Operational Psychologist Jobs in Tennessee (NOW HIRING)

Job Description: National Director of School Psychology Clinical Excellence and Educational Diagnostics School Psychology \u007C All National Markets \u007C Reports to the Chief Clinical Officer School / District Thrive Therapies Group — National Location All National Markets Open Positions 1 FTE Employment Type W-2 Salaried \u007C Performance Bonus Eligible Start Date Open Compensation W-2 salaried position; $98,000 - $120,000; plus performance bonus eligibility; full benefits package including medical, dental, vision, and 401(k) with employer match Licensure Required Full, unrestricted school psychologist licensure or certification; active licensure in Tennessee or relevant state of practice WHY THRIVE THERAPIES Thrive Therapies Group is a tech-enabled pediatric healthcare company delivering specialized clinical care to children with disabilities and those facing barriers to access. We deliver our care where it changes outcomes fastest — inside the schools and districts where children spend their days — partnering directly with district leaders to integrate evidence-based services into the school day. Every clinician under our banner is part of a unified clinical model, accountable to a single national standard of care, working from a shared platform built specifically for the children we serve. At the center of our model is Thrive Clinical, our purpose-built EHR designed from the ground up for pediatric clinical care in school settings. Thrive Clinical is not a generic documentation platform retrofitted for schools. It was built to track student progress, measure mastery gains, capture rich clinical data, and give providers and leaders real-time insight into whether kids are actually getting better. It is the operational backbone of everything we do, and it gets smarter as the clinicians and leaders using it push it forward. We are growing rapidly because the need is staggering and largely unmet. Across the country, children with IEPs are waiting months for evaluations, going without required services, and falling further behind because districts cannot find or sustain the clinical talent to support them. Existing options are not meeting the depth or breadth of what children, families, and schools actually need. We are building the alternative: a clinically excellent, technology-enabled care model designed to scale without compromising the quality of care any individual child receives. The National Director of School Psychology Clinical Excellence is the architect of that standard. THE ROLE This is not a supervisory role in the traditional sense. The National Director of School Psychology Clinical Excellence is a senior leadership position responsible for defining, building, and driving Thrive's national standard of practice across school psychology and educational diagnostics. You are not managing a single region. You are setting the clinical bar that every Thrive school psychologist is measured against, in every school, in every state, across every market we operate or will operate. Reporting to the Chief Clinical Officer, you will lead and develop the layer of Clinical Supervisors who deliver high-touch supervision to pre-licensed school psychologists and tiered providers across our regional markets. They are the coaches on the ground. You are the one who decides what they are coaching toward. You build the playbook. You establish the benchmarks. You define what excellent diagnostic practice looks like at Thrive nationally, and you make sure it holds consistently across a footprint that spans the country and is growing by the month. Because we own our clinical platform, you will also serve as a primary clinical voice in the evolution of Thrive Clinical, partnering closely with product and engineering to shape how the platform measures, supports, and accelerates excellent diagnostic practice. This is not a courtesy seat at the table. You will own clinical requirements for defined areas of the product roadmap. This role requires approximately 50% travel across Thrive's national markets, concentrated around summer intensives, site launches, supervisor onboarding, and targeted in-person work with partner districts. The work happens in schools, in districts, and alongside the teams doing evaluations on the ground every day. WHO YOU ARE A fully licensed school psychologist with deep credibility in psychoeducational assessment, eligibility determination, and special education law, who is ready to take that expertise national A clinical leader who has already managed clinicians across multiple sites or multiple states, and who is ready to take a national footprint as the next logical scope A standard-setter who thinks in systems: you see a gap in diagnostic practice and your first instinct is to build the protocol, the supervision framework, or the dashboard that closes it permanently — and you can show us the artifacts of work you have already done at this scope A leader of leaders, comfortable managing a layer of Clinical Supervisors rather than reviewing every evaluation yourself, and confident holding that layer accountable to a national bar Data-fluent and outcomes-oriented: you measure success in accurate identifications, appropriate placements, compliance rates, supervisor performance, district NPS, and clinician retention — not in evaluation hours logged or referrals processed Fluent in IDEA Part B, state SPED variation across multiple jurisdictions, Medicaid billing for school-based services, and the regulatory texture of running diagnostic operations across multiple states Comfortable holding clinical excellence and operational accountability in the same hand, across multiple states, without dropping either Deeply invested in the evolution of Thrive Clinical as a purpose-built tool for kids in schools: you are not just a user of the platform, you are a driver of what it becomes, bringing the diagnostic insight that makes it more powerful over time An operator with an entrepreneurial mindset who reads a growing national footprint as an invitation to build something lasting, not as a reason to wait for more certainty Hungry to learn, including how AI, data tooling, and a purpose-built EHR can make your national team measurably more effective, consistent, and focused on what matters most: every child getting the right identification and the right support Driven by mission: you measure success in accurate identifications, appropriate placements, mastery gains, and students who finally get the support that was always theirs to have WHAT YOU’LL OWN Set and Own the National Diagnostic Standard Define Thrive's national framework for psychoeducational assessment and eligibility determination, setting the standard for how school psychologists across every market select instruments, conduct evaluations, and document findings Build and maintain the diagnostic frameworks, supervision protocols, and practice standards that Clinical Supervisors implement with their supervisee populations across all regions Ensure that what excellent diagnostic practice looks like at Thrive is documented, measurable, and consistently applied regardless of geography, district, or state Serve as the final clinical authority on diagnostic questions, eligibility interpretation, and assessment protocol disputes across the Thrive network Ensure that Thrive's diagnostic standards account for the full range of student backgrounds, including English language learners, students with complex or co-occurring profiles, and students from diverse cultural and linguistic communities Lead and Develop Clinical Supervisors Nationally Serve as the direct clinical authority above Clinical Supervisors, who deliver high-touch supervision to pre-licensed school psychologists and performance-flagged providers across assigned national markets Build the supervision model that scales from one Clinical Supervisor today to a national team across dozens of markets in two years — including hiring criteria, supervisor onboarding, the supervisor playbook, and the cadence that holds them accountable Set the coaching agenda nationally: your Clinical Supervisors implement your standards, and you ensure they have the frameworks, tools, and direction to do that consistently whether they are in Tennessee, Washington, Florida, or any market we expand into Coach the coaches: build your Clinical Supervisor layer as your most important product, owning their development, succession planning, and bench Make readiness and advancement decisions in collaboration with Clinical Supervisors and regional leads using Thrive Clinical data and the structured performance criteria you define Drive Thrive Clinical Adoption, Fidelity, and Evolution Own Thrive Clinical as the operational expression of the national diagnostic model: set the standards for how it is used, what it measures, and how its data informs clinical decisions at every level of the organization Establish the platform benchmarks Clinical Supervisors and school psychologists are held to, and use system-wide data to identify where the standard is holding and where it is not across all markets Partner directly with product and engineering as the named clinical owner for defined areas of the roadmap, bringing the frontline diagnostic insight that shapes how the platform evolves Champion Thrive Clinical not as a documentation tool but as a strategic asset for innovation, using its data to surface patterns, raise the bar, and identify what is possible in school-based diagnostic practice Protect Diagnostic Quality at National Scale Monitor evaluation quality, IEP timeline compliance, eligibility documentation fidelity, and diagnostic quality across all school psychology markets nationally Build the early-warning systems that surface quality risk before it becomes a quality failure, and escalate proactively Identify systemic gaps in diagnostic practice across the network and build the protocols, training resources, and support structures that close them before they become compliance failures Own the multi-state regulatory landscape for school psychology operations, partnering with operations and compliance on Medicaid billing, IDEA Part B requirements, and state SPED variation Lead National Professional Development Design and drive the PD infrastructure for school psychologists nationally, ensuring content is grounded in Thrive's diagnostic framework and evidence-based practice, not generic continuing education Build PD that cascades from national diagnostic standards down through Clinical Supervisors to individual school psychologists, so every clinician at every site is growing in the same direction Lead summer intensives, site visits, and targeted in-person engagement with partners, supervisors, and providers across all Thrive markets Serve as Thrive's Senior School Psychology Voice Nationally Represent Thrive's school psychology model and diagnostic standards in key district and school partner relationships across the country, communicating the depth and rigor of our approach to evaluation and eligibility Support onboarding of new national partnerships by establishing diagnostic expectations early and building the infrastructure to sustain them as Thrive continues to expand Serve as a thought leader in school-based psychological practice, bringing emerging research and a relentless focus on getting the diagnostic process right for every child HOW WE’LL MEASURE SUCCESS This role is accountable for outcomes, not activities. In your first 12 to 24 months, you will be measured against: Accuracy and consistency of eligibility determinations and diagnostic quality across all national markets, captured through Thrive Clinical IEP and evaluation compliance rates across all national markets Clinical Supervisor performance and retention Clinician quality scores and retention within school psychology District NPS and clinical satisfaction scores in partner relationships Adoption and fidelity metrics for Thrive Clinical across the school psychology discipline Quality of the supervision framework, diagnostic standards documentation, and professional development infrastructure you build REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS Must Have Full, unrestricted school psychologist licensure or certification; provisional or pre-credentialed candidates will not be considered Active licensure or certification in Tennessee or a relevant state of practice; multi-state credentialing costs supported upon hire Minimum 10 years of clinical experience in school-based or IEP-driven settings with significant involvement in psychoeducational evaluation and eligibility determination Minimum 5 years of progressive clinical leadership experience, with at least 3 years in a multi-site or multi-state clinical leadership role Demonstrated experience building diagnostic standards, evaluation frameworks, or quality systems at scale — not just running them. You will be asked to share artifacts (handbooks, frameworks, protocols, playbooks) you have authored Demonstrated experience formally supervising clinical leaders or specialists, not just direct clinicians Working fluency in IDEA Part B, state SPED variation across at least two states, and Medicaid billing for school-based services Demonstrated data fluency: comfort reading clinical and operational dashboards and using data to drive decisions Ability and willingness to travel approximately 50% of the month across assigned national markets Consistent, timely evaluation and documentation history with no pattern of timeline lapses Successful background check prior to start Nice to Have Experience scaling diagnostic operations across multiple districts, states, or organizational contexts Prior experience as a clinical leader or clinical champion at a healthtech or edtech company with a proprietary clinical platform Familiarity with school-based EHR and IEP platforms (Frontline, SEAS, Embrace, Welligent, GoalBook, or similar) Experience working in or alongside venture-backed or high-growth healthcare or education services organizations Experience in higher education training programs or university partnerships in school psychology Fluency in a global language (Spanish, Somali, Arabic, or others) WHAT MAKES US DIFFERENT This is a W2 salaried role with a full benefits package. We invest in the people who lead our national clinical programs. You are not inheriting someone else's diagnostic framework. You are building the national standard that does not exist yet, for every community we serve. You will have real authority, not just a title. The diagnostic standards you set are the standards that hold, in every evaluation, in every market, across the country. Thrive Clinical is not an afterthought. It is a purpose-built EHR designed specifically for children in schools, and you will have a direct hand in shaping what it becomes. You will partner directly with a Chief Clinical Officer who