Executive Director of Elementary Schools

About the Opportunity

University Prep School is seeking an exceptional, mission-driven education leader to join our Executive Leadership Team as Executive Director of Elementary School Leadership. This is a strategic leadership position at the helm of our elementary school network. Sitting alongside our Chiefs, the Executive Director of Elementary School Leadership is directly responsible for the excellence of our school leaders and, by extension, the academic and organizational outcomes of every student we serve.

The Executive Director directly supervises our four elementary school principals and an Elementary Enrollment Manager, ensuring that our schools operate with both operational precision and instructional rigor. This leader deeply believes that school principals must be comprehensive leaders, not merely strong in instruction or operations, but masterful at both, and that they build systems, relationships, and coaching cultures that produce exactly that.

We are a network of schools that invests in the development of its people at the highest level. That is why we require this leader to be trained through Relay Graduate School of Education's Principal Supervisory Fellowship or to enthusiastically commit to completing the year-long fellowship. This is a non-negotiable investment we make in this role because we believe supervision is a craft, and we expect our leaders to be trained as such.

Our Academic Model

University Prep Schools is anchored in a powerful academic model that shapes every decision we make about teaching, learning, and leadership. Our approach is designed to ensure that every scholar experiences rigorous, engaging instruction while being deeply known, valued, and challenged.

Our model is built on four integrated pillars of culturally responsive pedagogy:

Culturally Responsive Teaching | Instruction that honors students' identities, cultures, and lived experiences while holding them to the highest academic expectations. At U Prep, who our scholars are is never separate from what we teach them or how.

Project-Based Learning | Scholars apply knowledge through real-world problem-solving, collaboration, and authentic STEM-driven work. PBL is not an add-on; it is the vehicle through which rigorous content comes to life.

CREW | Our advisory model that builds strong relationships, academic ownership, and the social-emotional skills students need to thrive. CREW ensures that every scholar is known, supported, and accountable to a caring community. We are Crew.

Distributed Leadership | Teachers and leaders at every level are empowered to innovate, lead, and continuously improve. We do not reserve leadership for titles; we develop it everywhere.

Together, these pillars create learning environments that are academically demanding, culturally affirming, and deeply student-centered,  preparing U Prep scholars to succeed in high school, college, and beyond.

The Executive Director of Elementary School Leadership is the steward of this model at the leadership level. Every coaching conversation, every feedback cycle, every development plan must reflect and reinforce these four pillars. This leader does not simply understand our academic model; they live it and hold others accountable to it.

What You Will Do

Lead as an Executive | Serve as a full member of the U Prep Executive Leadership Team alongside the Chiefs, contributing to network-wide strategy, organizational decisions, and culture-setting. You bring a school-level lens to executive conversations and translate organizational priorities into real outcomes for principals, students, and families.

Develop Comprehensive School Leaders | Coach and evaluate elementary principals to be high-performing leaders in both domains — instructional leadership and operational excellence. Through frequent observations, structured feedback cycles, and individualized development plans, you ensure every principal on your team is growing and leading their school with clarity and confidence.

Champion the U Prep Academic Model | Ensure that every principal deeply understands and faithfully implements all four pillars: Culturally Responsive Teaching, Project-Based Learning, CREW, and Distributed Leadership. You coach principals to observe instruction through this lens, give teachers feedback rooted in this framework, and build school cultures that make the model visible and real for every scholar every day.

Supervise the Elementary Enrollment Manager | Provide direct leadership and support to the Elementary Enrollment Manager, ensuring enrollment systems, processes, and family-facing experiences reflect the mission and standards of University Prep School.

Drive Instructional Excellence | Ensure that principals are equipped to lead rigorous, high-quality instruction. You support leaders in knowing what excellent, culturally responsive, PBL-centered teaching looks like, how to observe and provide meaningful feedback to teachers, and how to build instructional cultures that produce consistent academic growth.

Build Operational Systems That Work | Hold principals accountable for the operational health of their schools, including compliance with Special Education law, student safety, staff management, enrollment, and school culture. You understand that operational excellence is not separate from instructional excellence; it enables it.

Set the Standard for Principal Performance | Develop, implement, and own the framework for principal evaluation and professional growth across the network. Establish clear expectations, create feedback structures, and design professional development that meets principals where they are and moves them forward, always in service of the U Prep model.

Coordinate High-Impact Professional Development |  Design and deliver professional development for principals and assistant principals that is practical, grounded in evidence, and immediately applicable. Leverage your Relay training and network-wide context to bring the best thinking to your team.

Ensure Compliance and Regulatory Adherence |  Guide principals to lead schools that fully comply with federal and state regulations, including IDEA and Special Education requirements, district policies, and all relevant legal obligations.

Cultivate a Collaborative Network Culture | Create opportunities for principals to learn from each other, challenge each other, and build the kind of collegial trust that makes a school network greater than the sum of its parts. Model the collaboration, distributed leadership, and open communication you want to see in every building.

Who You Are

You are a proven school or district leader ready to make the move into principal supervision with the same level of intentionality and craft you brought to leading a school. You believe in the power of coaching. You hold high standards without apology, and you support people in reaching them. You are equally comfortable in a classroom observation debrief and an executive strategy session.

You have experienced firsthand the complexity of running a school, which is why you are relentless in developing leaders who can manage it with excellence. And critically, you are deeply committed to culturally responsive, student-centered education. You do not see the U Prep academic model as a program to implement; you see it as the right way to educate children, and you bring that conviction to every conversation you have with a principal.

Education & Certification

• Master's degree required; Master's in Educational Leadership strongly preferred
• Michigan Administrator Certificate required, or actively working toward state completion requirements

Experience

• Minimum of 5 years as an elementary school leader/principal and/or central office administrator — required
• Demonstrated competence in Special Education law and compliance — required
• Demonstrated competence in leading and coaching Project-Based Learning — required
• Experience building or supporting culturally responsive teaching practices at scale
• Proven experience designing and delivering high-quality professional development for adults
• Track record of leading major initiatives from concept to full implementation
• Experience executing high-impact strategy across a team or organization

Relay Graduate School of Education

• Completion of Relay's Principal Supervisory Fellowship — strongly preferred
• Candidates who have not yet completed the fellowship must be willing and enthusiastic about committing to the full year-long program as a condition of employment

Skills & Competencies

• Executive presence with the ability to operate credibly at the leadership table and on the school floor
• Exceptional coaching skills — you develop people, not just manage them
• Strong emotional intelligence; able to perceive, interpret, and use emotion to connect, motivate, and lead
• Ability to lead teams through complex, adaptive change
• Sharp analytical thinking — you can distill root causes from data and translate findings into action
• Outstanding written and verbal communication
• Unwavering commitment to University Prep's Core Values:
  • We work well by ourselves and in teams
  • We care about people
  • Our actions have a purpose
  • We think big and do
  • Learning is exciting

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary: Competitive and commensurate with experience
• Medical Coverage — comprehensive health benefits
• 401(k) — up to 6% employer match
• Paid Time Off — 8 sick days, 4 personal days; vacation days for year-round staff
• Career Development — dedicated investment in your professional growth
• Tuition Reimbursement — Master's program reimbursement through Grand Valley State University
• Relay Fellowship — fully supported participation in the Principal Supervisory Fellowship

University Prep School (Detroit 9090) is an equal-opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination of any kind. All employment decisions are based on district needs, job requirements, and individual qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender, sex, ancestry, citizenship status, mental or physical disability, genetic information, sexual orientation, veteran status, or military status.