Senior Executive Director - Student Services

Department: School Leadership
Reports to: Deputy Superintendent - School Leadership
Pay Grade: 1003
Days: 239 Days
Salary Range: minimum $180,000 - maximum $210,000
FSLA Status: Exempt

Position Purpose

The Senior Executive Director of Student Services is a system-level senior leadership role accountable for aligning and delivering student-facing supports that directly impact access, behavior, engagement, and student experience at scale. This role repositions discipline from compliance to instructional leverage, and elevates athletics and student experience as engines for belonging, persistence, and student outcomes. This role serves in direct alignment to the following FWISD Pillars of Excellence: Excellent Academic Performance; Excellent Instruction and HQIM; and Excellent Service to Students, Families and Staff.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS

System Leadership and Integration

• Owns the end-to-end design and performance of districtwide student services, ensuring athletics, discipline, alternative placements, and student experience function as a unified system rather than siloed departments.
• Eliminates fragmentation by setting clear expectations, non-negotiables, and operating rhythms across student-facing services.
• Aligns all student services work to instructional priorities and district turnaround goals, ensuring services actively support teaching and learning rather than operate in parallel.

Discipline as Instructional Leverage

• Reorients discipline systems from compliance and exclusion toward instructional continuity, student accountability, and re-engagement.
• Ensures the District Alternative Education Placement (DAEP) and Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program (JJAEP) function as short-term intervention environments with clear entry, exit, and re-entry expectations tied to student academic and behavioral growth.
• Establishes consistent districtwide discipline frameworks that reduce subjectivity, inequity, and variability across campuses.
• Uses data aggressively to identify patterns of exclusion, disproportionality, and operational failureand acts on them immediately.

Student Experience and Athletics

• Elevates athletics and extracurricular experiences as strategic levers for student connectedness, attendance, persistence, and school culture.
• Holds Athletics and Student & Family Experiences accountable for measurable impact on student engagement, climate, and accessnot just participation or compliance.
• Ensures equitable access to athletic and extracurricular opportunities across campuses and student groups.
• Shields high-impact student experience work from political noise while enforcing operational discipline and performance expectations.

Executive Management and Accountability

• Serves as the single point of accountability for student services outcomes at the district level.
• Sets clear performance expectations for direct reports and intervenes quickly when execution slips.
• Designs and enforces simple, fast operating cadences focused on production, data, and outcomes.
• Identifies and removes process, approval layers, or legacy practices that slow delivery or protect underperformance.
• Manages highly visible, politically sensitive areas including discipline, alternative placements, and athletics with precision and credibility.
• Communicates clearly with internal and external stakeholders, including Cabinet, parents, media, the Board of Managers, and TEA when necessary.
• Balances urgency with accuracy, ensuring the district moves fast without damaging trust or credibility.

Parent Concerns, Complaints, and Grievance Oversight

• Serves as the point of accountability for resolving formal and informal parent complaints related to student services, including discipline, DAEP and JJAEP placement, athletics, and student experience.
• Ensures parent concerns are addressed promptly, accurately, and consistently, with an expectation of fast resolution and minimal escalation.
• Identifies systemic patterns from parent complaints and grievances and uses them to drive immediate corrective action at the system level.
• Acts as the District\"s grievance officer for student services matters when required, ensuring full compliance with policy, law, and due process requirements while avoiding unnecessary delay or procedural overreach.
• Protects the district\"s credibility by balancing responsiveness to families with firm, defensible decision-making grounded in student outcomes, equity, and instructional priorities.
  
  

Supervisory Responsibilities

• Selects, trains, supervises, and evaluates staff, and makes recommendations relative to assignment, retention, discipline, and dismissal.

Personal Work Relationships

• All Fort Worth ISD employees must maintain a commitment to the District\"s mission, vision, and strategic goals.
• Exhibits high professionalism, standards of conduct, and work ethic.
• Demonstrates high quality customer service; builds rapport/relationship with the consumer.
• Demonstrates cultural competence in interactions with others; is respectful of co-workers; communicates and performs as a team player; promotes teamwork; responds and acts appropriately in confrontational situations.

Other Duties as Assigned

• Performs all job-related duties as assigned and in accordance with Board rules, policies, and regulations. All employees are expected to comply with lawful directives in rare situations driven by need where a team effort is required.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Knowledge of federal and state guidelines, as well as District policies and procedures.
• Knowledge of best practices in administration, program evaluation, and staff supervision.
• Knowledge of current research and literature related to effective leadership.
• Knowledge of data information systems, data analysis, and the formulation of action plans.
• Skill in managing change within a large, complex organization.
• Skill in organizational, public, and interpersonal relations.
• Skill in project management, evaluation, planning, development, implementation and evaluation.
• Skill in complex problem solving; identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
• Skill in analyzing multiple data sources quickly, identifying root causes, and executing corrective action.
• Skill with continuous improvement, problem-solving models, and making recommendations.
• Skill in judgment and creativity in decision-making; considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
• Skill in providing exceptional service to both internal and external customers.
• Ability to use strong judgment and ability to make timely decisions in high-accountability environments.
• Ability to align academic and operational systems to improve school-level execution and protect instructional time.
• Ability to build effective cross-functional partnerships while maintaining clarity of ownership and results.
• Ability to communicate clearly, concisely, and in alignment with district priorities.
• Ability to navigate a complex, political environment and act as a steward of FWISD.
• Ability to analyze, synthesize, and interpret data, in order to summarize for technical and non-technical employees, as well as, senior management.
• Ability to exercise discretion regarding matters of a sensitive or confidential nature.
• Ability to utilize software to create, access, analyze, and interpret spreadsheets, data dashboards, presentations, email, and documents.
• Ability to engage in self-evaluation with regard to performance and professional growth.
• Ability to establish and maintain cooperative working relationships with others contacted in the course of work.
• Ability to exercise absolute discretion regarding matters of a sensitive or confidential nature.
• Ability to handle difficult and stressful situations with professional composure.

Travel Requirements

• Travels to school district buildings and professional meetings as required.

Physical & Mental Demands, Work Hazards

• Tools/Equipment Used: Standard office equipment, including computer and peripherals.
• Posture: Prolonged sitting and standing; occasional stooping, squatting, kneeling, bending, pushing/pulling, and twisting.
• Motion: Frequent repetitive hand motions, including keyboarding and use of mouse; occasional reaching.
• Lifting: Occasional light lifting and carrying (less than 15 pounds).
• Environment: Works in an office setting; occasionally requires irregular and/or prolonged hours.
• Attendance: Regular and punctual attendance at the worksite is required for this position.
• Mental Demands: Maintains emotional control under stress; works with frequent interruptions.

Minimum Required Qualifications

• Education:
  • Master\"s degree from an accredited college or university required.
• Certification/License:
  • Texas Teaching Certification required;
  • Texas Mid-Management or Principal Certification required.
• Experience:
  • 7 years of progressively responsible experience in district strategy, school improvement, project management, or campus leadership required;
  • Experience in a large, urban educational setting preferred.

This document is intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by people assigned to this job and is not an exhaustive list of all responsibilities and duties that may be assigned or skills that may be required.