Professional Learning Operations Specialist

Description

WELCOME TO INDIANAPOLIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS!

At IPS, we believe in the transformative power of education. We work collectively every day to prepare our students for success in the classroom and in life by providing equitable, high-quality educational experiences across our family of schools. IPS is a place to make an impact, grow your career, and ensure every student has access to a high quality education, all while earning a good living in a district on the move. While the work is challenging, it is deeply meaningful and impactful. We seek innovators and trailblazers who bring varying experiences and expertise and share our belief that every child deserves access to an exceptional education. As part of TeamIPS, you'll create lasting connections, find a sense of belonging, and feel supported to make a meaningful difference in students' lives.

In return, no matter your role here, we expect a commitment to excellence and accountability. You'll be held to high standards. Resilience and passion are key-you must be adaptable, handling adversity with flexibility while putting students at the heart of everything you do. Ethical conduct, clear communication, and mutual respect are fundamental. Being a dependable, collaborative team player who builds meaningful relationships is essential.

Together, we are Proving What's Possible by building a community where everyone belongs and each student has the opportunity to fulfill their potential.

A Career in IPS Offers...

Purpose and Impact:

• Essential Contributions: In every non-teaching and non-leadership role, your work directly supports the success of IPS students and schools. Whether you're maintaining facilities, providing student services, or managing administrative operations, you play a key part in ensuring an equitable and high-quality educational environment.
• Belonging and Community: IPS is a place where every employee is valued. You'll join a supportive community that promotes respect, teamwork, and a shared commitment to serving students and families.

Professional and Personal Growth:

• Training and Development Opportunities: IPS offers a variety of training programs to help staff build new skills and grow professionally. This includes access to development opportunities for administrative, technical, and operational roles, as well as pathways to becoming a certified teacher.
• Skill Enhancement: Whether you're new to your role or seeking to deepen your expertise, IPS provides resources and support for continuous improvement.

What We Expect:

• Professionalism and Reliability: Every role at IPS is vital to the district's success. We expect staff to demonstrate professionalism, dependability, and a commitment to providing excellent service to students, educators, and families.
• Collaboration and Communication: IPS values teamwork. Working collaboratively with your colleagues ensures a supportive environment for all. Clear communication and mutual respect are key to maintaining this culture.
• Flexibility and Problem-Solving: As a large, dynamic district, IPS needs staff who are adaptable and proactive in solving problems to meet the ever-changing needs of students and schools.

JOIN US!

Indianapolis Public Schools is more than a workplace; it's a community where purpose, impact, and belonging come together to help Prove What's Possible - in your career and in your school. If you're ready to embrace challenges, strive for excellence, and make a meaningful impact, IPS is the place for you.

SUMMARY OF OPPORTUNITY:

The Professional Learning Operations Specialist serves as the central operational backbone and primary systems redundancy for the district's Professional Learning department. Reporting directly to the Executive Director of Professional Learning Strategy , this multi-faceted role provides critical day-to-day administrative, logistical, financial, and data management infrastructure supporting the entire professional learning division.

This role manages central communications, tracks districtwide professional development compliance, orchestrates complex stipend payment pipelines, and maintains the integrity of the department's master calendars and data dashboards. Additionally, this role serves as the primary fiscal custodian for the department's dedicated professional learning grants and acts as a vital administrative engine for selective leadership and teacher career pipelines. By serving as a direct operational extension of the Executive Director, the Specialist ensures behind-the-scenes fiscal, logistical, and digital systems run seamlessly, keeping all sub-department initiatives aligned to the district's strategic priorities.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Career Pathways Administrative & Cohort Support

• Selective Admissions Logistics: Manage the administrative intake, application sorting, and candidate tracking portals during recruitment and selection windows for high-stakes cohorts, including the Aspiring Leaders Academy (ALA) and Aspiring Principals Academy (APA).
• Interview & Panel Coordination: Coordinate schedules, reserve facilities, distribute rubrics, and manage logistics for all candidate interview panels across the leadership tracks.
• Apprenticeship Compliance Auditing: Monitor and log the submission of required on-the-job learning hours, documentation, and formal competency "sign-offs" from Apprenticeship Coaches to maintain strict compliance records.
• LETRS Progress Monitoring: Track completion data for online LETRS modules, manage training schedules, log submission compliance for the "Bridge to Practice" application assignments, and push automated deadline reminders to participants.
• Teacher Leadership: Maintain a centralized, up-to-date database of all active Teacher Leadership roles and opportunities districtwide, ensuring roster accuracy for communication and evaluation purposes.

2. Grant Management & Fiscal Compliance

• Grant Administration: Manage and oversee the execution of the Professional Learning department's dedicated grants used to fund professional development auxiliary enhancements, ensuring strict adherence to district fiscal policies and grant compliance guidelines.
• Budget Tracking & Allocation: Monitor grant fund balances, maintain clear ledgers of expenditures, and track funding allocations earmarked for PD extras, including specialized learning materials, participant giveaways, district swag, and catering (snacks/lunch) for large scale events.
• Procurement Execution: Serve as the primary point of contact for vendor sourcing, purchasing orders, and invoice reconciliation related to grant-funded materials, ensuring timely delivery and audit-ready documentation.

3. Financial Operations & Materials Logistics

• Stipend Payment Processing: Oversee and execute the end-to-end stipend payment pipeline for all professional learning cohorts (including Teacher Leaders, LETRS Cohorts, and learning day attendees), collaborating with Payroll/Finance to ensure timely, compliant, and audit-ready tracking.
• Procurement & Supply Tracking: Monitor, fulfill, and track all incoming requests for professional development materials, books, and curriculum supplies, ensuring regional and districtwide trainings are fully equipped.
• PL Request Review Pipeline: Conduct the initial intake, compliance review, and logging of external staff professional learning requests, tracking approved allocations and post-attendance accountability records.

4. Central Communications & Calendar Management

• Inbox Triage & Customer Service: Manage and triage the main central Professional Learning email inbox, independently resolving routine inquiries from staff, vendors, and school leaders, while routing complex issues to appropriate team members.
• Master PL Calendar Administration: Maintain the master Professional Learning Calendar; cross-reference dates to prevent department overlap and proactively send out targeted calendar invites and registration links to applicable district staff.
• High-Profile Curation: Lead the end-to-end creation, formatting, and content curation of the weekly Principals' Newsletter and monthly Educator Update Newsletter , ensuring timely dissemination of critical operational updates, deadlines, and learning paths.
• Supervisor Guidebook Maintenance: Oversee the structural management, formatting, and quarterly revisions of the district's Supervisor Guidebook to ensure policy, onboarding frameworks, and evaluation standards remain completely up to date.

5. Digital Systems & Compliance Infrastructure

• Learning Portal Co-Administration: Serve as the secondary administrator and tech-expert for the district's Learning Portal (Staff LMS); build out courses, troubleshoot user issues, and master all backend configurations to provide seamless system redundancy.
• Compliance Tracking & Reporting: Monitor mandatory district compliance training completion rates. Build and maintain live progress dashboards or generate comprehensive quarterly reports for supervisors to easily track their teams' compliance standing.
• Course Auditing & Quality Control: Review asynchronous modules published on the LMS by external departments to ensure links function, formatting aligns with district branding, and course settings accurately track completion.

6. Core Cross-Departmental Logistical Support

• Experience & Operations Support: Review incoming facilitator slide decks against the IPS 6 Keys to Professional Learning and adult learning theories , providing baseline formatting and pedagogical feedback.
• Induction & Mentorship Support: Partner with the Coordinator of Induction & Mentorship to coordinate logistics for recurring bi-weekly onboarding days, track new-hire completion, and manage mentorship cohort rosters.
• Data Analytics & Dashboard Management: Manage and update unified Professional Learning data dashboards, consolidating metrics across multiple programs including onboarding data , exit surveys , event feedback , and cohort engagement.
• Other Duties: Perform other duties as assigned to support broad, high-stakes districtwide professional learning initiatives and large-scale event setups.

Core Competencies

• Process Orientation & Systems Thinking: Exceptional ability to build orderly workflows out of complex, manual processes (such as stipend tracking, application intake, and compliance monitoring).
• Administrative Project Management: Strong capacity to track multiple administrative timelines, roster deadlines, and evaluation frameworks simultaneously without oversight.
• Financial & Grant Literacy: Strong aptitude for budget tracking, grant compliance, and meticulous ledger maintenance.
• Technical & LMS Proficiency: Advanced comfort learning backend database logic, learning management system (LMS) controls, data entry conventions, and visualization tools (e.g., Excel, Google Sheets, or data dashboards).
• Crisp Written Communication: Strong editing, proofreading, and content synthesis skills required to publish clean corporate copy for leadership-facing newsletters.

Qualifications

• Education: Associates degree in Business Administration, Finance, Accounting, Human Resources, Education, or a related field required.
• Experience: * Minimum of 2-3 years of experience managing office operations, data tracking, financial processing (stipends/invoicing), grant tracking, or digital platform administration (LMS/CRM).
• Proven experience supporting the administration of complex projects, application processing, or database compliance records.
• Experience formatting professional communications, high-profile corporate newsletters, or technical guidebooks.
• T echnical Skills: Mastery of spreadsheet applications (advanced formulas, pivot tables, data tracking setups), fiscal reporting systems, email management platforms, and cloud-based file collaboration.

FLSA CLASSIFICATION:

Exempt

ELIGIBILITY FOR REMOTE WORK:

Not eligible

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS:

The physical requirements described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to use hands to finger, handle, or feel; talk or hear. The employee frequently is required to stand and walk. The employee is occasionally required to sit; reach with hands and arms; and stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 10 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and ability to adjust focus.

EEOC STATEMENT:

Indianapolis Public Schools, in accordance with its nondiscrimination policies, will not discriminate in its programs, facilities, or employment or educational opportunities on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, sex, age, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, veteran or military status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, familial status, domestic violence victim status, homelessness or any other legally recognized protected basis under federal, state or local laws, regulations, or ordinances. Indianapolis Public Schools does not tolerate any form of retaliation or bias-based intimidation, threat, or harassment that demeans individuals' dignity or interferes with their ability to learn or work.

DISCLAIMER:

Essential functions, as defined under the Americans with Disabilities Act, may include any of the above representative duties, knowledge, and skills. This job description is illustrative only and is not a comprehensive list of all essential functions and duties performed by the occupant of this position. Factors such as regular and punctual attendance are not routinely listed in job descriptions but are an essential function.

Benefits

For benefits information, please see