The Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) is the State Education Agency for the District of Columbia charged with raising the quality of education for all DC residents. OSSE is focused on sustaining, accelerating, and deepening the progress being made for the District’s 90,000+ students. OSSE serves as the District’s liaison to the U.S. Department of Education and works closely with the District’s 470+ early childhood facilities, 250+ schools, 60+ local education agencies (including DCPS and charter organizations), and community-based organizations to provide critical programming and resources to our stakeholders.

We are seeking a Deputy Superintendent of Academics and Schools (Deputy Superintendent). This critical role reports directly to the Superintendent and serves on the agency’s core leadership team. The Deputy Superintendent provides strategic leadership and is responsible for overseeing and coordinating the following functional divisions in the agency to execute the agency’s academic strategy: Health and Wellness, Funding School Quality PK-12, Teaching & Learning, Postsecondary & Career Education. These four divisions support the following programmatic areas: academic standards, educator preparation and support, federal and local grant administration and monitoring, school improvement, and programs related to workforce development and career and technical education and student health and wellbeing. The Deputy Superintendent is the executive champion of agency priorities across these divisions and coordinates across the Superintendent’s core team to ensure organizational coherence on priorities and resource allocation.

In this position the Deputy Superintendent of Academics and Schools maintains broad leadership responsibilities for planning, directing, coordinating, and implementing across multiple divisions within OSSE with the objective of promoting a relevant and rigorous academic program at all local education agencies (LEAs) throughout the District of Columbia. This includes managing performance of a comprehensive and integrated portfolio of state level policies and programs with the goal of strengthening student academic achievement across schools in the District of Columbia for students from pre-kindergarten to college and career. The Deputy Superintendent will provide leadership and support for organizational development activities and initiatives within OSSE.

What you will do:

• Approves and subsequently manages multi-year and long-range work plans, schedules, staffing needs, goals, and objectives.
• Establishes performance measures with the Assistant Superintendents for the divisions under their purview and evaluates program effectiveness in terms of attainment of goals, continuous improvement, and effective resource utilization.
• Provides guidance on the implementation of a wide range of federal and District regulations.

Leadership:

• Leads a core team which includes: Assistant Superintendent of Health and Wellness, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning, Assistant Superintendent of Funding School Quality, and the Assistant Superintendent of Postsecondary Education. In addition to the four Assistant Superintendents, the Deputy Superintendent of Academics and Schools manages a small team;
• Serves on and co-facilitates the agency’s core leadership team to ensure coordination and alignment of priorities and resources;
• Provides direction on the impact of division programmatic proposals and where points of elevation and discussion are critical;
• Serves as a strategic partner with the Chief of Staff to make recommendations to the Superintendent;
• Builds systems to strengthen connections across programmatic divisions and incubates strategic initiatives aligned with agency priorities;
• Supports a strong culture within the Deputy Superintendent cluster that is aligned with the agency’s core values by ensuring effective internal communications, agency-wide convenings, programming, and opportunities for staff feedback; and
• Represents the Superintendent as needed in internal and external meetings.

Key qualifications for the role include:

• A bachelors’ degree from an accredited institution of higher education, master’s degree preferred;
• Senior leadership experience within a large public district, charter school management organization, or state agency is strongly preferred;
• Proven ability to quickly establish and maintain trusting relationships with diverse groups of stakeholders;
• Teaching experience in a public school is a plus;
• Embodies OSSE’s core values of: Focus on Students, Organizational Excellence, Determination, Partnership, and Teamwork and Collaboration; and
• Must establish residency in DC within 180 days of starting and maintain DC residency throughout the duration of the appointment; limited hardship exceptions apply.

What you will bring to OSSE:

• Systems thinker with at least 10 years of demonstrated experience implementing systemic change through bureaucracies to improve outcomes for students, especially historically underserved communities;
• Excellent problem-solving, planning, and strategic thinking skills;
• Demonstrates a growth mindset in the ability to receive feedback and galvanize teams to implement improvements to process and programs;
• Emotionally intelligent and willing to engage in tough conversations with empathy and constructive purpose with leaders, peers, staff, and partners;
• Models discretion and maturity in handling sensitive matters.

Interested applicants should register for Nov. 10, 2024 hiring fair.