Director of Innovation and Technology

Gulliver Schools is a co-educational private college preparatory day school with an international and national reputation for excellence.  Located in Miami, Florida, the school enrolls more than 2,200 students in Grades PreK3 - 12 on four campuses.

The mission of Gulliver Schools is to provide a superior, personalized college preparatory education fostering well-rounded, successful, lifelong learners. Gulliver is committed to developing the unique gifts and talents of each student in a nurturing environment that promotes academic excellence, innovation, global understanding and character.

Gulliver focuses on a traditional academic college preparatory curriculum, supplemented by a wide variety of electives, with small class sizes enabling faculty to meet students’ individual needs, allowing “big school” opportunities in an environment that also emphasizes the “personal touch” espoused by founder Marian Krutulis.  Gulliver students have access to programs that include Honors, Advanced Placement, and International Baccalaureate courses. 

In addition to Gulliver’s rigorous academic programs, the school is committed to preparing students for future success, by also emphasizing “future ready” skills such as creativity, collaboration, communication and presentation, character, cultural competence.  100 percent of graduating seniors go on to college.  Gulliver is an exciting educational hub where the tradition of excellence blends with the commitment to create the opportunities needed to prepare students to make a difference in a complex and rapidly changing world.

The Director of Innovation and Technology will provide support to the Head of Schools by providing both visionary and pragmatic leadership to support the administrative and instructional technologies for The Gulliver Schools.  The position also supports school-wide use of advanced technologies to improve accountability, student learning, accelerate and scale up the adoption of effective practices, and the use of data and information for continuous improvement.            

The Director will lead the strategic instructional and infrastructure design processes and the development of appropriate systems throughout the school.  He/she will administer and facilitate technology-rich teaching and learning, guide collaborative curricular innovation, including system design and oversight, faculty and staff training/support, and ensure system service, reliability andconsistency.  Specifically, the Director:

• Provides leadership in the development of strategic approaches for the integration of technology into the educational environments of Gulliver Schools.

• Provides leadership and innovation for enhancing teaching and learning through the identification, evaluation, adoption, and integration of effective educational innovations into the curriculum.

   

• Works collaboratively and effectively with faculty and staff throughout the school to provide pedagogical and technical consulting to design, develop, and implement instructional content, courses and projects that enrich teaching and learning through the use of technology in online, hybrid and traditional courses, including the integration of student learning outcomes.

• Collaborates as appropriate with Principals, teachers and Senior Management within the schools to infuse technology into the all areas of the schools.

• Provides administrative and technical support for all instructional technology to improve learning outcomes, facilitate technology-rich teaching, and advance curricular innovation.

• Formulates and provides a professional development program designed to support faculty in the design, development and delivery of curriculum and instruction using computer- mediated communications, cognitive and interactive media tools, and sound research- based course design for both local and distance learning opportunities.

• Develops and maintains an online repository of resources to provide information on current best practices, innovations, and emerging trends for faculty, staff and students (e.g. tutorials, interactive programs, websites) to promote sharing of resources.

• Maintains awareness of best practices, emerging technologies and new potentials in educational technology that may be adopted as new and emerging instructional media, technologies, pedagogies and practices.

• Establishes baseline data; tracks/records attendance at faculty training workshops; maintains course log by faculty by departments; analyzes outcomes based on training, service, and support provided to faculty; and monitors progress to achieve goals.

• Maintains appropriate records and data to produce monthly performance reports, annual performance reports, and external reports.

• Coordinates with Gulliver’s Information Systems to ensure adequate technology infrastructure to meet goals of technology-enhanced curricula.

• Participates in relevant school policy and planning committees and meetings.

• Reviews, maintains and evaluates the functional area budget.

• Assists with the development, implementation and monitoring of related policies and procedures in collaboration with the Head of Schools.

• Assists with the process for systematic review and evaluation of the educational technology and curricular innovation functional area, including the development and monitoring of outcomes and plans of action for improvement based on the assessment of those outcomes and plans.

• Uses interpersonal skills and makes sound judgments to decide how duties and responsibilities are completed between coworkers, the supervisory chain, faculty, staff, students, and customers.

• Supports the values and institutional goals as defined in the school’s Strategic Plan.

   

The Director will:

• Engage the school community in the exploration, discussion, and assessment of educational technology and should work collaboratively across the school to leverage and expand existing efforts into an intentional program of faculty support. 

• Acquire a strong and broad understanding of all business units, the culture of the schools and its current IT systems and team.

• Build strong, impactful business relationships across the system through collaboration, teaming, consensus building and interpersonal effectiveness; become a trusted advisor to senior management and the board.

• Review the current IT strategy and execute on the planned major IT initiatives.  Create a go-forward IT strategy and budget that is aligned with the overall mission and objectives of the schools.

• Build transparency into the function; lead the development of business justifications and cost/benefit analyses for ongoing IT spending and initiatives.

Requirements

The new Director of IT will be an innovative and dynamic leader, excellent communicator and accomplished executive driver of change.  She/He must be able to effectively motivate, challenge and inspire individual staff commitment, while identifying strengths and areas of opportunity for growth.  Other qualifications/experiences include:

• Proven ability to deliver IT projects across multiple locations on time and on budget.

• Advanced interpersonal skills, communications skills, and presentation skills. Demonstrated ability to present and discuss complex technical information in a way that establishes rapport, persuades others, and gains understanding and approval.

• Understands how to construct a team to deliver operational excellence and lead a steady march towards new systems that will allow the schools to become  world-class.

• Leadership and management of people who can operate at scale.

• Demonstrated ability to hire and develop technical talent.

• Ability to conceptualize, launch and deliver multiple technology solutions in support of the mission.

• Deep understanding and proven track record in IT strategy delivery, and keen awareness of the strategic goals and ability to define and influence those goals.

• Experience and knowledge of best practices related to IT service delivery.

• Successful experience while driving innovation across an enterprise.

• Possesses solid financial discipline with the ability to communicate facts with an eye towards cost vs. benefit. 

• Demonstrated ability to recognize and accurately forecast the IT needs of a complex enterprise; avoids “following the trends” or “change for the sake of change” and thinks through the unique needs of an enterprise.