Senior Director, AI Strategy and Innovation

Company Description

About the Organization

KIPP Public Schools  is a national network of tuition-free public charter schools that prepares students with the skills and confidence to create the future they want for themselves, their communities, and us all. We are a network of 279 schools, nearly 16,500 educators, and nearly 210,000 students and alumni.

Our mission : Together with families and communities, we create joyful, academically excellent schools that prepare students with the skills and confidence to pursue the paths they choose—college, career, and beyond—so they can lead fulfilling lives and build a more just world.

Our vision:  Every child grows up free to create the future they want for themselves and their communities.

The  KIPP Foundation  is a nonprofit organization that supports KIPP public charter schools across the country. The KIPP Foundation helps to develop outstanding educators to lead KIPP schools; provides tools and resources for excellent teaching and learning; promotes innovation; and facilitates the exchange of insights and ideas across KIPP and other public schools and organizations.

About Our Values

Excellent Results for Students:  We value results over effort and know that our work is not finished until all students thrive. We maintain high expectations for self, team, and students. We drive outcomes by operating with agility, removing barriers, differentiating support, and prioritizing student-centered solutions—especially for those at the margins.

Collective Impact:  We are one team. We win together. We embody a one-team mindset by working collaboratively across teams, aligning goals, and leveraging the strengths of all teammates. We build trust-based relationships and ensure inclusive decision-making by engaging those closest to the work. We provide clarity through simple, repeatable systems and goals that enable transformational outcomes.

Courageous Action : Our belief in what we can achieve is unwavering, fueling our optimism and commitment to overcome any challenge. We demonstrate an unwavering belief in students' potential and a commitment to addressing systemic inequities. We approach challenges with resilience, a solutions-focused mindset, and adaptability. We foster a psychologically safe environment centered on trust and accountability where feedback is encouraged. We leverage data to reflect on progress, own setbacks, celebrate successes, and continuously improve to maximize impact.

Job Description

About The Position

The Senior Director, AI Strategy and Innovation is the KIPP Foundation's expert on artificial intelligence. This leader develops and leads KIPP's multi-year, network-wide AI strategy, the plan that will carry the network into the next generation of teaching, learning, and operations, and coordinates AI work across KIPP regions. The role leads the AI pilot group, designs and runs the system that measures whether AI pilots are working, and serves as the final recommender on AI vendors, uses, and approaches for both Foundation and regional work. With a network that serves nearly 210,000 students and alumni, KIPP has the reach to shape how AI serves students nationally, especially those at the margins.

Reporting to the Chief of Staff to the CEO in the Office of the CEO, this leader serves on the CEO-chartered AI Working Group and works across the Foundation as a peer to the Schools, Data and Technology, Legal, and Development teams, and with regional leaders, funders, and external research and vendor partners. The Schools team oversees instructional pilots and the Chief Schools Officer makes final decisions on the AI work the Schools team leads; this role brings the evidence and the recommendation those decisions rest on. The strongest candidates are deeply steeped in AI, bring substantial school-based experience and the credibility to advise school and system leaders, and can tell a tool that works in a classroom from a tool that demos well.

Responsibilities

Network AI Strategy and Leadership

• Develop and lead KIPP's multi-year, network-wide AI strategy, aligned to One KIPP and the KIPP 2030 Plan, that positions the network for the next generation of teaching, learning, and operations; bring it through the AI Working Group and keep it current as the field moves.
• Serve as the AI expert for the entire KIPP Foundation and the go-to advisor for regions, the Schools team, and Foundation leadership on AI tools, uses, and risks.
• Own KIPP's position on instructional AI and the standard the network uses to judge whether a tool serves its students; propose and maintain the network's AI decision structure, making clear how recommendations reach decision-makers and how decisions flow to Foundation teams and regions.
• Translate the strategy so it travels: a regional superintendent can repeat it in a sentence, a development officer can put it in front of a funder, and a school leader recognizes it in the guidance they receive.

AI Pilot Leadership and Measurement

• Manage the AI pilot group, setting its priorities and the standard of evidence for AI pilots across the Foundation and regions.
• Design and administer the measurement system for AI pilots: go to regions to assess pilot quality, collect, and analyze evidence, and produce a report on each pilot that states clearly whether the tool is working and for which students.
• Partner with the Schools team, which oversees instructional pilots, and with external researchers to set the comparison design, subgroup breakouts, and data plan before licenses are issued.
• Apply a common evaluation framework to every AI tool under consideration, covering efficacy and alignment to One KIPP anchor metrics; accessibility for multilingual learners, students with IEPs, and students arriving below grade level; bias and equity risk; implementation requirements and total cost of ownership; and student data privacy and security, with the Data and Technology team setting technical, privacy, and security requirements.

AI Recommendations and Partnerships

• Serve as the final recommender on AI vendors, uses, and approaches for both Foundation and regional work, including work led by the Schools team, where the Chief Schools Officer makes the final decision.
• Make scale, continue, or stop recommendations grounded in pilot data, and present them to the AI Working Group and senior leaders with the evidence behind them.
• Identify, negotiate, and steward partnerships with research and development partners, a small set of key vendors, and university researchers; structure agreements so partners build to KIPP's model, and lead structured diligence with the Data and Technology team on any platform under consideration.
• Help Foundation teams use AI more effectively in their own work, keeping the principles for the Foundation's internal AI use and the standard for classroom tools in one coherent position.

Network Coordination Across Regions

• Coordinate AI work across KIPP regions, maintaining a current inventory of tools, cost, funding source, early outcomes, lessons learned, and privacy considerations through regional AI leads and touchpoints such as RAMP, so the Foundation can answer a question about network AI use the week it is asked.
• Advise regions on how tools fit KIPP's approach and what evidence the network needs to recommend them, respecting regional leaders' authority over their own schools.
• Broker multi-region pilots with a shared challenge, a common evaluation design, and a clear division of labor, so the network learns once instead of many times and reduces duplicate spending.

Funding, Ecosystem, and External Voice

• Build KIPP's relationships with funders investing in AI in education and, with the Development team, position KIPP to attract the philanthropic dollars and support its priority AI work needs, coordinating regional and national requests so KIPP does not compete with itself.