Executive Director

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Position Summary:

FAU Lab Schools seeks an entrepreneurial, data-informed, and results-oriented Executive Director to launch and lead The Carl A. DeSantis Center for Educational Strategy and Innovation (the Center). The Center is established through a $10 million, five-year catalytic investment from the Carl Angus DeSantis Foundation to scale the proven practices of FAU Lab Schools, a three-time National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence, across Palm Beach and Broward counties, throughout Florida, and nationally.

The Executive Director serves as the chief architect and champion of the Center. The Executive Director will translate the Center’s five-year business plan into annual implementation plans, recruit and lead the Center team, manage the Foundation grant with full fiscal and programmatic accountability, and build the measurement systems, partnerships, and revenue streams that will sustain the Center beyond the initial investment.

Position Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership and Center Expansion

The Executive Director will establish the Center’s operating model and lead its expansion over the five-year grant period.

Translate strategic initiatives into actionable implementation plans that identify responsibilities, milestones, deliverables, performance indicators, staffing, and costs.

Develop a balanced portfolio that addresses immediate institutional and partner needs while advancing long-term innovation, measurable impact, scalability, and financial sustainability.

Recruit and onboard Center staff and stand up core infrastructure, including the Learning Management System, continuing education registration, and event operations.

Identify emerging challenges, research findings, technologies, and workforce needs in education, and translate them into programs, services, and partnerships.

Create a disciplined process for evaluating, testing, launching, refining, and scaling new initiatives, and use evidence to decide which initiatives to expand, redesign, or discontinue.

Professional Learning and Leadership Development

The Executive Director will build a distinctive portfolio of learning experiences that connects research and practice for Florida educators and leaders.

Assess emerging professional and organizational learning needs and developing scalable frameworks for educator development, leadership development, workforce preparation, and organizational improvement.

Expand teacher and leader professional learning in coordination with the Stiles-Nicholson STEM Teacher Academy and leadership partners to meet or exceed performance targets.

Develop and award micro-credentials and STEM certifications, and design LMS-based virtual courses that extend the Center’s reach.

Design innovation-focused curricula that move leaders from compliance management to innovation architecture and prepare them to anticipate workforce needs.

Apply principles of instructional design, adult learning, and talent development so that participants move beyond passive professional development to measurable changes in practice.

Identify, recruit, and cultivate faculty, practitioners, industry experts, presenters, and nationally recognized subject-matter experts.

School Model Scaling and Replication

The Executive Director will position FAU Lab Schools as a national resource for schools and districts seeking proven, replicable models.

Provide consulting and implementation support to partner districts.

Expand the university lab school partner network across Florida and nationally.

Support Center and research site visits annually for school and district leaders, educators, and policymakers.

Develop and disseminate replication blueprints, toolkits, and implementation guides that document FAU Lab Schools programs and the conditions required for success.

Engage school districts statewide, with the goal of reaching all 67 Florida school districts over the grant period.

Partner with the FAU Lab Schools’ Research Director to expand Research Communities of Practice and the Action Research Fellows program to schools and districts statewide.

Measurement, Evaluation, and Decision Science

The Executive Director will ensure that significant decisions are informed by evidence and that initiatives are accompanied by quality performance measurements.

Build and maintain a five-year outcome measurement framework for the Center objectives with definitions, baselines, annual targets, data sources, collection frequency, and responsible staff.

Develop outcome performance measures to determine changes in teacher practice and leadership behavior.

Use valid methods to demonstrate change, including matched pre- and post-assessments, follow-up after trainings and placements end, and verified methods for estimating student reach.

Oversee the development of dashboards and decision-support tools that help leaders understand performance, anticipate challenges, and allocate resources.

Partner with faculty, researchers, and data scientists to design studies, evaluate innovations, and advance responsible uses of artificial intelligence and predictive analytics in education.

Establish continuous feedback loops that use outcome data, stakeholder input, and financial results to improve programs and guide future investment.

Grant Management, Compliance, and Donor Stewardship

The Executive Director will serve as the primary steward of the Center’s relationship with the Carl Angus DeSantis Foundation.

Manage the Foundation grant in accordance with the grant agreement, approved annual budgets, and performance commitments.

Prepare mid-year and year-end programmatic and financial reports that compare actual performance and expenditures to annual targets, explain material variances, and describe lessons learned and corrective actions.

Oversee accurate tracking and reporting of participants, activities, results, and expenditures by county.

Maintain clear separation between the catalytic grant and other awards.

Partnerships, Dissemination, and Thought Leadership

The Executive Director will serve as a highly visible ambassador for the Center and ensure that what the Center learns is shared.

Establish strategic partnerships with universities, school districts, government agencies, foundations, corporations, organizations, and research institutions.

Develop external advisory relationships and networks that allow the Center to continuously identify emerging trends, opportunities, technologies, research, and promising practices.

Position the Center as a trusted convener where leaders from education, research, business, government, and philanthropy collaborate on significant challenges.

Develop a dissemination strategy that includes publications, policy briefs, practitioner guides, case studies, digital resources, and presentations at state and national conferences.

Translate complex research and analytical results into clear, actionable information for practitioners, policymakers, and donors.

Represent the Center with senior university, education, government, philanthropic, corporate, and community leaders.

Financial Sustainability and Growth

The Executive Director will treat the $10 million investment as the catalyst, not the ceiling, and build a diversified model for long-term sustainability.

Collaborate with the FAU Lab Schools’ leadership on developing additional revenue streams to support the Center.

Develop business cases for major initiatives that weigh demand, strategic alignment, anticipated impact, required investment, scalability, and sustainability.

Support the cultivation of relationships with foundations, donors, corporations, and government