ROLE TITLE: Director, Educator Fellowships

TEAM: Detroit/Michigan Regional Team

REPORTS TO: Partner, Educator Fellowships

LOCATION: The Michigan team’s office is in Detroit. The role will require on-site work with educators in communities across Michigan 3-4 times per month, on average.

APPLICATION: This application will close October 11, 2024

WHAT YOU’LL DO

TFA Detroit/Michigan (Det/MI) is seeking a high impact educator to lead strategic initiatives for the Leadership Continuum team. The Director, Educator Fellowships will provide critical tactical support to a team serving over 200 educators in school leadership roles. This role is a strong fit for an educator with a track record of strong results in a school based role and is looking for a high-growth opportunity in a program delivery and support space. The Director, Educator Fellowships is a versatile leader with strengths in workshop facilitation, relationship management, and project planning.

THE MOMENT

TFA Det/MI is pursuing a ten year goal that by 2030, twice as many economically disadvantaged children in Michigan will reach key educational milestones indicating they are on a path to economic mobility and co-creating a future filled with possibility. Our goal calls for us to recruit and retain high impact educators across the state; develop them into system level leaders who can deliver for their students, schools and communities; and connect them with one another and broader coalitions to advance state and local policies, practices and innovations that drive toward greater equity and excellence.

In 2022, the State of Michigan invested $30 million to expand our educator recruitment and retention work statewide. Since then, our community has grown to over 500 educators impacting over 90,000 students.As directed by the Legislation, we will evaluate and report results to inform system level educator recruitment, development and retention efforts. Ultimately, we will be successful if we build a community of highly effective educators and leaders who inspire others to teach in Michigan, and who individually and collectively model and contribute to system change.

Among our educator community is a group of 200 educator leaders who serve in various capacities in their schools - as instructional coaches, department leads, SPED coordinators, deans, assistant principals and principals. The Leadership Continuum team’s charge is to deliver best in class leadership development aligned to our definition of High Impact Leader. The Director, Educator Fellowships, will sit on this sub-team and within the broader Educator Program and Participant Experience team, serving over 500 educators across Michigan.

WHAT YOU’LL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR

Responsibilities for the Director, Educator Fellowships include:

Support program delivery for Fellows in the Leadership Continuum of Fellowships, including:

• Facilitate learning experiences in alignment with the Aspiring Leaders program arc and in service of topline goals.

• Deliver high quality professional development workshops in alignment with our Best Practices in Adult Learning.

• Conduct on site visits with educators across Michigan to deepen relationships, build context, and gather feedback.

• Maintain a close pulse on educator experience, retention, and growth.

• Maintain a coaching load of a group of fellows in the leader continuum.

Support cohesion for experiences across programs in the leader continuum

• Support the Leadership Continuum team with tactical and strategic priorities

• Conduct on site visits to deepen relationships with educators, gather context on their environments, and solicit feedback on their experience.

• Synthesize data on the overall experiences of educators in the continuum alongside our Manager, Data and Learning.

• Internalize and monitor program arcs for all leader fellowships.

• Provide project planning or operational support to the leadership continuum team.

Contribute to enterprise level priorities throughout the year. Our team takes an “all hands on deck” approach to these events, requiring that each team member contribute capacity and time. These enterprise level priorities include:

• Detroit Summer Learning Institute (June and July)

• EmpowerEd Weekends (2x per year, October and April)

• Fellow Selection (throughout the Spring)

• Corps Member & Ignite Fellow selection (throughout the Fall and Spring)

YOUR EXPERIENCE

Competitive Candidates will have the following characteristics and experiences:

Previous Experience

• At least 5 years of relevant experience working in schools that serve under resourced communities, with at least 2 years in a leadership capacity, formally supporting the work of other educators/teacher-leaders

• Track record of leading undefined, emerging and complex projects.

• Experience delivering high quality professional development, with a track record of engaging, relevant, and practical adult design and facilitation.

Skills

• Deep desire to learn and grow. Proactively solicits feedback and implements coaching into their work products and ways of operating.

• Strong organization systems with an ability to track multiple moving pieces and ensure deliverables are met in a timely manner.

• Exceptional attention to detail with an ability to produce high quality materials for external and educator audiences.

• Strong interpersonal skills and a proven ability to develop and steward relationships to bring people together into shared purpose.

• Ability to hold, lead and contribute to multiple projects at once, and ability to flex across altitudes, from individual coaching to system level challenges.

• Would be described as a servant leader, who can lead by decentering self and investing into the growth and learning of others

• Committed to embodying, and being a steward of, our core values and our commitment to diversity

Work Demands

• Ability to work evenings and weekends when necessary

• Moderate Travel required – approx. 3-4 per month across the state including overnight travel. This may increase to 4-5 times per month during peak periods of travel.

Education

• Bachelor’s degree required;

• Master’s degree in education, policy, or a related field not required.

YOUR COMPENSATION

The applicable salary range for each U.S.-based role is based on where the employee works and is aligned to one of 3 tiers according to a cost of labor index in that geographic area. Starting pay for the successful applicant will depend on a variety of job-related factors, which may include education, training, experience, location, business needs, or market demands. The expected salary ranges for this role are set forth below. These ranges may be modified in the future.

$74,300 - $111,300

You can view which tier applies to where you plan to work here. If your location is not listed, please click here for additional total rewards information.

THE TEAM

In 2019, Teach For America Detroit adopted a ten year goal with a statewide aim: by 2030, twice as many children growing up in poverty-dense communities across Michigan will reach key educational milestones indicating that they are on a path to economic mobility and co-creating a future filled with possibility. If achieved, the outcome would be significant– 20,000 more students would be on a path to greater economic opportunity and mobility. More importantly, because achieving this scale would require a system change strategy, the conditions will have been set in Detroit and across Michigan, both in policy and practice, in schools and beyond schools, to drive more equitable outcomes for a generation of children growing up in our state. To achieve our 10 year goal, we will need to build a larger, more diverse team that can perform at a high level and move together. We will need to be in relationship with a broad and diverse set of stakeholders. We will need to express humility and curiosity in learning, and to be effective in capturing and sharing that learning and telling stories. We’ll also need to be courageous, dreaming big and letting go of the perceived limitations and deep orthodoxies in our pursuit of solutions. Recognizing that the world will continue to rapidly change around us, especially as we step into more complex spaces, we’ll need to be adaptable in crafting solutions, remaining obsessed with the problem and agile in our solutions.

FUNDING SOURCE AND TERM: This is primarily funded through a federal/state grant, and therefore this strategy (and position) could sunset in May 2027. The details of how this could impact the role will be discussed with finalist candidates during the application process.