Chalkbeat New York

Operations / Administration Vice President of Ecosystem Development and Quality Job Description About BLAQUE Kansas City

BLAQUE Kansas City is a strategic partner, ally, and convener of Kansas City’s educational ecosystem, from the leaders that drive policy to the students they serve. We recruit, train, and place community-rooted leaders on charter school boards to ensure decision-making reflects our communities and their needs. We invest in and support high-quality schools and leaders to drive strong academic outcomes, and, through transparent data, we hold systems accountable when they fail to provide a high-quality, rigorous experience for their students. By bringing together community voices, educators, funders, business and civic leaders, and local and state legislators, we collaboratively shape the policies, vision, and actions that create the high-quality, empowering education our students deserve.

Position Summary

The Vice President of Ecosystem Development and Quality is a senior executive role responsible for strengthening, expanding and preserving academic excellence across Kansas City’s K-12 educational landscape, including supporting BLAQUE Kansas City’s portfolio of grantee partners while strengthening the operational backbone and ecosystem relationships that make expanding school quality possible. This role drives quality improvement in existing schools, manages new school launches and leadership pipelines, oversees closure and transition processes with care for students and families, and represents BLAQUE Kansas City as a trusted, credible leader within Kansas City’s charter and district landscape.

This role is central to achieving BLAQUE Kansas City’s goal of adding 2,000 new quality seats by 2029, and requires a leader who can translate strategy into executable, metrics-driven plans, and who brings direct, first-hand experience launching and operating schools — not just advising them.

Core Responsibilities

• Partner with the CEO to translate strategic seat goals into executable, trackable growth plans.
• Distinguish, track and forecast new seat investment (growth, replication, launch), improved seats (strategies deployed, problems of practice solved), and seats exiting the ecosystem.
• Track enrollment projections versus actuals and monitor milestones for new charter applications and launches.
• Analyze ecosystem-wide data and enrollment trends to design coordinated feeder patterns, grade-band groupings (Elementary PK-5, Middle 6-8, High School 9-12), and shared supports across charter schools based on geographic proximity, quality rating, and grade band.
• Determine the ideal number and configuration of schools needed for a comprehensive, high-quality, coordinated charter sector within a Kansas City system that is roughly 50% charter and serves approximately 15,000 students.

School Closure & Transition Management

• Develop and maintain BLAQUE Kansas City’s internal reference on Missouri Charter School Commission, KCPS, and Saint Louis University closure and renewal requirements.
• Monitor closure timelines, documentation, and board actions, and track renewal timelines for BLAQUE Kansas City partner schools.
• Guide BLAQUE Kansas City’s support for families and students affected by closure, prioritizing redirection into higher-quality seats, in partnership with Show Me KC Schools.
• Coordinate with the BLAQUE Kansas City Communications team on community engagement during closures and renewals.

School Launch, Incubation & Leadership Pipeline

• Track charter readiness benchmarks and authorization milestones for pipeline schools, and issue Go/No-Go launch recommendations.
• Oversee school leadership residency and fellowship programs (e.g., BLAQUE Kansas City Residency, ImpactED Fellowship, Freedom Builders Fellowship), ensuring alignment with leadership readiness and quality expectations.
• Manage the Director of Family and Community Engagement and the Senior Manager of Governance and School Board Leadership, ensuring that programs are operating smoothly and on track to achieve their goals.
• Build individualized readiness profiles for fellows and residents, and recommend candidates for launch, continued development, or exit.
• Analyze pipeline conversion from fellow to launch to seats generated.

Portfolio School Quality & Operational Efficiency

• Co-develop and refine BLAQUE Kansas City’s school investment strategy, ensuring alignment with the organization’s mission and evolving needs
• Conduct monthly quality check-ins with each portfolio school, tracking academics, leadership, governance, and enrollment through a dashboard built and maintained by this role.
• Identify operational inefficiencies (enrollment, transportation, finance, facilities) alongside academic and governance indicators and deploy targeted support or renewal-audit tools when early warning signs emerge.Coordinate with authorizers, boards, and partners when intervention is required.
• Deliver an annual portfolio quality review and quarterly written summaries to the CEO covering progress, risks, and support needed.

External Partnerships & Field Leadership

• Maintain quarterly relationships with the Missouri Public Charter School Association and other statewide partners.
• Track state-level policy, authorizer trends, and quality standards affecting the Kansas City ecosystem.
• Represent BLAQUE Kansas City as a trusted students-first, quality-driven partner at ecosystem events.

Qualifications

Ideal candidates will bring:

• Deep commitment to educational equity and to expanding access to high-quality seats for Black and under-resourced students and families in Kansas City.
• 10+ years of progressive leadership experience in the education sector, including working at a city, state, or national level to improve student quality and/or ecosystem conditions for school expansion (e.g., charter management organization, district/state office, funder, authorizer, state charter association, or similar).
• Direct experience having launched an independent charter school — as a founder, founding school leader, or core member of a founding leadership team.
• Experience building and using data visibility tools (dashboards, trackers, scorecards) to manage complex data across schools or sites.
• Fluency in instructional leadership as well as school operations, with experience guiding strategy across academics, enrollment, transportation, finance and facilities.
• Familiarity with charter school expansion as well as school closure, renewal, or turnaround processes, including family and student transition planning.
• Exceptional relationship building skills, with the ability to cultivate trusted relationships with charter leaders, district administrators, authorizers, funders, school boards and community partners alike.
• Strong systems thinking, with the ability to develop and refine an ecosystem-level vision alongside coordinated school-level strategies across quality, operations and growth.
• Judgment under uncertainty, with comfort developing and defending Go/No-Go recommendations on school launches and interventions.
• Clear, executive-level written and verbal communication, including board- and funder-ready reporting.
• Working knowledge of Missouri’s charter school regulatory landscape preferred, including the Missouri Charter Public School Commission, KCPS as an authorizer, and Saint Louis University’s authorizing role.

Starting salary will be $145,000 to $175,000, commensurate with qualifications and experience. BLAQUE Kansas City offers a competitive benefits package, including:

• 65% employer-covered medical, dental, and vision insurance
• 401(k) retirement plan with a 3% employer contribution (any employee contribution level qualifies)
• 100% employer-paid life insurance plan
• Paid vacation, holidays, 3 weeks end-of-year office closure, and sick leave
• A hybrid work environment with Mondays-Wednesday in office, Thursdays and Fridays remote
• A collaborative, mission-driven team culture committed to joy, excellence, and equity