Success Academy Charter Schools

Director of Schooling Safety and Security.
New York, NY

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Description

Success Academy Charter Schools has retained Helbling, a ZRG company to conduct an executive search to secure a Director of Schooling Safety and Security.

Position Summary

Safety and Security is a critical service that they deliver to the network of schools. They promise their families a free world class public education that includes providing safe learning environments each and every day in which scholars are free of unsafe distractions and disruptions. Unlike other school districts and charter networks, Success Academies has a dedicated Safety & Security team led by former New York Police Department Chief and professionals that provide day to day school-based support, deliver safety and security trainings, implement preventative measures and escalate with government agencies to ensure that their school communities remain safe and receive the appropriate level of support when needed. This dedicated level of service and support has been a game changer in protecting their school communities and enabling them to deliver on their promise to families. As Success Academies continue to reimagine and rapidly scale, they seek to build out an even more robust and scalable safety and security capability.

For more details about this opportunity, please view the position profile by clicking on the cover image below. 

Essential Job Functions

Success Academies intent is to swiftly evolve into a more robust scalable capability and source requisitely skilled leadership talent, Director of Schooling Safety & Security. In the immediate, this position will report into the Chief Schooling Officer, LaMae de Jongh. As a key member of the Schooling Management Team, this role must work closely with a broad base of constituents and will have responsibility for:

Safety & Security Strategic Planning 

• In partnership with Enterprise Services - Operations Management, develop and implement security strategies, policies, and procedures to effectively and efficiently protect the safety and security of the current and future footprint of schools and surrounding neighborhoods within New York City and preempt safety and security situations from occurring;
• Identify, assess and mitigate safety and security vulnerabilities through the development and implementation of security strategies, policies, and procedures on an ongoing basis; 
• Educate and invest relevant government agencies in the “why” of Success Academies’ safety and security standards and establish clear responsibilities and protocols with such agencies when safety and security standards are not upheld;
• In support of Success Academies’ expansion efforts, develop a safety and security strategy and supporting plans that are informed by the respective locale(s), and be part of the establishment of relationships and partnerships with relevant government agencies within the respective locale(s).

Safety & Security Operations

• Oversee and coordinate safety and security operations across the network of schools which includes, but not limited to, day to day onsite and virtual school-based support, incident response and investigation support, collaboration with School Leadership and staff, and relationship management and escalation with relevant government agencies; 
• Oversee and manage the Safety & Crises Command Center, a 24/7 command center which serves as the “emergency response” to safety-related scholar and adult incidents; this 24/7 command center is staffed with a dedicated “first responder team” that implements standard protocols to respond to and support the network of schools in addressing and resolving incidents and / or outlier situations; As part of day to day management, develop and maintain emergency response plans and procedures, ensuring effective response to safety and security incidents;
• Established in School Year 2024-2025, the Safety & Crises Command Center has been a necessary step change for the enterprise in the swift and effective handling of adult and scholar safety incidents. With an established scope of service, without preemptive change in how the work is being done, the Safety & Crises Command will result in continued Directorcount growth with school and scholar footprint growth. As part of the oversight and management, carry forward the work to industrialize and scale leveraging process and technology innovations, such as AI; 
• Above and beyond the industrialization of the Safety & Crises Command Center, have an excellence and innovation reflex to continuously drive and lead on deploying solutions so that safety and security operations can run as efficiently as possible;
• Keep apace and identify trends in safety and security related activities and situations across the network of schools and also across cities, states and the country; Partner with appropriate stakeholders to put in place preventive and preemptive measures. 

Safety & Security School-based Training 

• Oversee the development and delivery of safety and security awareness and training programs for the network schools in partnership with Enterprise Services - Operations Management and relevant government agencies; Audiences of awareness programs will not only include school-based staff, but scholars and families as well;
• Regularly assess the safety and security training needs across the network of schools in a data-drive manner, identifying gaps in knowledge and skills and ensuring that training programs are relevant and effective;
• Track and evaluate the effectiveness of safety and security training programs.

About Success Academy Charter Schools

The mission of Success Academies is to reimagine public education. From the classroom to the halls of government, this means finding profoundly different approaches to how they structure, implement and support schooling. They re-conceive every aspect of school design. Not only are they writing rigorous new curricula, but they are drawing regularly on the advances in technology and business to transform education. 

This year marks the 19th anniversary of Success Academies and the launch of their mission to reimagine public education as an excellent, efficient and equitable pillar of American society. During this time, Success Academies has grown faster than any charter network in the nation, building a vibrant network of 57 elementary, middle and high schools. 

Their nearly 22,000 children – mostly poor and minority – are out-performing students at top city and suburban schools across New York State. Within the next few years, their goals are even more ambitious: to grow an additional 10,000 seats and educate 1 in 32 New York City children in a uniquely holistic K-12 system, bringing transformational change there and across the country through extraordinary school quality. A short-hand for the sum total of the factors that shape their scholars’ educational experience, school quality is their responsibility as educators -- developing students (starting in kindergarten and culminating in 12th grade) who are thoroughly prepared at every stage of their journey, from elementary school to middle school; from middle school to high school; and ultimately, to excel in higher education and in life. Success Academies will soon graduate ~3,000 scholars each year who are prepared to enter, persist and graduate from college and eventually to lead in business, government and civic realms. Their ambitious goals now contemplate expansion beyond New York City!

Requirements

Qualifications

The Director of Safety & Security will be responsible for leading and managing a team and influencing a broad base of constituents that together will support the day to day execution of the work. He / She will need to set forth clear expectations, roles and responsibilities for team members and hold them accountable for delivering agreed upon outcomes. The Director of Safety & Security is someone who: 

• Has a minimum of 10 years of relevant management experience in law enforcement, security or safety fields;
• Exhibits leadership and managerial excellence, and the ability and desire to cultivate this capacity in others; 
• Has an excellence reflex, which includes clarity of thinking and communication;
• Driven to lead and ambitious to achieve extraordinary accomplishments;
• Is open and secure with demonstrated resilience;
• Is entrepreneurial and not afraid to take risks.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Success Academy is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity in their organization. They do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. They actively seek applications from people of all backgrounds to strengthen their community and the perspectives needed to flourish in a multicultural world. Success Academy offers a full benefits program and opportunities for professional growth.