Principal Director, Board Coaching and Development (Director III)

Job Description

MISSION: The Texas Education Agency (TEA) will improve outcomes for all public-school students in the state by providing leadership, guidance, and support to school systems.

Core Values:

• We are Determined: We are committed and intentional in the pursuit of our main purpose, to improve outcomes for students.


• We are People-Centered: We strive to attract, develop, and retain the most committed talent, representing the diversity of Texas, each contributing to our common vision for students.

• We are Learners: We seek evidence, reflect on success and failure, and try new approaches in the pursuit of excellence for our students.

• We are Servant Leaders: Above all else, we are public servants working to improve opportunities for students and provide support to those who serve them.

New hires, re-hires, and internal hires will typically receive a starting salary between the posted minimum and the average pay of employees in their same classification. Offers will be commensurate with the candidate's experience and qualifications and will thoughtfully consider internal pay equity for agency staff who perform similar duties and have similar qualifications. The top half of the posted salary range is generally reserved for candidates who exceed the requirements and qualifications for the role. The maximum salary range is reserved for candidates that far exceed the required and preferred qualifications for the role.

Position Overview:

The Principal Director of Board Coaching and Development serves as a close strategic partner in envisioning, planning, and leading the statewide implementation of core board coaching and development supports, including Evaluating and Improving Student Outcomes (EISO) and Lone Star Governance (LSG).


In collaboration with the Senior Director, this role drives the evolution and expansion of the board coaching and development service model to meet the differentiated needs of Texas school boards. This includes leading the content development as well as grant and technical assistance strategy to ensure school boards receive high quality, tailored supports that strengthen governance practices and maintain a clear focus on achieving ambitious student outcomes.

The Principal Director leads a small team of internal staff and external partners responsible for content development, training, relationship management, and progress monitoring of supports provided to approved providers, superintendents, and school boards across multiple workstreams. The role ensures all content, training and development efforts meet applicable legislative and rule requirements governing school board development.


This position includes high profile engagement with regional Education Service Center (ESC) leaders, superintendents, and school board members, as well as significant internal collaboration across TEA. The Principal Director ensures that all content and supports reflect the agency's strongest expertise while integrating ongoing feedback from the field. They also will lead cross functional workstreams to support a scalable train-the-trainer model and ensures alignment across teams involved in developing and delivering board training, consistent with statewide best practices.

As a senior leader responsible for aligning district, board, regional, and agency supports, the Principal Director ensures quality assurance across content, training, and implementation. This includes synthesizing data and insights, reporting outcomes and lessons learned, and proposing strategic recommendations to TEA senior leadership to strengthen coherence and impact across governance and leadership supports statewide.

This role is situated within TEA's Division of District Strategic Leadership, which encompasses the following teams: Texas Strategic Leadership, Effective Frameworks and Diagnostics Alignment, Board Coaching and Development, Leadership Academies, and District Planning and Performance Management Supports.

This role is a satellite role and may require occasional travel to the Austin area.

Please note that a resume is a required attachment for applying to this position. Incomplete applications will not be considered.

Applicants who are strongly being considered for employment must submit to a national criminal history background check.

Essential Functions:

Job duties are not limited to the essential functions mentioned below. You may perform other functions as assigned.

1. Vision and Strategy: partner with the Senior Director and other agency leadership to build the vision for, strategically plan, and implement the service streams that provide board training, coaching and development such as EISO and LSG; this strategy work includes considering content development needs, high quality coach recruitment, ESC and vendor training and certification, school board and superintendent experience, and internal systems (e.g., performance management, operations) design


2. Performance and Program Management: lead the development and delivery of rigorous timelines, milestones, metrics for quality assurance including codifying learning, tools, and research to build TEA's knowledge base of how to support school boards with student outcomes focused governance practices; set up a strong infrastructure of performance management check-ins and coaching visits with ESCs, vendors, superintendents, and school boards to ensure high quality delivery of support and the achievement of metrics


3. Stakeholder Engagement and Alignment: proactively build and maintain strong, productive relationships with leaders across other TEA divisions, departments, and offices to support strategic alignment and foster effective cross-function communication and collaboration related to board coaching and supports as well as other agency initiatives; further, build and maintain strong relationships with other senior district, ESC, board, and vendor leaders as well as certified providers in the field in order to recruit top-notch coaching talent, keep an accurate pulse on the quality of supports, engage groups for feedback in the introduction of new content or shift to program approach, and promote EISO and LSG statewide


4. Content, Training, Coaching, and Implementation Delivery: directly deliver as well as manage the team to develop aligned content, deliver high impact training, coaching, and performance management to aspiring and current approved providers to in turn deliver high-quality supports to school boards

5. Team Management and Supervision: shape and delegate workstreams to internal teammates and external partners, performance manage them to successfully deliver on their essential job functions and deliverables, and coach them to continuously improve towards greater development goals


Qualifications:

Minimum Qualifications:

• Education: Graduation from an accredited four-year college or university

• Experience: At least seven [7] years of combined experience in managing large, complex initiatives and programs; developing and/or implementing project and performance management systems; serving in a school or district leadership position (preferably a district leadership role); and/or coaching and developing school boards. At least two years of experience managing at least one direct report.

Other Qualifications:

• Share the belief that all Texas students can achieve at high levels and are able to succeed in college, career, or the military.

• Track record of success as a district or campus leader in achieving strong student academic outcomes


• Demonstrated experience managing external vendors or consultants


• Strong understanding of school boards and good governance practices aligned to focus on student outcomes


• Proven ability to collaborate across teams and manage complex, cross-functional work


• Excellent content development and facilitation with senior executive leaders such as superintendents


• Track record of success building and managing a team towards ambitious goals by setting clear expectations and holding others accountable for performance. Strong coaching and capacity-building skills to help new and existing teammates perform effectively.


• Highly organized with strong planning and project management skills; ability to balance the demands of multiple projects at different stages of development while maintaining quality and consistency across all work.


• Problem-solving orientation, with an ability to break down complex information into component parts, ask questions, synthesize, and analyze.


• Ability to build relationships and strong rapport with others, and an ability to manage relationships with senior district and internal agency stakeholders.


• Meticulous attention to detail with an ability to produce high quality work in a dynamic, collaborative environment


• Critical thinking and problem solving with the ability to break down complex information into comprehensive parts and communicate them


• Success leveraging different strategies and interpersonal skills to move the work forward, demonstrating flexibility and adaptability when presented with a change of course or deadline


• Excellent written and oral communication skills


• Ability to give, receive and implement critical feedback

As an equal opportunity employer, we hire without consideration to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, disability, age or veteran status, unless an applicant is entitled to the military employment preference.

To review the Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) codes from each branch of the U.S. Armed Forces to each job classification series in the State's Position Classification Plan (provided by the State Auditor's Office), please access the Military Crosswalk (occupational specialty code) Guide and click on the military "occupational category" that corresponds with the state classification in this job posting title.

This position requires the applicant to meet Agency standards and criteria which may include passing a pre-employment criminal background check, prior to being offered employment by the Agency.

To learn more about working at TEA, including hiring timelines, process details, and candidate resources, please visit the Employment at TEA page.

No phone calls or emails, please. Due to the high volume of applications, we do not accept telephone calls and cannot reply to all email inquiries. Only candidates selected for interview will be contacted. Please add "View email address on click.appcast.io" and "@tea.texas.gov" to your safe senders list to ensure you receive email notifications from our talent acquisition team and/or hiring division regarding your candidacy.