Description

The Sun Prairie Area School District seeks a dynamic, student-centered, equity-focused leader to serve as Principal of Central Hieghts Middle School in the growing community of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. We believe diversity is an asset and strongly encourage women and candidates of color to apply.

Our District Commitments

In Sun Prairie, we:

• Value the diversity and lived experiences of our students and community
• Prepare students to thrive in a dynamic future through critical thinking and meaningful learning
• Support students' social, emotional, and academic growth
• Foster ethical behavior, strong character, and lifelong learning
• Create safe, welcoming, and nurturing learning environments
• Invest in a highly qualified, culturally responsive, and diverse workforce
• Believe strong partnerships with families, staff, and the community lead to educational excellence
• Commit to continuous improvement in pursuit of excellence

The Sun Prairie Experience

Sun Prairie is a vibrant and rapidly growing community in northeastern Dane County, just east of Madison, with a population of approximately 39,000. The Sun Prairie Area School District serves more than 8,600 students, over one-third of whom identify as students of color, with 10% speaking a language other than English. Our community consistently supports our schools, including the successful passage of multiple referenda to meet the needs of our growing district.

Minimum Qualifications

• Minimum of 3 years of school administrative experience (experience in racially, linguistically, and socioeconomically diverse schools preferred)
• Minimum of 3 years of professional educator experience at the secondary level
• Master's Degree in Educational Administration
• Valid Wisconsin DPI Principal (51) license; Director of Instruction (10) or Director of Student Services (80) licensure is highly valued
• Demonstrated alignment with district vision and core values
• Proven commitment to equity, anti-racism, and culturally responsive practices
• Experience working across cultures and a commitment to continued growth in cultural proficiency
• Strong relationship-building skills with students, staff, families, and community partners
• Ability to use data to improve student learning and lead effective, equity-focused professional development
• Demonstrated success in leading school improvement
• Experience in instructional, operational, and human resource leadership, and in cultivating a positive school culture and climate, including safety

Desired Qualifications 

• Multilingual, with a preference for fluency in Spanish and/or Hmong
   

Do you want to be part of a district that works in close partnership with its community to provide high-quality educational experiences for all students?
Do you want to join a team committed to ensuring academic and social-emotional success for every child, every day?

If so, please apply!

To build a staff that reflects our student population, candidates of color are strongly encouraged to apply.

Requirements

SUMMARY:

This position is responsible for promoting the success of all students by: 

• Leading the development, communication, implementation, and monitoring of a vision for learning; shared and supported by the school community. 
• Modeling lifelong learning as a visionary and self-reflective learner who develops a high trust level with all stakeholders. 
• Advocating and sustaining a school culture and instructional program conducive to student learning and staff professional growth. 
• Ensuring management of the organization, operations, and resources for a safe, efficient, and effective learning environment. 
• Being highly collaborative with staff members, peers, families and community members. 
• Responding to and valuing our diverse community in alignment with Sun Prairie Area School District core values. 
• Acting with integrity, with fairness, and in an ethical manner; and 
• Understanding, responding to, and influencing the larger political, social, economic, legal, and cultural contexts of the school.

ESSENTIAL LEADERSHIP SKILLS & DUTIES include the following: 

1. Creating a Culture of Care:
   1. Creates conditions so that students can acquire habits, skills, and attributes regarding their emotional development, self-concept, and social competence. This includes opportunities to access high quality social-emotional learning (SEL) instruction, evidence-based educator practices, and the integration of social-emotional competencies into the learning environments.
   2. Establishes student/educator relationship as a partnership. Sun Prairie learning environments will be places where emotional connection and trust are the foundations for educators to provide both strong relationships and expect high standards. Educators support each student’s feelings of belonging and value in their learning community. Students are learning partners with one another within their classroom communities.
   3. Develops a sense of school connectedness and belonging exists through the development of genuine caring, nurturing, and supportive relationships between and among students and educators so that students have a positive experience at school. 
   4. Utilizes restorative practices to emphasize community-building and the development of belonging and acceptance as a means to establish positive relationships and connection. When harm occurs between individuals and/or to the community, there is a focus on repairing the relationship in order to restore a healthy sense of community.
2. Providing Rigorous and Coherent Teaching: 
   1. Creates conditions where educators and students combine knowledge of learner interests, learner development, and academic and social-emotional learning standards (SEL) to provide challenging, aligned, and enduring learning experiences. Curriculum is adapted and supplemented as needed. 
   2. Analyzes and leverages student data to determine when supplementary learning opportunities are needed in order to ensure learning of essential standards.
   3. Provides students with assessment opportunities to demonstrate competency and proficiency of essential standards. Competency is defined by student understanding, and proficiency is defined by a student’s ability to apply their learning to unique or authentic problems. 
   4. Provides opportunities for students to demonstrate understanding of standards in multiple formats and media. Tasks and assessments contain developmentally appropriate and increasingly expansive opportunities for students to use spoken word, writing, composition, demonstration or other forms of expression to communicate understanding and create meaning. 
   5. Provides feedback that is prompt, aligned to learning targets, and promotes students’ self-reflection.
   6. Allows students to have real, significant, and authentic choices about their learning, and the strategies and approaches they will use to meet learning objectives. Students may align choices to their areas of interest. Students are able to communicate their learning goals and then set, plan and achieve those goals with guidance and feedback from educators that validates and affirms their learning.
3. Disrupting Inequity:
   1. Leads a student-centered approach to teaching by which students' unique cultural strengths are identified and nurtured to promote student achievement and a sense of well-being and belonging. All staff must know that we live in a diverse society with disparate outcomes based on race, ability, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, and language. Staff must recognize their own cultural lens on interpreting and evaluating students. Staff must promote effective learning by responding to students’ displays of culture with teaching moves that connect students’ prior knowledge with new concepts.
   2. Works collaboratively to analyze data, design and engage in professional growth, and implement action plans that shift the culture of the district/school to embrace system-wide equity transformation. Inequitable systems must be dismantled through a dynamic process that removes systemic barriers that inhibit the learning of all historically marginalized students.
   3. Believes students must be recognized for their individuality. Diverse learners include students of all abilities and all identities. Fosters students' success by building on their individual strengths and through the removal of barriers to their learning.  All students must see themselves within the curriculum and learning experiences. All educators must see the multiple dimensions of each learner.

ESSENTIAL LEADERSHIP RESPONSIBILITIES include the following: Other duties may be assigned.

1. Provides coaching for the improvement of the staff and their practices and as a part of the evaluation process. 
2. Collaboratively leads the school community in a school improvement plan that provides high  accountability by establishing goals and metrics to measure progress to positively impact student  achievement for all students. 
3. Provides teachers with the materials and professional development necessary for the successful execution of their jobs aligned with the school district strategic plan through effective management of allocated resources. 
4. Implements a set of standard operating principles and procedures in alignment with district policy and procedures.
5. Develops strong relationships with all careholders to develop a positive climate and culture where all students can thrive.
6. Maintains current knowledge base about best practices in curriculum, instruction and assessment.
7. Establishes strong lines of communication with and among teachers, staff, students, colleagues, and parent/caregivers.
8. Adapts leadership behavior to the needs of the current situation with understanding of multiple perspectives.
9. Leads and carries out the implementation of school and district strategies and initiatives.
10. Participates as a collaborator in district level work.
11. Meets established timelines and expectations in all aspects of the position.

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES:

As assigned in accordance with the district’s policies and applicable laws.

QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS: To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to eligible individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE:

Master’s Degree in administration with graduate level course work in school administration.  Minimum of three years experience in leadership and/or teaching.  Background and/or experience in bilingual education strongly preferred.

COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE SKILLS:

Ability to read, analyze, and interpret school and student achievement data,  professional journals, technical procedures, or government regulations.  Ability to write reports, business correspondence, and procedures.  Ability to effectively present information and respond to questions from students, staff, parents/guardians, administrators, school board and community.

MATHEMATICAL SKILLS:

Ability to understand and calculate student data, figures and amounts such as discounts, interest, commissions, proportions, percentages, area, circumference, and volume.  Ability to apply basic concepts of algebra and geometry.  Ability to work with mathematical statistics and operations.

OTHER SKILLS AND ABILITIES:

Ability to apply knowledge of current research and theory in specific field.  Working knowledge of word processing, spreadsheet, database, student software system and presentation software applications.  Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with students, staff, and the community.  Ability to communicate clearly and concisely both in verbal and written format.  Ability to perform duties with awareness of all district and school board policies.

ANALYTICAL AND REASONING ABILITY:

Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw conclusions.  Ability to interpret an extensive variety of technical instructions in mathematical and diagram form and deal with several abstract and concrete variables.

TEMPERAMENTS:

Ability to direct others, deal with people, and influence people in their opinions, attitudes, and judgments.  Ability to perform a variety of duties.  Ability to work with people who express conflicting opinions.  Ability to solve problems, make judgments, and reach conclusions.

PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES:  The physical demands 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 enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to stand, walk, sit, talk, and hear.  The employee is occasionally required to reach with hands and arms and stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl.  The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 50 pounds.  Specific vision abilities required by this job include close visions, distance vision, peripheral vision, and depth perception.

WORK ENVIRONMENT:  The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

The noise environment is quiet to loud depending upon the activity in the particular part of the day and the location.  

CERTIFICATES, LICENSES:

Must possess and maintain or be eligible to obtain a current Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction license for Principal, or Pre K-12 Principal License, Code 51.  Must possess and maintain or be eligible to obtain a current Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction license to teach.  Driver’s License.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS:

Shall complete a physical examination as required by Wisconsin Statute 118.25.