Priority application deadline: Friday, November 20, 2026. About Aspire NorCal Founded in 1998, Aspire Public Schools has served scholars and communities across California for nearly three decades. Following Aspire Los Angeles’s transition into an independent organization, Aspire’s Bay Area and Central Valley regions will come together to form Aspire NorCal. Aspire NorCal will operate 22 schools serving approximately 10,000 scholars across Northern California, with schools located in Oakland, Richmond, East Palo Alto, Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, and Ceres. This evolution comes at an important moment for Aspire. Changes in California’s funding, policy, enrollment, and operating environment have created an opportunity to rethink how the organization supports its schools and scholars in its next chapter. The formation of Aspire NorCal creates an opportunity to strengthen support for schools across teams previously organized by geography, improve the consistency and effectiveness of school support, and create clear accountability systems for organizational and scholar outcomes. The new model will require the organization to balance greater coherence across Aspire NorCal with responsiveness to the different communities and contexts of its schools. Aspire NorCal enters this transition with a long-standing mission focused on post-secondary success and a deep commitment to educational equity, along with decades of institutional knowledge across its schools and teams. Preserving those strengths while building Aspire NorCal as a unified region will be central to the work ahead. About the role The Chief Schools Officer is the senior instructional leader for every Aspire NorCal classroom. Reporting to the CEO and serving on the Executive team, this leader is accountable to the CEO for scholar outcomes across Aspire NorCal and has ultimate responsibility for the supervision of all educators and administrators who implement Aspire NorCal’s instructional program across all its schools. This role includes both supervision of the superintendents, as well as leadership in curriculum and instruction. Through the superintendents, the Chief Schools Officer leads the implementation of the academic program through Aspire NorCal's principals and school leadership teams. This individual is also an enterprise leader who drives Aspire NorCal's strategy and resource decisions and partners closely with the President and other senior leaders to ensure the organization effectively serves its scholars and schools. This leader holds Aspire NorCal to one demanding ultimate outcome: every scholar performing at grade level or above and poised for success in their post-secondary college and career aspirations.
Competencies Instructional vision and scholar outcomes
- Plan and evaluate courses of study across the TK–12 continuum, including curriculum, instruction, and assessment, that build intentionally across grade bands toward college, career, and life readiness.
- Hold the vision of grade-level proficiency for every scholar, and make progress visible through a clear set of differentiated school and Aspire NorCal-level measures.
- Run a standing cycle of data reviews with each Superintendent, conducting research connected with the evaluation and efficiency of the instructional program, and redirecting coaching, mentoring, talent, or resources the moment a school’s trend line moves away from target.
- Own the academic case for charter renewal, making sure every school meets authorizer expectations; the CEO owns the authorizer relationship and the General Counsel owns the filings.
- Ensure academic and student-support systems meet the needs of all learners, including multilingual learners, scholars with disabilities, and scholars ready for acceleration.
- Oversee the selection, preparation, classification, and evaluation of instructional materials and curriculum, ensuring faithful implementation of the academic model in every classroom, in partnership with the academic team.
- Articulate and drive a forward-looking instructional vision, introducing innovative practices that raise achievement and expand opportunity for all scholars.
- Partner with the Chief Technology Officer on the scholar AI policy, shaping how AI supports teaching and learning.
Leadership of leaders
- Lead, coach, and evaluate superintendents and establish clear expectations for principals and school leadership teams.
- Hold every manager to Aspire's "excellent management" standard: managers set the conditions for success and hold teammates accountable for results. This means documented check-ins at least twice a month (more often for new and junior staff), clear goals, regular feedback, development conversations, prompt course correction, and no surprises if a role changes or terminates.
- Build consistent systems and expectations across sites while adapting support to the needs of each school.
- Set the standard for the examination, selection, in-service training, mentoring and assignment of principals, and build a durable pipeline of future principals and system leaders.
- Oversee and strengthen Aspire NorCal's annual leadership development for superintendents, principals and assistant principals, building on what works and refining it based on results.
- Cultivate a culture of high expectations, candor and continuous improvement, where leaders reflect on data, share what works and adjust quickly.
School culture, Bienestar (well-being) and student services
- Set the vision for safe, joyful, affirming schools grounded in the Aspire Core Values.
- Oversee student services, including special education, MTSS, mental health and family engagement, ensuring compliance and equitable outcomes for the scholar groups who need the most support.
- Ensure advisory, enrichment and co-curricular experiences reinforce academic priorities.
Enterprise Leadership
- Shape Aspire NorCal’s strategic plan, resource trade-offs and organizational risk as a collaborative member of the Executive team.
- Report scholar outcomes to the CEO, Board, and authorizers, and revise the plan whenever the data requires.
- Direct school resources within the budget, working with the CFO, toward the strategies that most effectively move scholar outcomes.
- Anticipate state and federal policy shifts (LCFF, LCAP, CA School Dashboard) and position schools ahead of them.
- Serve as Aspire NorCal's accountable leader for program compliance (Special Education, Secondary and Post-Secondary Programs, Multi-Language Learners, Expanded Learning, Student Services), building school capacity to meet state and federal requirements and safeguarding the organization's standing with regulators and authorizers; the CFO owns financial and grant compliance, and the General Counsel owns legal compliance and filings.
- Partner with People, Operations and Advancement on school staffing, labor relations, facilities and philanthropy.
- Oversee enrollment, owned by principals, including recruitment and retention, working with the CFO on enrollment forecasts.
- Set what schools need from the one support office (data, systems, talent and operations) and hold those teams to it through the President.
- Build strong relationships with school district boards and community organizations, representing Aspire NorCal's schools and scholars and creating partnerships that expand opportunities for scholars and families.
Judgment and decision-making
- Make timely, scholar-centered decisions grounded in evidence, and explain them with clarity.
- Lead change across Aspire NorCal: build the case, bring people along and sustain it through implementation.
- Engage families, teammates, and community as genuine partners.
- Identify and interrupt inequitable practices in the work they lead and influence.
- 10+ years of progressive instructional leadership, including proven experience leading a multi-site school system: directly accountable for results across multiple schools, ideally spanning multiple regions or geographies.
- 5+ years managing principals or leaders of principals (e.g., Regional or Area Superintendent, Chief or Managing Director of Schools), including at least one year as a principal.
- Significant leadership experience in charter schools required, including senior roles in a charter network, with the ability to lead through the scale of change ahead.
- A track record of moving scholar achievement toward grade-level proficiency and closing opportunity gaps across multiple sites, not a single building.
- Expertise across the TK–12 continuum: ability to speak with authority about how learning progresses from early literacy through the high school course sequence.
- Enterprise leadership experience: serving on or alongside an executive team, presenting to a board and stewarding significant budgets.
- Deep fluency with data and evidence-based improvement, and comfort owning a single, hard outcome and building the systems to reach it.
- Culturally responsive leadership and deep understanding of the communities Aspire NorCal serves.
- Bachelor’s degree required; master’s in education, educational leadership or a related field preferred. An administrative services credential is preferred; credentials from any state are accepted.
- Knowledge of California charter law, accountability and funding strongly preferred.
Location and work arrangement
- This is an in-person role with extensive travel required across schools spanning East Palo Alto to the East Bay Area, and Sacramento to Modesto, including attendance at Board of Directors meetings in Stockton.
- Must reside in a county where Aspire NorCal schools are located: San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, or Sacramento.
The salary range for this role is $275,000–$300,000 annually, commensurate with experience. This full-time, exempt position offers a comprehensive benefits package, including:
- Eligible for Aspire health benefits
- Retirement through CalSTRS or CalPERS, depending on the role's credential requirements, with a 403(b) option
- Paid time off and additional teammate benefits to be determined in accordance with updated employee value proposition to be shared prior to offer.
Equal opportunity Aspire Public Schools is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), disability, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. Aspire Public Schools provides reasonable accommodations during the application and interview process. To request an accommodation, please contact AspireSearch@strongerconsulting.com
