Senior Director of Learning

Originally founded in 1991 as Harlem RBI, DREAM has grown to annually serve more than 2,500 youth across East Harlem and the South Bronx through a network of seven PreK-12, extended-day, extended-year DREAM Charter Schools and community sports-based youth development programs. Through our commitment to rigorous academics, social-emotional learning, deep family and community engagement, and health and wellness, we create lifelong learners who are equipped to fulfill their vision of success in and out of the classroom.

We dream big, as well, with an aggressive five-year plan to expand to serve 3,500 students across seven schools—growing our organization’s impact and leveling the playing field for all children. To learn more, visit wearedream.org.

Reporting directly to the Deputy Chief of Learning, the Senior Director of Learning will lead the design and implementation of high-priority initiatives across DREAM’s K-12 Learning Team. The Senior Director is charged with translating ambitious ideas into clear, actionable, and sustainable initiatives that strengthen DREAM’s grow-the-whole-child model and improve outcomes for students. This leadership role will align strategic vision with day-to-day execution through organizing stakeholders around complex initiatives and managing cross-functional partnerships.

This is an exciting opportunity for a mission-driven, highly adaptable leader with a strong background in school or network leadership, the ability to coach and develop leaders, expertise in designing and facilitating strong professional learning, a record of developing initiatives from the ground up, a genuine curiosity and excitement to learn new content and turn mess into success, and the ability to drive complex work through influence, relationships, and cross-functional partnerships.

Initiative Design

• Lead the development of high-priority Learning Team initiatives related to academics, special education, social-emotional learning and mental health services, extended learning and enrichment (after-school, summer, and school day enrichment) and AI (examples of initiatives may include running an edtech pilot program in one school, coordinating a special education-academics working group, redefining the network structure for managing RTI systems across social-emotional learning, mental health, behavior, attendance, and academics, working with an external consultant, grant partner, and network academics leaders to develop a STEM leader fellowship, leading a task force to align debate skills in our history curriculum to our extracurricular debate programs, etc.);
• Design initiatives from the ground up, including defining the problem through root cause analysis, establishing a theory of action, crafting evidence-based recommendations, and developing a clear path from concept to implementation;
• Establish measurable goals, objectives, KPIs, and progress-monitoring benchmarks to assess implementation quality and impact on student and school outcomes;
• Develop clear recommendations, decision-making materials, and executive-level communications that enable senior leaders to move initiatives forward;
• Build trusting relationships with internal and external stakeholders including funders, grant partners, and consultants who partner with us on initiative design and implementation.

Initiative Implementation

• Lead complex, high-priority initiatives from launch through full implementation, operating with significant independence and accountability for successful outcomes and excellence in implementation;
• Create and implement structures necessary for successful execution, including project plans, implementation calendars, meeting cadences, accountability systems, and progress-monitoring tools;
• Coach school and network leaders to understand, adopt, and execute new initiatives;
• Monitor initiative implementation progress and outcomes and adjust as necessary;
• Capture and communicate successes and impact to broad audiences;
• Establish systems and documentation that enable initiatives to transition from launch-stage projects to sustainable, organization-wide practices executed by others.

Cross Functional Leadership

• Se…