Arts Department Chair; Music, Theatre, Visual & Media Arts

Full-Time Founding Leadership Position
· Reports to the Principal
· Master’s degree required in Education, Educational Leadership, Art, Music, Theatre, Arts Education, or a related field; doctorate preferred
· Illinois Professional Educator License in the arts preferred and National Board Certification a major plus
· 3+ years of successful teaching experience required
· Some form of leadership experience is required;
Department, administration, or instructional leadership preferred
· College-preparatory, independent, Jewish day or faith-based school experience is a plus
· Being Jewish is not a requirement for this role
· Fewer years but exceptional craft? We hire for mastery, not seat time.

Are you a passionate educator and arts advocate who believes creativity is essential to a world-class education? Do you believe the arts cultivate confidence, innovation, expression, leadership, and belonging? Do you want the opportunity to build and lead an exceptional visual and performing arts program within a new Jewish college-preparatory high school? If so, Davis School Chicago wants to hear from you.

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 Chicago is an educator and a culture-builder. We hold two expectations at the same time: deep human warmth and uncompromising intellectual excellence. High health and high results, never one at the cost of the other.

This is a summary of the characteristics that describe our dream team. Please read the full Profile of the Ideal Davis Chicago Educator and more information about our opportunities.

To thrive here you are:

• Warm and intellectually formidable. Genuinely kind and seriously bright. We hire for intellectual horsepower; only sharp minds grow students to their full potential.

• You bring the room to life. Passion people feel, loud or quiet, with the range to teach, support, and lead.

• A builder who owns it. Startup grit, a real growth mindset, open about mistakes, gives the gift of feedback, and the drive to create what doesn’t exist yet.

• Teach how to think, not what to think. Rigor, evidence, and a love of hard questions, including the controversial ones. Students reach their own conclusions.

• Rooted in tradition, built for what’s next. Ancient wisdom and modern tools, AI included, aimed at today's problems.

• Unapologetically Jewish. Israel has a right to exist; that is not up for debate. Everything else is fair game, including spirited debate about Israel’s actions. You’re excited to help build a proudly Jewish, pro-Israel school.

Davis Chicago is hiring an accomplished Arts Chair to build a program where making, performing, and understanding art are studied as seriously as calculus, and to teach in it every day. As a founding leader, the Chair is a member of the team opening a school from scratch. Therefore, the person needs to be a builder-leader: someone who can take a bold founding vision and turn it into a living school, then run a department in that school at a level of excellence every student, parent, and teacher can feel.

Davis School Chicago has also posted part-time arts teaching roles:
Visual & Media Arts, Music (Instrumental & Choral Director), and Theatre (Director). If you want to teach in one discipline without leading the department.

• Warm, Relational, and High-Performing – Kind, emotionally intelligent, intellectually rigorous, and committed to excellence.

• A Teacher First – Leads from the classroom and teaches every day.

• A Practicing Artist at Heart – Models the creative discipline the department teaches.

• An…