Example Job Description
Director of Community Schools
A leader who connects community school strategy, needs and assets assessment, collaborative leadership, integrated supports, and partner coordination with trustworthy evidence, equitable opportunity, and accountable action.
Interview Planning Resource
Possible Interview Q&A: Director of Community Schools
How to use this resource: Select questions that measure competencies established through the district’s current job analysis. Ask candidates the same predetermined questions under comparable conditions and evaluate responses against the same job-related criteria.
The indicators below describe evidence a strong response may contain; they are not required scripts or the only acceptable answers.
- A community school has many partners but families still cannot obtain services. What would you examine?
Strong response indicators: Maps capacity, eligibility, referral completion, wait times, language and transport barriers; assigns handoff owners and verifies actual access.
- How would you conduct a needs and assets assessment?
Strong response indicators: Uses representative outreach, existing evidence, community strengths, accessible methods, and transparent prioritization; explains whose input is missing and how findings change plans.
- A partner asks for the full student roster. How would you respond?
Strong response indicators: Clarifies purpose, authority, necessary fields, consent or other lawful basis, agreements, security, and retention with responsible district owners before sharing.
- How would you evaluate community school progress?
Strong response indicators: Checks implementation, access, trust, experience, and appropriate outcomes over time; considers context and comparison limits without attributing every change to the initiative.
- Grant funding may end. How would you plan?
Strong response indicators: Identifies essential services, verified demand, cost, partner commitments, alternative resources, and transition risks; develops sustainable options with community leadership.
- School leaders and partners disagree about priorities. What would you do?
Strong response indicators: Uses agreed governance, needs evidence, student and family input, role authority, and transparent tradeoffs; documents commitments and follow-up.
- The community school service dashboard disagrees with source records. How would you resolve this?
Strong response indicators: Checks populations, dates, definitions, refreshes, joins and corrections for community priorities, referral completion, service access and implementation; reconciles with accountable owners, documents fixes and adds preventive checks.
- What evidence would you require before recommending this community school partnership investment?
Strong response indicators: Defines educational need, baseline, access and implementation measures, alternatives, cost and capacity; uses appropriate comparisons and uncertainty and specifies a review or exit decision.
- How would you protect sensitive records while helping teams act on community priorities, referral completion, service access and implementation?
Strong response indicators: Defines purpose and authorized access, minimizes disclosure, protects small groups, uses approved systems and retention rules, and consults responsible privacy and legal owners.
- A vendor proposes AI to automate recommendations in this portfolio. How would you assess it?
Strong response indicators: Tests the proposed use against community school strategy, needs and assets assessment, collaborative leadership, integrated supports, and partner coordination; reviews accuracy, subgroup errors, privacy, security, accessibility and cost, and preserves authorized human decisions and challenge procedures.
- How would you build staff capability to use community priorities, referral completion, service access and implementation well?
Strong response indicators: Uses authentic cases, verifies sources and denominators, explains missingness and uncertainty, coaches interpretation and checks whether evidence leads to useful changes in practice.
- What would your first 90 days as Director of Community Schools include?
Strong response indicators: Listens to affected students, families, staff and partners; maps authority and obligations, validates community priorities, referral completion, service access and implementation, identifies urgent gaps and proposes a focused plan with owners and review dates.
Position Description
The Director of Community Schools leads community school strategy, needs and assets assessment, collaborative leadership, integrated supports, and partner coordination. The district or employing agency should define the final portfolio, delegated authority, and relationships with other program owners.
The position connects community priorities, actual service access, implementation, and student experience to improvement; uses partnership evidence without creating unnecessary shared student records.
Reports To
Illustrative reporting relationship: Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services or Student Services or other designated administrator. Confirm the locally approved structure and delegated authority.
Required Education and Credentials
Required
- Illustrative district qualification for review: master's degree in education, community development, public administration, social work, or a related field; confirm the local degree requirement and permitted equivalents.
- Hold the California credential, permit, professional license, or other authorization required by the actual assignment. HR must verify whether administrative, pupil-services, clinical, or other authorization is needed; the management title alone does not authorize professional practice.
- Complete district-required employment clearances and training in student privacy, nondiscrimination, accessibility, records, safety, and responsible use of technology.
Preferred
- Graduate coursework or sustained professional learning in applied statistics, program evaluation, improvement science, education data systems, or responsible AI for educational decision-making.
- Advanced preparation in education, community development, public administration, social work, or a related field, inclusive leadership, family partnership, and coaching adults to use evidence effectively.
Required / Desired Experience
Required Experience
- Illustrative minimum for local review: five years of successful community school or integrated-service leadership, school partnerships, and collaborative program implementation; confirm experience thresholds and permitted equivalents.
- Experience supervising assigned staff, coordinating partners, managing resources, and implementing improvement across the assigned portfolio.
- Demonstrated use of community priorities, referral completion, service access and implementation to investigate needs, verify records, evaluate action, and explain findings and limitations.
Desired Experience
- Experience with California district or regional program requirements, implementation monitoring, and improvement with diverse communities.
- Experience with a community school service dashboard, approved spreadsheets and tools such as Excel, Google Sheets, Power BI, Tableau, or equivalents; applied data-science literacy sufficient to collaborate with analysts.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Community School Strategy
- Lead school and community needs and assets assessments with representative participation and accessible communication.
- Support shared leadership structures, site implementation plans, integrated supports, and connection to instruction and expanded learning.
- Define partner roles, referral pathways, commitments, and district accountability while respecting school and community leadership.
Implementation and Access Evidence
- Maintain a current service map and track availability, referral handoffs, completed access, unmet need, and participant experience.
- Evaluate implementation, trust, belonging, attendance, and appropriate learning indicators using context and suitable comparison evidence.
- Combine quantitative patterns with community knowledge; document priorities, resource choices, and whether services reach intended groups.
Governance and Information Sharing
- Coordinate current grant conditions, partnership agreements, consent, privacy, and safeguarding requirements with fiscal and legal owners.
- Use purpose-specific sharing and approved referral systems; avoid assuming partnership status permits unrestricted student-data access.
- Review partner platforms and AI needs-analysis tools for accuracy, representation, accessibility, and human verification of sensitive conclusions.
Leadership and Sustainability
- Supervise assigned personnel, budgets, contracts, and professional learning; plan sustainable capacity beyond individual grants.
- Facilitate partner review of delivery gaps and corrective action while preserving community voice in decisions.
- Report commitments, implementation, costs, results and limits and perform related duties within the classification.
Required Skills and Abilities
Knowledge of
- Community school approaches, integrated supports, asset-based assessment, shared leadership, and school improvement.
- Applicable grant, partnership, safeguarding, consent, confidential-record, and procurement requirements.
- Service maps, referral completion, representative engagement, implementation measures, and evaluation of complex initiatives.
- Approved referral systems, partner agreements, secure aggregate reporting, and responsible AI.
Ability to
- Translate priorities in community school strategy, needs and assets assessment, collaborative leadership, integrated supports, and partner coordination into feasible plans, clear responsibilities and measurable follow-through.
- Validate community priorities, referral completion, service access and implementation using accurate sources, definitions, populations and denominators before making decisions.
- Evaluate implementation and outcomes, examine subgroup opportunity, and distinguish association from causation with qualified analytical support.
- Use approved modern systems and accessible visualizations; partner with data specialists on complex linkage, statistical methods or reproducible analysis.
- Protect confidential information, document consequential decisions, maintain professional judgment and escalate unresolved legal or policy questions.
- Lead staff and partnerships, communicate evidence and uncertainty clearly, and revise ineffective practices with affected communities.
Work Environment
- Work is performed in district offices, classrooms, school grounds, meeting rooms, and other professional settings, with remote participation as authorized.
- The position involves computer use, school visits, observation, facilitation, and detailed review of records, dashboards, assessments, reports, and communications.
- Work requires frequent coordination with school and district leaders, program specialists, students and families as appropriate, data and technology teams, fiscal and legal owners, and external partners.
- The employee encounters interruptions, competing priorities, sensitive student and personnel matters, and urgent concerns requiring calm, documented judgment.
- Workload may increase during planning and budget cycles, program transitions, monitoring and reporting reviews, public meetings, and urgent service concerns.
Other Requirements
- Successfully complete required criminal-record, fingerprint, and employment clearances.
- Complete a tuberculosis risk assessment and any examination required by applicable law or district policy.
- Maintain required credentials and complete district-assigned training in privacy, cybersecurity, accessibility, nondiscrimination, mandated reporting, and workplace safety.
- Protect confidential student and employee records; follow approved access, sharing, retention, incident-reporting, and records-request procedures.
- Travel between district offices, schools, professional-learning locations, and community meetings as assigned.
- Possess a valid California driver's license and maintain insurability when driving is an essential function; confirm the district's actual travel requirements.
- Occasionally work evenings, weekends, or extended hours for school events, public meetings, reporting deadlines, or urgent student and operational matters.
- Perform office and school-based activities involving sitting, standing, walking, communication, and computer use; confirm any role-specific lifting or other physical requirements through local job analysis.
- Perform the essential functions of the position with or without reasonable accommodation.