April 02, 2015

Job Opportunity: Founding Director of Admissions and Communications at Millennium School

The Millennium School, opening in 2016 in San Francisco, is looking for a founding director of admissions and communications.

Position Overview

The Founding Director of Admissions & Communications will play an integral role in bringing the Millennium School model to life: honing the profile of the Millennium student, raising and maintaining high community awareness of the school, and leading the admissions process. We’re looking for someone who relishes connecting with others, has a knack for identifying talent and seeing potential, and who deeply appreciates the broad range of intelligences that a student may present. The right candidate will bring an entrepreneurial, collaborative, and agile mindset, and highly developed communication and organizational skills. Experience in similar roles is an advantage, but we’re open to career-switching candidates who have these skills and values.

 

Responsibilities

• Design and Lead Admissions Process: Help to define the profile of a Millennium student, using that to design student selection mechanisms, recruitment and outreach strategies, application and interview protocols, and related communications with parents. With implementation support from other staff, lead the admissions process from point of inquiry to enrollment. 

• Brand and Presence-Building: Beginning with initial branding already being developed, shape and evolve the messaging and positioning of the Millennium School brand. Lead the rollout of that brand across website, social media, press, and other channels, regularly creating content and updates.

• Communications: With the Head of School, lead external communications with prospective and current families, educators, journalists, and other stakeholders. Develop and manage relationships with key partners, particularly elementary and high schools. Lead and speak at info sessions, parent nights, and school tours.

 

Qualifications

 

Personal Values

These are the personal values and traits that we believe will distinguish the best candidates:

• Your passion is to help others grow. You accurately observe students’ strengths, personality and challenges; you have a strong sense of what excellence looks like. You see growth as springing from each student’s motivation and potential, and the school’s role is to set the context to facilitate each student’s optimal growth.

• You have a calling for, and deep appreciation of adolescents. You know youth culture or are excited to get to know it; you’ve worked with adolescents and love the uniqueness of the age. You see adolescence as a time of transformation and immense potential. You see growth in this age not just in intellectual development, but also across social, emotional, physical, ethical, and creative intelligences.

• You comfortably exist in and naturally model authenticity. Through experience and practice and perhaps your own mentors, you’ve developed an awareness of what authenticity looks like, and a comfort being yourself. You’re self-reflective and naturally open to feedback – fulfilling your personal potential, and helping other fulfill theirs, is a core driver.

• You’re on a lifelong learning journey. Whether through vocation, travel, personal study, reacting to challenging life experiences or otherwise, you’ve undergone and can articulate your learning journey. You’ve had to face personal challenges and have come out humble and with greater clarity about your path. You’ve developed personal habits and mindfulness practices that support you in continuing to grow.

 

Skills & Experience:

These core skills are essential for success with this role, and the number of years of experience is

important  but secondary – it needs to be enough to have demonstrated skill in these areas.

• Talent Detective – You have a nose for seeing in others what their potential is, understanding personality, gifts, how past experiences are shaping them, and what’s possible for them in the future. You can meet a student and ask the right questions to get to know them, establishing trust and authenticity.

 

• Process Creator – Whether it springs from Excel or a bubble chart sketch, you enjoy creating a smoothly running process. You can develop project plans and process maps, accurately estimate time expectations for others, manage technology tools, and convey this clarity to staff, prospective families and others.

 

• Communicator and Story-Teller – You can relate to a wide range of people, building rapport and communicating clearly and simply. You can tell the story and vision of the school to a student, parent, journalist, or neighbor.