Executive Director, Indiana at Teach Plus

Teach Plus is a national nonprofit whose mission is to empower excellent, experienced, and diverse teachers to take leadership over key policy and practice issues that advance equity, opportunity, and student success. At the heart of our work is developing teacher leadership and voice in pursuit of student outcomes. We believe that investing in our most talented teachers—developing them into well-informed, persuasive leaders—gives them deep leverage in elevating the most pressing education issues facing students, teachers, and communities while advancing opportunities for students. Learn more at teachplus.org . 

Teach Plus Executive Director Role  

At Teach Plus, our Student Opportunity Mandate calls us to seek long-term, measurable, and structural change on behalf of students, communities, and educators. Reporting to the Chief Regional Impact and Operations Officer, Executive Directors (EDs) at Teach Plus are responsible for setting the vision and executing on strategies to drive this local impact in the states where we work. As sophisticated systems leaders and subject matter experts, Teach Plus EDs are convicted and credible power brokers that strategically advance bodies of work that address the most critical needs for students, communities, and educators. While this role has foundational responsibilities and required skills, mindsets, and orientations, it is ultimately a highly contextualized, hyper-local systems leadership role that requires an ongoing analysis of the role Executives and the broader institution (Teach Plus) must play in a community at any given time. This role is Indiana-based with regular in-state travel; occasional national travel as needed.

The Foundational Executive Director Responsibilities Include:

1. Setting a Vision for Local Impact, Grounded in Strategic Clarity: Through an iterative approach, Executive Directors must be able to continuously:
   • Understand and describe (both internally to the organization and to external partners) evidence and case studies of prior student outcomes improvement, the drivers that led to this success, and the patterns around those drivers as they specifically relate to advocacy and teacher leadership
   • Concretely articulate the gaps between the current state of student outcomes and the aspirations of students, families, and communities, and set ambitious goals/and or strategies to close these gaps, centered on tangible outcomes for students
   • In partnership with other organizations and coalition members, develop a sophisticated theory of change and theory of action/logic model around what is required to advance these student outcomes goals and the particular role Teach Plus (teachers, alumni, Executive, and institution) must play as a result

1. Advancing Teacher Leadership, Voice, and Advocacy towards our Student Opportunity Mandate: In partnership with Center teams at Teach Plus and local partners, EDs must:
   • Establish and continuously evolve local models for teacher learning and leadership aligned with Teach Plus’s Leadership Attribute Continuum and Policy Attributes and Competencies
   • In partnership with the Center and external partners, use sophisticated data, measurement, and evaluation structures to continuously assess and improve teacher engagement models, including accountability models for managing staff towards effective execution of these programs
     1. Identify best practices for language, expectations, implementation, and accountability across policy and practice programs to support quality programming.
   • Through iterative strategic clarity work, co-create and effectively invest educators in a sophisticated annual or multi-year policy agenda, focused on advancing our Student Opportunity Mandate 
   • Co-create and revise contextualized local curricula and learning experiences to prepare teachers to engage directly with influential lawmakers, stakeholders, and government employees around your local policy agenda, ultimately positioning them to serve as effective leaders throughout their careers
   • Leverage insights from strategic clarity and evidence-based strategies to run and participate in sophisticated local and state advocacy campaigns
   • In partnership with the Communications, Research, and other External Affairs teams, develop a robust and sophisticated strategy for developing teachers as trusted messengers and elevating teacher voice in the media in alignment with your strategic clarity work and policy agenda 
   • Develop teacher leadership and foster cross-sector collaboration to align education with community and business needs in areas such as literacy, college and career readiness, and other potential drivers. 

1. Creating and Stewarding a Network of Champions: In partnership with Teach Plus’ broader institutional positioning strategy, EDs must:
   • Set and execute against an ambitious annual fundraising goal-ranging from $350,000 to $2M, given local context-through a highly intentional portfolio management partnership with our national External Affairs team. 
   • Strategically create, join, and strengthen local coalitions with a clear understanding of Teach Plus’ value add
   • Develop, share, and continuously refine student and teacher-centered stories that can be leveraged to invest and grow the network of champions
   • Attract, retain, and steward a diverse portfolio of donors to both meet/exceed annual fundraising goals and continuously elevate Teach Plus’-and your own role in the broader ecosystem
   • In partnership with Regional Development Directors and/or your team, ensure fundraising deliverables are high quality, aligned to your local strategy, and delivered to partners in a timely and effective manner
   • Build a cabinet of subject matter experts, funders and/or local leaders (at times, this will be Senior Fellows and/or a Local Advisory Board) to continuously improve your executive positioning, local visibility, and access to cutting-edge insights and innovations
   • In partnership with the Center, create a fundraising toolkit of resources that can be leveraged in a variety of ways for ongoing fundraising opportunities, including but not limited to: one-pagers, visuals, and language for funder emails.

1. Creating and Sustaining Enabling Conditions for Impact: As the highest impact level towards local impact at Teach Plus, EDs must:
   • Build out, hire, retain, train, and continuously “right size” a local staffing model, grounded in their Strategic Clarity work-in particular, the role Teach Plus must play in the local ecosystem. In partnership with the People team, ensure that role profiles for staff, Senior Fellows, and/or contractors are aligned to a rigorous Vision of Excellence.
   • Serve as exemplary People Managers, regardless of staffing size, through a high-candor, coaching-first culture and effective communication of expectations, including but not limited to supporting direct reports to set and execute against Visions of Excellence and Annual Goals
   • In partnership with the Center, co-create plans for local staff learning and development, aligned with regional strategy, annual goals, and performance management needs 
   • Set and manage against an annual regional expense target, partnering with the Central finance and your team to balance compliance with original budgets as well as responsiveness and iteration as strategy evolves in-year
   • Grounded in our commitment to “Reimagine the Center” operate with both candor and empathy to strategically maximize Central staff and resources to increase local impact

To effectively execute on these four core responsibilities, in addition to the roles they play in their unique communities, we believe all successful EDs must embody the following:

MINDSETS AND ORIENTATIONS:

1. Embodying systems leadership. This includes:
   • The ability to see the larger system-constantly evaluating and adapting your mental models, interrogating your preconceived notions and remaining open to new ideas/information, including data sets and evolving evidence bases
   • Building trust and shifting conversations by fostering reflection and more generative conversations. Not only does this mean doing so in groups and in community, but also continuously “locating yourself” in regards to your own consciousness and orientations to change.
   • Prioritizing co-creating the future while maintaining the ability to be responsive to current circumstances. This requires simultaneously holding both a deep understanding and conviction around current systems' failure and inspiring yourself and others to seek new solutions.
   • Understanding the way systemic inequity and oppression serve as the root cause for not only external challenges, but in many interpersonal interactions and group dynamics. Always operating from a deep knowledge of how your own identity impacts your leadership and how others experience it.
2. An unyielding focus on equitable student outcomes. This looks/sounds like:
   • Maintaining a deep understanding of the current state of student outcomes across their state, not just in major hubs or the dominant conversations/pundit talking points.
   • Always tying regional decisions to a theory of action (how x decision will ultimately increase y student outcome), even through multiple layers of staff or teacher leaders.
   • Establishing credibility with state and district partners who can speak to unique proof points, trends, and outliers in the student outcomes landscape.
   • Keeping a pulse on the broader national conversation re: student outcomes and understanding the unique role your state is/isn’t playing in the dialogue.
3. A focus on building the systems leadership of teachers as nuanced navigators of the education landscape.
   • Recognizing  and articulating the unique role that teacher perspective and experience play in advocating for and advancing systems change
   • Affirming individual teacher lived experiences while simultaneously supporting them to operate as systems leaders who can observe and make meaning of the broader ecosystem
   • Belief that narrative (op-eds, teacher stories, testimony, etc) has and can play a significant role in change efforts, locally and nationally
   • Constantly balancing robust teacher input mechanisms with your own personal conviction and student/family aspirations when setting and driving towards a strategy
4. A solutions orientation. This looks/sounds like:
   • Assuming that problems have multiple, complex solutions and using your available resources to address them proactively, collaboratively, and creatively
   • Communicating directly with those impacted by/informing the challenges you face, leveraging radical candor to ensure all parties are clear on the challenge and aligned on the most efficacious approach to solving it
   • Taking a long-term view and recognizing that 90% of the time taken to address a challenge should be spent on problem analysis and understanding the root cause, especially of persistent or recurring challenges

SKILLS:

• Set and continuously evaluate strategies for local impact, closely aligned to quantitative and qualitative goals
• Effectively communicate org vision and strategy to internal (Teach Plus) and external partners to advance work
• Leverage and grow professional networks to facilitate the effective positioning of Teach Plus amongst other organizations and groups in your ecosystem
• Build and/or leverage existing systems to ensure operational excellence (meeting deadlines, prioritizing time) for yourself and those you manage
• Identifying and developing talent, both in your team and in teacher leaders, in such a way that fosters recruitment, matriculation, retention, and tangible success
• Managing individuals towards agreed-upon, measurable outcomes using both formal performance management and routine coaching structures 
• Leveraging data sets and multiple platforms (Martus, Salesforce, etc) to effectively track, analyze, and act on your ongoing knowledge of progress to goal(s)
• Understanding and managing financial information, including Budget-to-Actuals and grant reports
• Ability to track and analyze key policies in your landscape and take aligned action with local partners/your Fellows and network
• Speaking and writing in ways that effectively convey key information and/or bring others into deeper partnership, including but not limited to fundraising
• Ability to inspire and motivate others through storytelling, crafting compelling narratives that resonate with multiple audiences and highlight the org’s mission and impact
• Serving as an exemplary people manager through team leadership, community building, and mobilizing others
• Communicating with radical candor and using principles of nonviolent communication to foster compassionate and effective communication, leading to better understanding and collaboration.

Location, Travel, and Commitment 

This is a full-time (40 hours/week) remote position for candidates who reside in Indiana and are willing to travel to Indianapolis during the legislative session, and periodically to other parts of the state. The role requires a flexible schedule, including some nights and weekends, to support policy sessions and meet with teachers and policymakers. The anticipated start date is September 2026.

Compensation and Benefits

The base salary is $140,000, with defined opportunities for increased compensation through a merit-based annual bonus opportunity and/or increasing annual revenue targets. Teach Plus provides a comprehensive benefits package and time-off, including 15 vacation days, 3 personal days, 5 sick days, 13 holidays, July break, Winter break, paid parental leave, and a 4-week paid sabbatical for every five years of service.