The posting
Job Description
Summary:
The Director of Virtual Schools is responsible for leading, strengthening, and growing National Heritage Academies’ virtual school portfolio. This leader will ensure our virtual schools provide a distinctive, high-quality experience for students and families while achieving strong academic, enrollment, operational, and financial outcomes.
The Director will lead the continued development of NHA’s virtual learning model, including instruction, student and family experience, school leadership, technology, and student support. This position will directly supervise some virtual-school principals while providing leadership and expertise across NHA’s broader portfolio of online schools.
Company Information:
National Heritage Academies (NHA) partners with communities to build and operate public charter schools. Founded in 1995, today NHA serves over 100 schools in nine states, with more than 65,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade. Our schools are designed to eliminate the achievement gap and provide school choice to families so their children are prepared for success in college, career, and life. A majority of our schools consistently outperform their local district on the state test. According to the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University, NHA is a leading performer among charter schools and management organizations, outperforming both conventional district schools and other charter school operators. In addition, according to our employee survey, over 90% of respondents agree that the work they do is meaningful to them. Join our team.
Duties and Responsibilities:
Lead Virtual School Performance
- Own the academic, enrollment, student experience, operational, and financial performance of NHA’s virtual schools.
- Establish clear goals, monitor results, and drive continuous improvement.
- Coach and develop virtual-school principals and hold them accountable for results.
- Identify barriers to performance and lead improvement efforts with school and network teams.
- Ensure virtual schools reflect NHA’s mission, values, and expectations for school quality.
Build a Best-in-Class Virtual Learning Model
- Define and continuously improve a distinctive NHA model for virtual education.
- Establish effective instructional practices, student supports, family interactions, technology, staffing models, and school routines.
- Define the roles of teachers, tutors, families, and technology in supporting student success.
- Identify opportunities to use technology and AI to improve instruction, tutoring, personalization, engagement, and student support.
- Identify, test, and scale practices that improve student outcomes.
Drive Student Success
- Partner with Academic Services and school leaders to ensure rigorous, effective instruction.
- Monitor achievement, growth, engagement, attendance, course completion, and other indicators of student success.
- Ensure struggling or disengaged students are identified early and receive effective support.
- Develop strong approaches to tutoring, intervention, acceleration, and credit recovery for virtual learners.
Create a Distinctive Student and Family Experience
- Ensure students and families receive an intentional, responsive, and distinctively NHA experience.
- Establish expectations for communication, responsiveness, onboarding, relationship-building, and support.
- Understand why families choose virtual education and what they need to succeed.
- Use student and family feedback to continuously improve the experience.
- Build connection, belonging, accountability, and community in the virtual environment.
Grow and Scale the Virtual Portfolio
- Help develop and execute NHA’s strategy for virtual-school growth.
- Assess opportunities for new schools, programs, grade expansions, partnerships, and markets.
- Build scalable systems that support growth while maintaining quality.
- Define the leadership, staffing, technology, curriculum, enrollment, and operational requirements for expansion.
- Monitor competitors and emerging trends in online education and identify opportunities for NHA.
- Support the successful launch of new virtual schools and programs.
Lead Across the Organization
- Partner closely with Academic Services, Enrollment, Technology, Student Services, Finance, Human Resources, Marketing, and other network teams.
- Identify where NHA systems and practices need to be adapted for virtual education.
- Serve as NHA’s internal expert and advocate for virtual education.
- Build external relationships that can accelerate NHA’s learning and performance.
Leadership Expectations
The successful candidate will:
- Be highly focused on student outcomes and accountability. Combine innovation and entrepreneurial thinking with disciplined execution.
- Be a builder who enjoys creating, testing, improving, and scaling new models.
- Develop strong leaders and high-performing teams. Use data and evidence to drive decisions and improvement.
- Operate effectively in ambiguity and bring clarity and momentum.
- Challenge assumptions, learn quickly, and seek ideas from inside and outside education.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred.
- Experience with online, virtual, blended, or technology-enabled education.
- Significant leadership experience with responsibility for measurable outcomes in the virtual space.
- Demonstrated success leading and developing leaders.
- Strong understanding of instruction, student engagement, and learning.
- Demonstrated ability to use data to diagnose problems and drive improvement.
- Experience building or improving programs through change and growth.
- Strong strategic thinking, communication, relationship-building, and execution skills.
Please click here to find out more about our core values.
National Heritage Academies is an equal-opportunity employer.
