Lower School Principal (SY 25-26)

An award-winning EL Education school in Washington, DC

Lower School Principal

Capital City Public Charter School seeks an experienced and philosophically aligned principal to become the next leader of our Pre-K3 - 4th Grade Lower School program. The Principal role is critical to ensuring a strong and equitable school culture, an instructional program focused on continuous improvement, fidelity to the school’s instructional model, and the engagement of families and the community. The Principal leads a campus team that includes an Instructional Coach, an Early Childhood Director, and a Director of Student Services, and supervises a dynamic team of teachers. The Principal reports to the Head of School; and as a member of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT), partners with two other school principals, the Chief Operating Officer, Chief Academic Officer, Chief Inclusion Officer, Senior Director of Development & Outreach, Chief Technology Officer, and the HOS to realize the mission and goals of Capital City.

About Capital City: 

Founded in 2000, Capital City remains true to its original mission of enabling a diverse group of students to meet high expectations; develop creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills; achieve deep understanding of complex subject; and acquire a love of learning along with a strong sense of community and character. Key elements of our school program include:  

• An emphasis on the deeper learning skills that students need to be successful in college and careers including collaboration, communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, and metacognition. 
• Authentic hands-on learning experiences through learning expeditions, a key component of the EL Education model.  Learning expeditions engage students of all ages in tackling real-world problems through a social justice lens. 
• A developmental whole-child approach including a focus on the social curriculum through the Responsive Classroom® model, arts integration, and building a healthy environment.   
• Focus on personalized learning to challenge and support all students in inclusive classrooms. 
• A commitment to educational equity by making it our top priority to develop our staff, examine our curriculum and practices, and take bold actions to close the achievement gap.

Capital City serves a diverse population of 1016 students in grades PK3-12 including 330 students in the Lower School. The entire PK3-12 program is housed on a state of the art, single campus in Ward 4. Capital City has been a model for school reform in the District and a mentor school for the EL Education model. Capital City hosts hundreds of visitors annually. 

About the Position: 

While the duties and responsibilities of a Capital City principal are many and varied, the most critical elements of this position are:

• Fostering a cohesive shared vision for school success.  The vision should be centered on challenging, engaging and empowering students.  Our Principal must continually work to engage all stakeholders in understanding and aligning their work to the vision.
• Establishing a strong school culture with equity at the core.  Our Principal must be a leader for equity and model culturally competent collaboration, communication, and relationship-building through their actions and words. 
• Ensuring high quality curriculum and instruction.  Our Principal must know what high quality instruction looks like in the classroom and support teachers in designing curricula aligned to standards that challenge, engage, and empower all students; and in using active pedagogy to deliver instruction. 
• Using data to improve instruction. Our Principal must establish and implement clear, consistent, no blame strategies for using data to analyze student achievement across the three dimensions of student achievement (mastery of knowledge and skills, high quality work, and student character); and use results to address gaps and inequities. 
• Leading high-quality professional learning. Our Principal works with their leadership team to ensure that all teachers are supported in their professional growth through frequent descriptive feedback, coaching, and professional development.   
• Promoting shared leadership and decision-making.  Shared leadership is essential to the culture and success of Capital City.  A Capital City principal must establish the trust conducive to shared leadership and believe that collaborative leadership with diverse stakeholder yields stronger results. 
• Engaging families in their children’s education.  As the first parent-founded charter school in Washington, DC, family engagement is critical to the success of our students and program.  Our principal must make engaging families in their children’s education a priority. 

Candidate Requirements:

Capital City is committed to finding an innovative, compassionate, and philosophically aligned leader for this important position. Specific qualifications include:

• Master’s or Doctoral degree in Education
• Demonstrated track record of improving outcomes for students
• Minimum of 6 years of successful classroom teaching and school leadership experience
• Supervisory and management experience, including coaching and evaluation of teachers
• Experience teaching and leading in urban education serving students of color from low-income backgrounds
• Clearly articulated and aligned philosophy of education with educational equity at its core
• Strong knowledge of child development
• Experience implementing and leading many of the instructional programs our school implements
• Strong data analysis skills and experience using data to improve instruction
• Excellent interpersonal skills, with the ability to develop productive working relationships across a wide variety of individuals and groups
• Spanish fluency is strongly preferred (Capital City serves a population that is 71% Latinx)

In addition to the above requirements, staff members must meet the requirements of all hires at Capital City including a criminal background check.

The Lower School Principal position is a 12-month position which is exempt and therefore not eligible for overtime pay under the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Capital City is an equal-opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, marital status, religion, sex, age, sexual orientation, disability, or any other protected status. All employment decisions will be made solely on the basis of the individual's qualifications as related to the requirement of the position being filled.