Assistant Principal of Culture

Job Description

Job Description

Assistant Principal of Culture

Reports to: Principal
School: Launch Expeditionary Learning Charter School – Middle School
Position Type: Full-Time, 12-Month Leadership Position

Position Overview

The Assistant Principal of Culture is a member of the Middle School Leadership Team responsible for creating and sustaining a safe, joyful, rigorous, inclusive, and relationship-centered school culture where students are known, challenged, supported, and held to high expectations.

The Assistant Principal of Culture owns the systems, relationships, adult practices, and student experiences that shape school culture at Launch. This includes schoolwide culture systems; student behavior and accountability; restorative practices; student belonging and engagement; family and community partnership; attendance and punctuality; student celebrations and leadership; and the daily student-facing systems for arrival, dismissal, lunch, recess, transitions, hallways, bathrooms, and other shared spaces.

This leader is responsible for ensuring that culture systems work from beginning to end. The AP establishes clear expectations, develops adults to implement them consistently, monitors implementation, maintains strong documentation systems, ensures appropriate interventions and restorative responses occur, communicates with families and staff, and follows through until concerns are appropriately resolved.

A central responsibility of the role is developing the capacity of adults throughout the building to create strong classroom and schoolwide culture. Success is not defined by the AP becoming the primary responder to every student concern; it is demonstrated by strong adult practice, consistent systems, student ownership, and increasingly strong student outcomes and experiences.

In addition to schoolwide culture leadership, the Assistant Principal of Culture has full instructional and managerial responsibility for the Social Studies and Multi-Subject Humanities teams, including teacher development, curriculum implementation, instructional quality, and student achievement.

Schoolwide Culture & Student Experience

The Assistant Principal of Culture will:

• Own the implementation, monitoring, and continuous improvement of Launch's schoolwide culture vision and expectations.
• Establish clear and consistent expectations for student behavior and adult responses across the school.
• Ensure students experience Launch as safe, predictable, joyful, inclusive, restorative, academically focused, and grounded in strong relationships.
• Maintain a highly visible and proactive presence throughout the school day.
• Develop systems that balance high expectations, accountability, relationship-building, restoration, and student dignity.
• Monitor culture across classrooms, grade levels, hallways, shared spaces, and different times of the school day.
• Identify where culture systems or adult practices are breaking down and develop clear action plans in response.
• Lead responses to significant or recurring student behavioral concerns.
• Facilitate restorative conferences, re-entry meetings, accountability conversations, and other interventions when appropriate.
• Partner with the Principal around significant student, staff, and family situations.
• Ensure students experience culture systems as clear, consistent, fair, and grounded in care.

Arrival, Dismissal, Lunch, Recess & Shared Spaces

The Assistant Principal of Culture is the primary owner of the student-facing systems and adult implementation for arrival, dismissal, lunch, recess, transitions, hallways, bathrooms, and other shared spaces.

The Assistant Principal will:

• Design, document, communicate, implement, and continuously improve arrival and dismissal systems.
• Own the daily execution of arrival and dismissal, including student movement, staff posts, supervision, expectations, routines, and accountability.
• Design and own lunch and recess systems that promote safety, joy, belonging, appropriate supervision, cleanliness, and student independence.
• Establish clear expectations and routines for transitions, hallways, stairwells, bathrooms, and other shared spaces.
• Create clear staff assignments, posts, responsibilities, and accountability structures for these systems.
• Train staff on expectations and provide coaching and feedback when implementation is inconsistent.
• Ensure staff consistently and reliably execute assigned culture responsibilities.
• Establish clear systems for coverage when staff members are absent or unavailable.
• Monitor these systems in real time and make adjustments based on student needs, culture data, staff feedback, and observed challenges.
• Develop opportunities for student leadership and ownership within shared spaces when appropriate.
• Partner closely with Operations on facilities, transportation, School Foods, safety, scheduling, and other logistical needs that support these systems.

Operations owns the operational infrastructure necessary for these systems to function. The Assistant Principal of Culture owns the student experience, culture expectations, adult implementation, supervision, routines, and accountability within these spaces.

Culture Systems, Documentation & Follow-Through

The Assistant Principal of Culture will:

• Develop, implement, maintain, and continuously improve schoolwide culture systems, routines, procedures, and expectations.
• Ensure culture systems and expectations are clearly documented, communicated, and understood by staff, students, and families.
• Create and maintain clear systems for documenting behavioral incidents, interventions, consequences, restorative responses, family communication, and follow-up.
• Ensure staff consistently and accurately use established culture documentation and referral systems.
• Regularly review and audit culture documentation for accuracy, completeness, trends, and outstanding follow-up.
• Establish clear escalation protocols and ensure staff understand how and when concerns should move through the system.
• Ensure significant student incidents receive timely and appropriate follow-up.
• Ensure consequences, interventions, and restorative responses are completed as intended.
• Establish effective re-entry processes following significant incidents or extended removals from the school community.
• Create and maintain systems for tracking students with recurring behavioral, attendance, or engagement concerns.
• Ensure interventions have clear owners, timelines, next steps, and measures of progress.
• Monitor whether agreed-upon interventions are actually happening and hold appropriate team members accountable for follow-through.
• Ensure timely family communication and appropriate documentation of communication.
• Coordinate across teachers, grade teams, student support staff, families, and leadership so students do not fall through the cracks.
• Maintain accurate records necessary for student support, accountability, family communication, and compliance.

Adult Development & Accountability

A central responsibility of the Assistant Principal of Culture is building the capacity of adults to create and sustain strong culture.

The Assistant Principal will:

• Conduct regular classroom and schoolwide culture walkthroughs.