STEM DEPARTMENT CHAIR

Job Description

Job Description:\n\nFull-Time Founding Leadership Position · Reports to the Principal · Master’s degree required in Education, Educational Leadership, Science, Mathematics, Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field; doctorate preferred · Illinois Professional Educator License in high school math and science preferred and National Board Certification a major plus · 3+ years of successful teaching experience required · Some form of leadership experience is required; Department, administration, or instructional leadership preferred · College-preparatory, independent, Jewish day or faith-based school experience is a plus · Being Jewish is not a requirement for this role · Fewer years but exceptional craft? We hire for mastery, not seat time.\n\n \n\nAre you an accomplished educator and academic leader passionate about teaching and learning in STEM? Do you want the opportunity to shape and lead a world-class STEM program that prepares students for college, leadership, innovation, and impact? Are you passionate about cultivating intellectual curiosity, academic excellence, problem-solving, research, and innovation in the lives of young people? If so, Davis School Chicago wants to hear from you.\n\n \nThe Dream Team\nDavis School Chicago is a proudly Jewish, college-preparatory high school opening in fall 2027 in downtown Chicago, in a state-of-the-art building at the heart of a great city for learning. Every adult at Davis Chicago is an educator and a culture-builder. We hold two expectations at the same time: deep human warmth and uncompromising intellectual excellence. High health and high results, never one at the cost of the other. This is a summary of the characteristics that describe our dream team. Please read the full Profile of the Ideal Davis Chicago Educator and more information about our opportunities before you apply.\n\n \n\nTo thrive here you are:\n\n \n Warm and intellectually formidable. Genuinely kind and seriously bright. We hire for intellectual horsepower; only sharp minds grow students to their full potential.\n \n You bring the room to life. Passion people feel, loud or quiet, with the range to teach, support, and lead.\n \n A builder who owns it. Startup grit, a real growth mindset, open about mistakes, gives the gift of feedback, and the drive to create what doesn’t exist yet.\n \n Teach how to think, not what to think. Rigor, evidence, and a love of hard questions, including the controversial ones. Students reach their own conclusions.\n \n Rooted in tradition, built for what’s next. Ancient wisdom and modern tools, AI included, aimed at today's problems.\n \n Unapologetically Jewish. Israel has a right to exist; that is not up for debate. Everything else is fair game, including spirited debate about Israel’s actions. You’re excited to help build a proudly Jewish, pro-Israel school.\n\n \nWhat Davis Chicago Needs\nDavis Chicago is hiring a rigorous, inventive STEM Chair to build our mathematics, science, and engineering program from its first course map, and to teach in it every day. As a founding leader, the Chair is a member of the team opening a school from scratch. Therefore, the person needs to be a builder-leader: someone who can take a bold founding vision and turn it into a living school, then run a department in that school at a level of excellence every student, parent, and teacher can feel.Who Thrives in This Role\n\n \n Warm, Relational, and High-Performing – Kind, emotionally intelligent, intellectually rigorous, and committed to excellence.\n \n A Teacher First – Leads from the classroom and teaches every day.\n \n A Rigorous Problem-Solver – Models mathematical and scientific thinking students can feel.\n \n An Entrepreneurial Builder – Thrives in ambiguity, solves problems, and creates programs, systems, and traditions from the ground up.\n \n A Curious and Courageous Thinker – Embraces learning, evidence, critical thinking, and meaningful debate.\n \n Rooted and Forward-Looking – Honors tradition while embracing innovation, technology, and AI.\n \n Committed to Jewish Life and Community – Values Jewish identity, the diversity of Jewish thought, and meaningful engagement in Jewish life.\n \n A Collaborative Culture-Builder – Balances accountability, care, and results while elevating everyone around them.\n\n \nThe Role\nThe STEM Department Chair is the academic and instructional leader of the STEM Department and serves as a key member of the school’s academic leadership team. Reporting to the Principal, the Chair provides vision, leadership, supervision, and support for faculty and curriculum across the STEM disciplines, including mathematics, science, engineering, and computer science.\n\n \n\nThis is a founding seat. Build a STEM program respected for academic excellence, and make Davis Chicago a destination for exceptional STEM education. The STEM Chair will establish a cohesive departmental vision, cultivate a culture of professional excellence, and develop an innovative, college-preparatory curriculum that reflects Davis School Chicago’s mission and values. The Chair will champion interdisciplinary learning, evidence-based instructional practices, student-centered pedagogy, and authentic assessment while helping to build a signature STEM program recognized for intellectual rigor and academic distinction.\n\n \n\nThis is a teaching chair, and the balance evolves by design. In the launch years, the Chair carries a substantial teaching load while building the department from scratch. As the school grows, the role carries increasing dedicated time for curriculum development, classroom observation and coaching, and professional development planning — the steady state Davis Chicago is building toward.1. Academic Vision and Department Leadership\n\n \n Develop and articulate a compelling vision for STEM education that aligns with the school’s mission, strategic priorities, and educational philosophy.\n \n Lead the design, implementation, evaluation, and continuous improvement of a vertically aligned STEM curriculum across mathematics, science, engineering, and computer science.\n \n Exercise founding-level design authority: architect the STEM course sequence from first principles — integrated, accelerated, and other ambitious models are welcome — provided the result meets or exceeds AP frameworks and prepares students for the most selective colleges.\n \n Ensure curricular coherence, rigor, and relevance across all grade levels and disciplines.\n \n Promote interdisciplinary learning experiences that connect STEM with the humanities, Jewish studies, arts, and real-world issues.\n \n Monitor emerging research, best practices, and innovations in STEM education and integrate them into departmental programs.\n \n Evaluate emerging trends in artificial intelligence, engineering, computer science, sustainability, and innovation education.\n \n Analyze student achievement data and assessment outcomes to strengthen teaching and learning.\n \n Build a culture that values scientific inquiry, creativity, innovation, problem-solving, and intellectual curiosity.\n \n Build the department around the accomplished-practice standards for mathematics and science teaching (National Board for Professional Teaching Standards), including their signature commitments: students reason and think mathematically, investigate and explore patterns, and work with equipment and resources as similar as possible to those used by practicing scientists.\n \n Build relationships with universities, research institutions, technology organizations, healthcare systems, and industry partners and develop signature STEM experiences that distinguish Davis School Chicago among leading college-preparatory schools.\n \n Serve as an ambassador for STEM education within the school and broader community.\n \n Showcase student achievement through competitions, presentations, exhibitions, and public events.\n2. Faculty Leadership and Professional Growth\n\n \n Recruit, hire, onboard, mentor, supervise, and evaluate department faculty.\n \n Foster a collaborative professional culture focused on continuous growth, reflective practice, and instructional excellence.\n \n Serve as an instructional coach, providing regular feedback and support to teachers.\n \n Lead department meetings, professional learning initiatives, curriculum reviews, and collaborative planning sessions.\n \n Support teachers in implementing innovative instructional strategies and meaningful assessments.\n \n Encourage faculty leadership and cultivate opportunities for professional growth and advancement.\n \n Promote a culture of accountability, collegiality, and shared responsibility for student success.\n \n Facilitate weekly common planning time centered on student work, so the department's collaboration is about what students actually produce.\n \n Run a peer observation and coaching cycle focused on one targeted instructional area at a time.\n \n Co-lead the school's instructional leadership team\n \n Lead a department that is both high-health and high-results, never one at the cost of the other.\n3. Teaching and Learning Excellence\n\n \n Model exemplary teaching and instructional leadership.\n \n Support faculty in creating engaging, student-centered classrooms that challenge students academically while nurturing student voice and agency.\n \n Ensure curriculum and instruction prepare students for success in selective colleges and universities.\n \n Master the Advanced Placement frameworks that anchor the STEM sequence — AP Calculus, AP Statistics, AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Physics, and AP Computer Science — and design a program that meets or exceeds them. At Davis Chicago, top AP scores are the byproduct of rich, rigorous instruction, never of test-prep culture.\n \n Promote inquiry-based learning, mathematical reasoning, laboratory research, and project-based experiences, including immersive and experiential approaches where they deepen mastery.\n \n Partner with faculty to develop authentic assessments that measure student growth and mastery.\n \n Advance the effective integration of educational technology and emerging instructional tools.\n4. Student Experience and Community Engagement\n\n \n Collaborate with faculty and school leaders to create enriching student experiences inside and outside the classroom.\n \n Support and develop co-curricular STEM programs including robotics, mathematics competitions, science research, coding, engineering, and innovation initiatives.\n \n Champion portfolio-worthy student work — original research, engineering projects, publications, and competition results — that gives students distinctive evidence of their abilities for college admissions.\n \n Partner with college counseling to support students pursuing STEM majors and careers.\n \n Partner with families to support student growth and academic success.\n \n Serve as a visible and engaged presence in the life of the school community.\n \n Help cultivate a culture of belonging, respect, dialogue, and intellectual engagement.\n5. Strategic Planning and School Leadership\n\n \n Serve as a key thought partner to the Principal and academic leadership team.\n \n Participate in school-wide strategic planning and institutional initiatives.\n \n Contribute to accreditation, assessment, and school improvement efforts.\n \n Assist in developing and managing departmental budgets, laboratories, makerspaces, equipment, and technology resources.\n \n Ensure compliance with safety standards, risk management policies, and laboratory protocols.\n \n Coordinate department scheduling, course offerings, and staffing needs.\n \n Ensure compliance with applicable reporting, accreditation, and regulatory requirements.\n \n Help establish traditions, signature programs, and distinguishing features of the Davis Chicago STEM program.\nQualifications\n\n \n Education: Master’s degree in Education, Educational Leadership, Science, Mathematics, Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field required; doctorate preferred.\n \n Licensure: Illinois Professional Educator License preferred (high school math and science) with National Board Certification highly preferred.\n \n Experience: 3+ years of successful STEM teaching experience required. College-preparatory, independent, Jewish day or faith-based school experience is a plus.\n \n Leadership: Some form of leadership experience with adults is required; instructional leadership preferred.\nCore Competencies\n\n \n Instructional Leadership: coaching, observation, and common planning time centered on student work.\n \n Curriculum and Assessment: rigorous, coherent, college-preparatory design across the STEM disciplines.\n \n Talent and Team: a high-health, high-results department culture.\n \n Teaching: daily classroom excellence.\n\n \nCompensation and Benefits\nThe anticipated annual salary range for this position is $77,543–$137,099, based on the school’s established Faculty Salary Schedule. In addition, this leadership role carries a leadership differential of $4,000–$8,000, determined by years of leadership experience. Placement within the salary range is determined by a combination of relevant leadership experience and educational attainment, including Bachelor's, Master's, Master's + additional graduate credits, Education Specialist (Ed.S.), and Doctoral (Ed.D./Ph.D.) degrees, in accordance with the school’s step-and-lane compensation structure. Final compensation will be determined consistent with the school’s compensation philosophy, internal equity, and established salary schedule. In addition to base salary, the position is eligible for a comprehensive benefits package that includes paid time off, holiday pay, medical insurance, and a 401(k) plan with employer match.\nEqual Employment Opportunity Employer\n\n \nHow We Hire\nOur process is thorough and we believe that hiring is a dual decision-making process; you are vetting us as much as we are vetting you. Our process includes focused conversations with the people you would work with, a battery of assessments we use for your development as much as for selection, and interview rounds both in-person and virtually. We move quickly, and we tell you where you stand.\n\n \nIs this you?\nThis isn’t for everyone. If it’s you, it may be the best work of your life. Read the full Profile of the Ideal Davis Chicago Educator, then apply.