Director of Early Learning

About The Commit Partnership

The Commit Partnership is a collective impact organization dedicated to making Texas a place where economic opportunity is shared and not determined by race, place, or socioeconomic status. We collaborate with education practitioners and community leaders to improve educational outcomes from early childhood through postsecondary education, aiming to increase living wage attainment across Dallas County and the state of Texas.

Our True North Goal is that by 2040, at least half of all 25-34-year-old residents of Dallas County, irrespective of race, will earn a living wage. The Commit Partnership drives this vision by improving student achievement, workforce readiness, and postsecondary completion rates, ensuring more individuals are prepared for economic mobility and long-term success.

Position Summary

Under direction of the Managing Director of Early Learning, the Director of Early Learning will be responsible for systemic change management and implementation of innovative and high-impact strategies aimed at improving early childhood outcomes in Dallas County including Pre-K enrollment, kindergarten readiness, and achievement in grades 1-3.

In this role, the Director of Early Learning will develop and implement a strategic plan to increase student achievement through systems change. They will support the implementation of the Commit Early Learning strategic plan while also leading efforts to update the plan to include a strategy focused on emergent bilingual students, recognizing the critical role this student group plays in improving early childhood outcomes in Dallas County.

Additionally, the Director of Early Learning will be a co-facilitator of the Dallas County Early Learning Community, the collaborative, systems change community of practice for Commit's local Dallas County district partners. Throughout the school year, Commit convenes 12 district superintendents and their senior leadership teams around common goals for student achievement and sharing best practice strategies to support student success.

This role requires deep content expertise in teaching and learning, specifically elementary RLA and Math, a strong understanding of curriculum, and experience with leadership development, including instructional coaching. The ideal candidate will support districts in developing cohesive instructional strategies and aligning supports to research-based best practices.

The salary range for this role is $110,000 - $126,000.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Instructional Strategy & Pedagogy

• Support districts in implementing high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) and research-based instructional strategies.
• Influence and thought-partner with districts to build systems that ensure aligned, rigorous instruction in math and RLA, focusing on deep content understanding and learning.
• Guide district leaders in designing and implementing effective pedagogy that supports all learners, including multilingual learners and students requiring intervention.
• Enable and support districts in using data to inform instruction.

Collective Impact and Capacity Building

• Develop, manage, and execute departmental plans by providing strategic thought-partnership, technical assistance, and capacity-building support for districts and other partners seeking to implement innovative, evidence-based strategies focused on increasing early childhood outcomes.
• Provide strategic guidance to district leaders on high-impact instructional practices.
• Develop relationships to get meaningful time with systems-leaders to share key data, best practices, and lead courageous conversations on systems change within education.
• Convene and facilitate external meetings with high levels of engagement of systems-leaders that activate and drive toward outcomes for key initiatives and strategies (examples outlined above).

Professional Learning & Knowledge Building

• Design and facilitate content for district leaders focused on elementary reading and math including considerations for emergent bilingual students.
• Lead learning series and collaborative convenings to strengthen instructional leadership across districts.
• Create tools, frameworks, and resources to help districts support instructional coherence and drive continuous improvement in teaching and learning.

Cross-Team Collaboration & Leadership

• Manage a multi-staff team towards achieving individual strategic goals aligned to team and organizational outcomes and develop staff members towards professional development goals and expectations.
• Work alongside Commit's Academic Readiness and Educator Effectiveness team to ensure a cohesive approach to instructional improvement.
• Partner with districts to identify systemic challenges in curriculum and instruction andcontribute to codifying practices by identifying and sharing best practices
• Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications and Skills Required

• Ability to create strong, trusting relationships with team members and external stakeholders.
• Dedicated to seeking equity and track record of aligning to that end.
• Exceptional problem-solving skills, including analysis and synthesis of qualitative and quantitative data.
• Strong written and verbal communication, presentation, and facilitation skills
• Ability to navigate between independent project work and team collaborative projects.
• Talent managing a wide variety of stakeholders at different levels and ability to support interaction between leaders.
• Ability to coordinate with individuals from a range of disciplines and backgrounds.
• Natural interpersonal dynamic breeding trust and engagement of others.
• Insatiable desire to transform student achievement in North Texas and the belief that education can be an equalizer.
• Ability to be a trailblazer without always having a map in service to improving systems and student outcomes. Thrives in innovative environments. Can drive progress forward even within areas of gray.
• Desire to continuously incorporate feedback from the team and work with urgency, humility, and competing priorities; true team player.
• Ability to travel within the DFW metroplex for in-person meetings on a regular basis. Some infrequent state or national travel may be required.

Education and Experience Required

• Bachelor's Degree required.
• Five to eight years of experience in education or education-adjacent sectors at a systems-level.

Preferred

• Master's Degree in business, education, policy or other related field preferred.
• Proven record of achieving ambitious results in previous role, including managing a team of direct reports to accomplish ambitious results
• Familiarity with PK-12 education system, particularly in elementary, in Texas.
• Previous experience as a campus principal and district level leadership in Teaching and Learning or Dual Language
• Familiarity with the Texas A-F Accountability system and Texas Effective Dual Language Framework.

Language Skills

• Ability to understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of most immediate.
• Ability to communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters.
• Ability to describe in simple terms aspects of his/her background, immediate environment and matters in areas of immediate need.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Ability to read and write in Standard English.
• Ability to establish and maintain cooperative working relationships with others.
• Ability to interact with people of various social, cultural, economic, and educational backgrounds.
• Ability to listen perceptively and convey awareness.
• Ability to interact diplomatically with the public in a continuous public contact setting.
• Ability to work as part of a team and in a team environment.
• Ability to maintain level-headedness in the face of resistance and contrary opinions.

Work Environment

Generally, works in an office environment but may occasionally be required to perform job duties outside of the typical office setting. The noise level in the work environment is usually quiet to moderate. The employee is not exposed to any adverse environmental conditions.

Physical Activity & Requirements

While performing the responsibilities of the job, the employee is required to talk and hear. The employee is often required to sit and use repetitive motions of the wrists, hands and/or fingers. This is a sedentary position, however, the employee is occasionally required to stand, walk, reach with arms and hands, grasp, climb or balance, and to stoop, kneel, crouch or crawl and lift up to 10 pounds. Hearing, talking and vision abilities required by this job include perceiving the nature of sounds at normal speaking levels with or without correction, expressing or exchanging ideas be means of the spoken word and close visual acuity to perform an activity such as preparing and analyzing data and figures, transcribing, viewing a computer terminal and extensive reading.

This job description is only a summary and is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required by the employee. To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

About The Commit Partnership:

Our Mission

We believe that through our actions, Dallas County - which educates 10% of Texas and 1% of the nation- can be an inclusive and prosperous region where economic opportunity is shared equitably. That's why our true north goal is that by 2040 at least half of all 25-34-year-old residents of Dallas County, irrespective of race, will be provided the opportunity to earn a living wage.

To increase living wage attainment, we must equitably increase educational success aligned with high-demand jobs, maximizing the cumulative impact from early education all the way to college, career, and/or military readiness and accessing and completing a strong postsecondary education. Our staff aligns community stakeholders around this shared future roadmap - analyzing data to lift up strategic initiatives that improve policies, practices, and funding that grow our community's capacity to serve every student more effectively.

Our Story

Founded in 2012, this partnership is the nation's largest educational collective impact organization, composed of backbone staff and over 200 partners across Dallas County and the state of Texas working collaboratively to solve systemic education challenges. Our staff aligns community stakeholders around a shared future roadmap - analyzing data to lift up strategic initiatives that improve policies, practices, and funding that grow our community's capacity to serve every student more effectively.

Together, we work to advocate for excellent and equitable public education that ensures all students - regardless of race, place, or socio-economic status - have the power to determine their future and earn a living wage. We do this work through several ventures including Early Matters Dallas, North Texas Tutoring Corps, Dallas County Promise, Texas College Bridge, Dallas Thrives, Commit's Policy Team, the Texas Impact Network, and several coalitions.

True North Traits

Our True North Traits creates a mission-driven environment and champions us to do our best work each day.

Systemic Impact: You understand the barriers and lived experiences that our students face and are skilled at delivering systemic solutions at scale that address these needs. You achieve significant, sustainable results that increase equitable outcomes through your work (including the reallocation or improvement in public funding), and you recognize the difference between activity and impact.

Judgment: You exhibit a relentless "students first" focus by thinking strategically about what data must be collected, analyzed, visualized, and activated (and what steps must be taken, in what order) to cause resources to be reallocated and actions to be taken to systemically overcome the root causes hindering achievement of the Partnership's mission.

Communication: By listening to understand before seeking to be understood, you're able to build trust and facilitate collaboration across lines of difference, recognizing that both are essential to our success. You are also able to find common ground with diverse stakeholders and can tailor the organization's message to different audiences as needed to influence meaningful change.

Innovation: You can create or meaningfully contribute to the design and execution of a systemic and transformational strategic plan to solve complex problems, often at scale, that improves organizational effectiveness and/or closes equity gaps for our students and families.

Equity and Inclusion: You intentionally create spaces where relevant stakeholders have a seat or voice at the table, ensuring that each person at the table's thoughts and perspectives are shared, valued by all others at the table, and reflected in our work. You're excited to help build and/or contribute to teams where everyone feels welcomed, respected, valued, and highly supported.

Joy: You recognize that people are central to our work, striking a balance between people and process, and you inspire others with your optimism and thirst for substantive change in service to the mission.

Integrity: You admit mistakes openly, share learnings widely, and elevate bad news quickly, also capable of making difficult decisions in all situations to ensure the success of the organization.

The Commit Partnership is an Equal Opportunity Employer that seeks to hire individuals with backgrounds similar to that of the stakeholders they serve. As an organization that embraces equity and inclusion, all employment decisions are based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion or belief, national, social or ethnic origin, gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, marital, civil union or domestic partnership status, or any other status protected by federal, state, or local laws.

Commit does not sponsor visas of any kind.