Director of Programs in Chicago, Illinois at Academy For Urban School Leadership (AUSL)

Organization Overview

The Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL) is a non-profit organization that recruits, trains, and supports new teachers in underserved communities to ensure every student has a great teacher and a transformative education. Founded in Chicago, IL, AUSL became the first urban teacher residency in 2001. Building on 25 years of transformative impact, AUSL is entering into a period of rapid expansion as we work to address the nation’s critical teacher shortage. As part of AUSL’s Vision 2030 plan, we’re committed to training 500 new teachers a year by 2030. To learn more about AUSL, please visit our website.

Role Overview

The Director of Programs is a senior operational and strategic leader within the program team. This role serves as the connective tissue across all program verticals, ensuring that leadership has the real-time visibility, operational infrastructure, and strategic insight needed to drive program-wide excellence. The Director of Programs partners closely with the Chief Program Officer (CPO) to advance organizational priorities, manage critical cross-functional projects, and ensure that the program team operates with clarity, cohesion, and impact.

This is a high-impact, high-visibility role suited for a deeply collaborative leader who brings both strategic acumen and operational rigor, and who is passionate about new teacher development and the systems that enable educators to thrive.

Key Responsibilities

Program Operations & Strategic Visibility (30%)

• Coordinates across all program verticals to ensure real-time visibility into program performance and emerging priorities.
• Leads monthly program leadership team data review cycles, synthesizing program-wide insight to inform CPO-level strategic decisions.
• Builds and maintains program SOPs, playbooks, and documentation that institutionalize best practices as the team grows; manages and operationalizes programmatic shifts and development.
• Supports program-wide special projects as needed, conducting research, cohort modeling, staffing projections, and growth planning to enable data-informed decision-making.

Partnership Management (25%)

• Supports New Partner Launches, providing strategic framing and tactical support to ensure smooth, high-quality onboarding.
• Serves as a primary point of contact for partner relationships, building trust and ensuring alignment between partner needs and organizational goals.
• Monitors partnership health and outcomes, proactively identifying risks or opportunities and adjusting strategy as needed.
• Monitors programmatic trends, challenges, and opportunities, proactively surfacing recommendations to program leadership.

Leadership Engagement & Culture (10%)

• Prepares and facilitates org-wide program vision sessions, retreats, and key leadership engagements for the program team.
• Acts as a trusted thought partner to the CPO and program leadership, managing sensitive information and representing leadership priorities across the organization.

Talent & People Development (10%)

• Supports hiring, leadership development, performance conversations, and talent pipeline development across the program team.
• Partners with program leaders to identify professional growth opportunities and strengthen the leadership bench.

Content & Instructional Expertise (25%)

• Brings deep expertise and knowledge of new teacher development and research-based instructional practices to inform program design, coaching frameworks, and organizational strategy.
• Serves as an internal resource and thought leader on best practices in teacher development, drawing on current research to shape program priorities and quality standards.

Required

• 7+ years of experience in education, teacher development, or a related field, with at least 3 years in a program or operational leadership role.
• Deep expertise in new teacher development and evidence-based instructional practices.
• Demonstrated experience leading cross-functional projects and driving results across multiple teams.
• Strong analytical skills with experience in data synthesis, cohort modeling, or program performance analysis.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills; ability to synthesize complex information for senior leadership.
• Proven ability to build systems, SOPs, and documentation that enable organizational scale.
• Track record of supporting and developing talent, including hiring, performance management, and leadership coaching.
• Has reliable transportation to commute to school sites in and around Chicagoland
• Genuinely enjoys in-person collaboration and thrives working alongside colleagues, with the flexibility to adjust their schedule and location as team and project needs shift in a hybrid environment.

Preferred

• Experience in a Chief of Staff, Deputy Director, or senior strategy and operations role within an educational organization.
• Familiarity with new partner launch processes or organizational expansion in an education context.
• Comfort operating in a fast-paced, growing organization with an ability to navigate ambiguity and lead through change.

Core Competencies

• Proactive Problem-Solving: Anticipates challenges before they arise by thinking several steps ahead, connecting dots across people and processes, and building long-term plans that prevent issues rather than react to them
• Strategic Thinking: Translates organizational vision into operational plans and connects day-to-day work to long-term program goals.
• Systems & Operations: Designs and maintains structures that bring clarity, efficiency, and accountability across a complex organization.
• Collaboration & Influence: Builds trust across teams and levels; moves work forward through relationships, not just authority.
• Analytical Rigor: Uses data to drive decisions and is comfortable working with ambiguous or complex information.
• Instructional Expertise: Grounds decisions in a deep understanding of teacher development and what it takes to support new educators.
• Communication: Communicates with precision, warmth, and clarity in writing, facilitation, and interpersonal settings.

• Paid time off, sick time and holidays
• Medical Insurance - Blue Cross Blue Shield
• Dental Insurance
• Vision Insurance
• Life Insurance
• Short-Term Disability
• Long-Term Disability
• 403(b) Retirement Savings - Annual Matching
• Flex Spending Account - Medical
• Flex Spending Account - Dependent Care
• Employee Assistance Program
• Parental Leave
• Accidental Insurance
• Perks at Work Discounts
• Annual Professional Growth Plans