Humanities Department Chair

Humanities Department Chair

Davis School Chicago is a proudly Jewish, college-preparatory high school opening in fall 2027 in downtown Chicago, in a state-of-the-art building at the heart of a great city for learning. Every adult at Davis is an educator and a culture-builder, held to two expectations at once: deep human warmth and uncompromising intellectual excellence.

Davis is hiring a founding Humanities Department Chair to build — and then teach in — one interdisciplinary program where students read, write, and argue across literature and history at a college level. This is a teaching chair: in the launch years the Chair carries a substantial teaching load while building the department from scratch, with increasing time for curriculum, coaching, and professional development as the school grows.

Responsibilities:

• Architect the humanities course sequence from first principles across English, History, Social Sciences, and Philosophy, meeting or exceeding AP frameworks (AP World, European, and U.S. History; AP English Language and Literature)
• Lead the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of a vertically aligned humanities curriculum
• Recruit, hire, onboard, mentor, supervise, and evaluate department faculty, and serve as an instructional coach
• Facilitate weekly common planning time centered on student work, and run peer observation and coaching cycles
• Cultivate a reading culture built on complete major works — books worth loving and reading whole rather than excerpted
• Support academic competitions, publications, speaker series, and experiential learning opportunities
• Build relationships with universities, research institutions, humanities organizations, and cultural institutions

Qualifications:

• Master's degree required in Education, Educational Leadership, Humanities, English, History, or Social Sciences; doctorate preferred
• Illinois Professional Educator License in high school social science and English preferred;
  National Board Certification a major plus
• 3+ years of successful humanities teaching experience
• Leadership experience with adults required; instructional leadership preferred
• Being Jewish is not a requirement for this role

Salary: $77,543–$137,099, based on the school's faculty salary schedule, plus a leadership differential of $4,000–$8,000 determined by years of leadership experience.

Benefits:

• Paid time off and holiday pay
• Medical insurance
• 401(k) with employer match

Davis School Chicago is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer.