Senior Director, Special Programs

Impact & Why This Matters

In a world where too many students feel unseen, disconnected, or uncertain of what they are capable of achieving, exceptional leadership can change everything. When special programs leaders are properly supported and developed, they foster highly motivated and successful teams, which, in turn, drive student success.

As a Senior Director of Special Programs, you will lead special education, Section 504, English Learner, Gifted and Talented, and McKinney-Vento programs. You will coach, develop, and elevate your team, helping them maintain high-performing programs and effective partnerships with the managers who supervise their staff.

Your leadership will ensure consistent and efficient operations and prevent wasted effort by avoiding the need to reinvent the wheel. You will build systems, implement them, and model for your team how to use our processes effectively to drive strong leadership and, by extension, high student engagement and success.

Purpose

You bring stability, standardization, and support to a team of leaders responsible for specialized student services. Your mission is to develop your downline into high-performing employees who consistently drive positive student outcomes. Through coaching, accountability, encouragement, and unwavering standards, you will cultivate a team that delivers white-glove, heart-centered support—while maintaining the rigor, responsiveness, accountability, and instructional excellence students and leaders deserve.

You will build clarity where there is complexity, momentum where there is hesitance, and confidence where there is uncertainty.

Role Overview

Quality people using robust systems create an oasis of opportunity - for students, families, teachers, and employees. This role develops the skills of our special programs leaders and ensures they have stable, robust systems and processes that make it easy to drive success across our organization. Your impact is measured through the growth, consistency, and excellence of those you lead—and ultimately through improved student engagement, retention, progress, and confidence.

You will lead leaders who, in turn, lead or coordinate the work of teachers, paraprofessionals, specialists, and other academic personnel. Your role is to provide the structure that keeps your downline efficient, focused, and highly functional. You will ensure special programs uphold company standards and program-specific requirements. This is a critical position for driving the high-quality student outcomes our organization strives to achieve.

Your success requires extreme ownership, strong judgment, joyful persistence, relentless follow-through, and a tenacious willingness to lead by example. You must be equally comfortable coaching performance, navigating escalations, improving systems, and holding high standards—always with empathy, clarity, and conviction.

When you lead well, leaders improve, teachers grow stronger, families feel supported, and students thrive.

Core Responsibilities

• Coach and develop special programs leaders into confident, highly effective professionals who embody and convey our standards of service, responsiveness, and instructional excellence to their teams and partners.
• Monitor portfolio-level performance metrics across students, employees, and leaders, then proactively intervene to drive improved outcomes.
• Directly observe student/staff and staff/leader interactions, and provide feedback in partnership with the responsible supervisors to drive effective communication at all layers of the organization.
• Ensure program leaders drive strong student outcomes through compliant service delivery, instructional execution, student engagement, progress monitoring, and intervention planning—ensuring students receive the support, accountability, and encouragement needed to succeed.
• Set high expectations, coach candidly, celebrate wins enthusiastically, and foster a team culture rooted in ownership, humility, collaboration, and service.

Essential Duties

1. Company Alignment and Process Governance. Enforce and document approved processes across programs, aligned with company standards for Tier I instruction, intervention, Buzz, grading, course maintenance, and management. Offer input into process design while ensuring the team adheres closely to only approved processes. Assign recurring work an owner, deadline, handoff, and definition of done. Correct conflicting practices and document legally necessary differences.
2. Organizational Structure. Evaluate roles, reporting lines, supervisory layers, and staffing ratios for clear ownership and efficient use of existing resources. Ensure every function has qualified, accountable supervision. Recommend structural changes for VP approval; implement approved changes without creating overlapping authority.
3. Data Governance and Performance Monitoring. In conjunction with senior leaders, establish business rules, definitions, required fields, and reconciliation controls in approved systems of record. Resolve process and data decisions within defined timeframes. Eliminate redundant trackers. Maintain dashboards and weekly exception reviews linking student obligations to assignments and completion evidence; verify resolution.
4. Service Standards. Maintain an approved menu of services and accommodations with delivery, staffing, scheduling, documentation, and centrally approved cost parameters. Establish a prompt process for individualized needs beyond standard options. Standards and productivity targets must preserve required services, FAPE, and LRE. Identifying a service need does not authorize a financial commitment.
5. Productivity and Resource Deployment. Set output, quality, and timeliness standards for each role. Review assigned versus completed work, utilization, backlog age, and rework weekly. Rebalance assignments and improve scheduling and workflows to meet obligations efficiently with provided staff and approved services.
6. Leadership Accountability. Apply company observation, evaluation, coaching, and documentation standards across teams. Set leader scorecards and review them in regular one-to-ones. Require clear expectations, demonstrated staff proficiency, and documented follow-through. Address ineffective leadership and recurring staff failures through timely performance action with HR. Lead recruiting for authorized positions and role-specific training.
7. Cross-Functional Partnership. Partner with Operations, IT, Data, and Curriculum and Instruction to align program practices with school operations. Translate needs into specific requests and recommendations. Coordinate course and system changes before implementation, resolve ownership conflicts, and drive approved improvements through verified adoption.
8. Compliance and Service Delivery. Ensure team compliance with only approved company processes. Direct and audit federal, state, authorizer, and company compliance. Verify services, accommodations, progress, and inclusion; require corrective action for gaps. Ensure accurate assignments and service continuity through enrollment, transfers, reactivations, and staffing changes. Coordinate reporting, authorizer relationships, and new-state readiness with school leadership and legal.
9. Resolution and Escalation. Own routine decisions and complex concern resolution within delegated authority. Escalate material risks with facts, attempted solutions, a recommendation, and the decision needed. Obtain VP approval for material operational or policy changes and verify results. Follow immediate safety and mandatory reporting requirements. Perform other assigned duties.
10. Resource Utilization and Financial Controls. Operate within provided resources; monitor approved provider performance and reconcile delivered services with records and invoices. Supply EL fiscal-compliance evidence to Operations and the CFO. The role cannot set or change budgets, authorize spending or payment, add positions, sign contracts, change rates, or commit to new or expanded services or purchased hours. Financial decisions remain with designated approvers. Promptly report any unmet required service with evidence and attempted operational remedies; do not independently increase spending.

Performance Measures

• Maintain a monthly scorecard with VP-approved targets and source evidence for deadline compliance, service delivery, data accuracy, productivity, student progress, company alignment, leadership follow-through, and use of provided resources. Internal targets do not replace legal deadlines or individual student obligations.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in Education, Special Education, or a related field (required).
• Minimum of ten (10) years of experience in special services and ten (10) years of professional leadership experience (required).
• Deep special education, Section 504, EL, GT, and McKinney-Vento expertise (required); Colorado, Arizona, and/or Washington experience (preferred).
• Demonstrated success leading directors or program leads, aligning teams with company standards, and improving operations, productivity, and performance with existing resources (required).
• Strong analytical, communication, and organizational skills; proficiency with student information, learning management, IEP, and workflow systems (required). 
• Online-school leadership experience (strongly preferred).
• Professional, private remote workspace with reliable high-speed internet access (required).
• Ability to pass required background checks (required).

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision employee coverage for as little as $1 each per month;
• Personal paid time off in addition to major holidays;
• Short-term disability insurance, long-term disability insurance, life insurance, and AD&D insurance are all 100% paid by the employer; and
• 401(k) with employer contributing a dollar-for-dollar match of employee contributions up to 6% of employee earnings.