April 15, 2022

Reorganization Update: Filled Positions and Additional Postings

Dear Team DPS, As was shared during our Central Office Town Halls this week, we are committed to updating you as hiring and organizational structure decisions are made. Through the reorganization, we are making intentional changes to all Offices to purposefully place and elevate services for our schools and students. As a result of this work, we are writing to share some exciting plans for the Offices of Schools, Operations, Talent, and Chief of Staff. Not all decisions have been made, but we hope this information will illustrate some of the changes we are making.

Office of the Deputy Superintendent of Schools, Led by Dr. Tony Smith

In the Office of Schools, we have prioritized hiring for the roles that most directly support our schools as we know that these decisions are top of mind for our school leaders. The caliber of candidates and of the team that is coming together to lead our Schools Department is inspiring and further confirms the enormous impact that these organizational changes can have for our students. We hope that all of us begin to build more hope and inspiration about the collective impact of the changes we are navigating as we share updates to leadership roles and follow with more department-level information in the coming weeks.  We are thrilled to share with you the following positions, which have been hired under the Office of the Deputy Superintendent of Schools: Chief of Academics - Nadia Madan Morrow Associate Chief, Academics - Heather Koehler Associate Chief, Schools, Elementary - Drew Coleman Associate Chief, Schools, Secondary - Jennifer Troy Executive Director, Early Childhood Education - Priscilla Hopkins Executive Director, Elementary - Kevin Greeley Executive Director, Secondary - Nadrienne Jackson Executive Director, College and Career Success - Samantha Haviland Executive Director, Exceptional Student Services - Julie Rottier-Lukens Director of Schools, Elementary - Veronica Maes Director of Schools, Elementary - Jason Krause Director of Schools, Elementary - Chip Dale Director of Schools, Elementary - Kayla Grayson-Yizar Director of Schools, Elementary - Dana Williams Director of Schools, Early Childhood - Eric Love Director of Schools, K-8 - Marquetta Thomas Director of Schools, Montessori - Araceli O’Clair Director of Schools, IB/Dual Language - Christian Sawyer Director of Schools, Middle School - Lindsay Meier Director of Schools, High School - Melissa Boyd Director of Schools, High School - Bobby Thomas Director of Schools, Pathways - Michelle Wright Learn more about our newly-named leaders in their bios on The Commons. We expect to share updates on the remaining, previously posted Executive Director roles in the next week. The Office of the Deputy Superintendent of Schools will be made up of the following departments and teams. You'll notice a change of title from Executive Director, Portfolio to Executive Director, Universal School Supports to better reflect the work of that department.

Office of the Deputy Superintendent of Operations, Led by Jim Carpenter

In the Office of Operations, we will continue to build a structure that is oriented around data-driven decision making, customer service, robust systems and key priorities. Our efforts will be to maintain resource levels in direct student services and critical district priority areas. We will strive to focus on areas that represent higher investment in our students. We will avoid negatively impacting critical projects or district strategic priorities. During the Town Halls this week, we received a number of questions seeking information about the vision for Strategic Operations. The purpose of this group will be to prioritize and deeply embed leveraging data to drive decision making in our district, connected with team members who will be positioned to support implementation. The consolidation of functions in this group will include Research and Evaluation, Reporting and Data, our current Operational Superintendent function - which will be retitled - and Authorizing and Accountability. Based on the work of our Transition Team, we believe that this structure will allow us to collaborate in ways that deepen our equity lens in Operations. This work will be led by a new Associate Chief, Strategic Operations, with that position being posted next week. We are pleased to share with you the initial roles that have been hired through the reorganization: Chief Financial Officer - Charles Carpenter Chief Information Officer - Dave Landy Executive Director, Climate and Safety - Michael Eaton The next round of postings will take place next week. These will consist of: Executive Director, Facility Management Executive Director, Planning, Design and Construction Executive Director, Enterprise Management Executive Director, Transportation Executive Director, Finance Executive Director, Enrollment and Campus Planning Controller Associate Chief, Strategic Operations We plan to post additional leadership roles in support of the Associate Chief, Strategic Operations the following week.

Office of Talent, Led by Edwin Hudson

Our people are the reason we are able to accomplish so much for our students. Knowing this, we have designed the Office of Talent to support and elevate individual learning across all employee groups, embed equity into our culture and develop systems, processes and policies grounded in our values. The Office of Talent is committed to bringing skilled practitioners across disciplines to coach, counsel and empower the employees of DPS and create a respectful and engaged work culture embedded in our Equity Statement and our DPS Values. We have combined several departments across the central office into one Office dedicated to fostering an atmosphere of change, accountability and flexibility and cultivating productive relationships to share resources and knowledge across all schools, departments and teams. The Office of Talent departments and teams can be viewed here.  To help lead these teams, we will be posting several key leadership positions next week:  Executive Director, Total Rewards Executive Director, Labor & Employee Relations Executive Director, HR Strategic Partners Executive Director, Culture, Learning & Development

Office of the Chief of Staff, Led by Deborah Staten

Being connected and listening to the experiences of our students, families, team members and the broader DPS community to inform the work we do and the way we do it is of utmost importance in the Office of the Chief of Staff. We are continuing the hiring processes for previously posted positions within the Office, and we look forward to sharing further updates next week.

Next Steps: Additional Postings and Answering Questions Next week, additional positions in our Office of Schools, Operations and Talent will be posted. These positions are at the Executive Director level or above, as all executive-level leaders must reapply and go through the selection process. We expect to share additional postings in next week’s communication. We remain dedicated to sharing information with you as quickly as possible in this time of transition. We will answer questions through our FAQ page and in future communications. Please keep submitting your top-of-mind questions through this form so we can ensure they make it on to our FAQ.

In Collaboration,  Dr. Alex Marrero, Superintendent Deborah Staten, Deputy Chief of Staff Dr. Tony Smith, Deputy Superintendent of Schools Jim Carpenter, Deputy Superintendent of Operations Edwin Hudson, Chief of Talent

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