Vice President of Communications

Vice President of School Relations
City Year, Inc.
Headquarters

About City Year

City Year is an education-focused nonprofit organization that partners with public schools to help keep students in school and on track to graduate. City Year AmeriCorps members commit to a year of full-time service in schools, where they work as tutors, mentors and role models. Founded in Boston in 1988, City Year works in 24 cities across the United States and has international affiliates in London and Johannesburg, South Africa. More than one million students give up on school each year – and 50 percent of those dropouts come from just 12 percent of schools. City Year AmeriCorps members serve where the need is greatest. City Year’s school-based model is called Whole School Whole Child. Corps members tutor students identified as at-risk of dropping out, serve as an additional resource for teachers in classrooms, and lead afterschool programs and school-wide initiatives to improve school culture.

Our Service

As one of the fastest growing nonprofit organizations in the country, City Year is laser-focused on reducing the dropout crisis in America. City Year partners with schools and teachers to place trained young adults in schools where they’re needed most to provide individual support to students who need extra care and attention. Working side-by-side with teachers, our Corps Members use research-based tools and techniques to help students who are struggling—so more kids stay in school and on track to succeed.

By addressing the needs of the whole child, we help transform the whole school. With the hands-on support they need to succeed, more students are ready, willing and able to learn, which creates a more positive and productive learning environment for the whole school.

Summary

The Vice President of School Relations at City Year Headquarters will bring expertise and capacity to develop deep, strategic partnerships with schools and school districts across the country. With such partnerships City Year helps to advance student impact and align with local education reform efforts. The Vice President of School Relations will lead City Year’s School Relations Center of Excellence and work as part of a talented and diverse Strategy & Growth team to strengthen partnership and implementation processes that will help City Year achieve higher levels of impact and sustainable funding. This position reports to the Senior Vice President of Strategy and Operations.

Responsibilities

The Vice President of School Relations will lead on the following priority work streams:

• District Strategy Support and Analysis: City Year continues to build and strengthen district partnerships. To advance this work the Vice President of School Relations will focus on understanding the current state and future potential of City Year’s district partnerships and providing strategic support to City Year site staff and boards. This will require assessing the strength of City Year’s district relationships, identifying opportunities to increase impact collaboratively with partners, identifying current and future sources of funding for City Year’s work (including opportunities to be written into more school improvement plans), and leveraging opportunities to work with districts to adopt cyschoolhouse (City Year’s new web-based tool for managing work with students and tracking their performance). The VP will manage and track leading and lagging indicators assessing the strength of school district partnerships.

• Advancing School Operating Conditions to Increase Impact: The Vice President of School Relations will help lead a set of priority projects to improve City Year’s ability to deliver impact and improve school partnerships. This will involve assessing City Year partnerships and adding strategic support to local City Year teams that are on the cusp of advancing key operating conditions (e.g., data-informed decision making; collaborative planning time; alignment with curriculum and instruction) with their school partners.

• Advancing City Year National District Strategy: The Vice President of School Relations will work to strengthen City Year’s value proposition to school districts. A key to this will involve continually analyzing the competitive landscape and assessing opportunities for partnering with other student support services organizations to increase impact. This role will also develop a strategy to continue to increase the level of cost reimbursement from districts for City Year’s services.

• Technical Assistance: The Vice President of School Relations will lead on the content development for City Year’s district strategy and provide technical assistance to the City Year field and Headquarters staff related to: developing deep, learning partnerships with schools and districts; advancing school operating conditions with partners; identifying public education funding streams; education reform and policy dynamics.

Qualifications

• Experience in education reform and nonprofit management, preferably as part of a high-performing team
• Experience working in schools, or partnering with multiple schools and/or districts
• Ability to cultivate and manage multiple large scale relationships
• Proven project planning and management experience, particularly across multiple sites serving diverse constituents
• Organizational development/capacity building experience essential
• Successful coaching/mentoring skills essential
• Experience developing organizational learning content and rolling out training initiatives; track record of establishing structure/processes to enable effective achievement of goals
• Excellent presentation, verbal, and written communication skills; ability to connect with diverse audiences
• Comfort with change as well as the ability to provide structure and clarity when required
• Experience working collaboratively in a team environment, as well as strong independent problem-solving skills
• Sense of humor and flexibility
• Bachelor’s degree required; graduate degree in education, business, or policy preferred

Compensation & Benefits

Comprehensive benefits including health insurance, vacation days, holidays, parental leave, 401K, FSA, Blackberry phone/service and more.

To Apply

Qualified applicants should send a resume, cover letter, and references to:

City Year Headquarters
VP of School Relations Search
Attn: Maureen Alphonse-Charles, Vice President of Executive Acquisition
Email: cyexecutivejobs@cityyear.org
Subject: CY VP School Relations Search

City Year is committed to a diverse workforce. Individuals from all backgrounds are encouraged to apply.