting upon data to drive outcomes; able to monitor progress, communicating status to the right stakeholders and adjusting plans and use of time to ensure systems are yielding desired outcomes.
Process Management: Able to build and align goals and project plans with organization priorities; leverages relevant organizational processes and systems to execute work; can build and maintain knowledge management systems; effectively develops and codifies cross-team processes relevant to their team’s work that improve work quality and efficiency; uses data to drive process improvements in support of organizational priorities.
Collaboration: Has the interpersonal, diplomatic, relationship building, and communications skills needed to develop successful working relationships with diverse constituents to deliver results. Evolves and adapts plans and approach with diverse stakeholders to drive results. Possesses excellent communication skills with aptitude for translating complex information into a clear and persuasive narratives that convince others by identifying benefits for all.
Experience and Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred.
8+ years of relevant experience in high school and/or postsecondary education counseling, advising, student development, curriculum, or related fields.
Experience designing or implementing student development, advising, or instructional programming at the school, district, or national level.
Experience working with or supporting high school leaders and educators preferred.
Experience with charter or charter-like schools, nonprofits, higher education, and/or serving first-generation students from historically underserved backgrounds.
Strong Excel and PowerPoint skills preferred
Strong research skills preferred
Additional Information:
Work Conditions
Travel requirements: 25% Travel requirements; Including KIPP school/region visits and network-wide trainings and convenings
Full-time, Exempt role
Location
It is preferred, but not mandatory for this role to be based out of a KIPP Foundation office. This role also has the option of working from a remote office full-time. KIPP Foundation offices are in NYC and Chicago.
Compensation and Benefits
In compliance with local law, we are disclosing the compensation, or a range thereof, for roles in locations where legally required. Actual salaries will vary based on several factors, including but not limited to external market data, internal equity, and relevant experience. The salary range for this position is $124,800 - $150,000. In addition, KIPP Foundation provides a variety of benefits to employees, including:
25 holidays for + 18 days additional flexible PTO days (flexible PTO increases to 23 days for years 3 and 4 and to 28 days for years 5+).
100% paid parental leave
100% coverage of the premium for employee and 75% for employee + family’s medical/dental/vision plans.
Wellness benefits such as fitness reimbursements, discounted tickets to theme parks/attractions, backup care support for children and adults/elders, and our employee assistance program
Finance Security benefits include such as a 401K retirement plan with 4% match, employer-sponsored legal plans, life/disability insurance, and flexible spending accounts
KIPP Foundation embraces the opportunity to build a workforce that reflects the diversity of the students and communities with whom we work and the world that’s around them. Being an equal opportunity employer means that we take seriously our responsibility to consider qualified candidates on the basis of merit, without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, mental or physical disability, and genetic information, marital status, citizenship status, military status, protected veteran status or any other category protected by law.