Principal

Job Description

St. James Catholic School seeks a faithful, humble, ambitious, and compassionate principal who feels called to take on the responsibility of leading us beginning in the 2024-2025 school year.

Our school seeks to glorify God and make disciples by partnering with families to form students intellectually, morally, and in the Faith. St. James and our entire parish community are in a period of transition and seek a leader to join our team to bring our school family of 100 students into the future. Multiple parish communities, including two largely Hispanic communities, were united this past year at St. James Church, connecting to our school over 1000 unenrolled school-aged children of our parish. Our entire parish family, including our priest team, staff, leadership, and community are rallying together at this moment to enroll our kids in Catholic schools. Our current goal is to fill kindergarten and first grade for the 2024-25 school year, and reach our capacity of about 200 students the following year. To help meet this end we are preparing a letter of intent to apply for School Choice funding this coming winter to support our diverse community, as well as exploring options for supporting dual-language education. Our new principal can count on being part of a prayerful, humble, enthusiastic, and compassionate team and to receive support from the pastor and priests, leadership, and entire community to engage in this exciting endeavor.

Our school is the most diverse school in the diocese with half our enrollment being non-white students and a significant percentage of our students being non-Catholic or from dual-faith homes. Our experienced teachers are committed to sharing their faith and providing a strong education. Our size offers the opportunity for the principal to know and have personal relationships with teachers, families, and students. One of the defining characteristics of St. James is the highly welcoming environment. We desire to grow this experience of welcome and unite it with an environment of prayer, discipleship, and high intellectual and moral expectations of ourselves, our students, and their families.

As a principal you will provide strong, Catholic leadership by:

Developing your staff and teacher team to work together for common goals.

Actively managing and caring for teachers and staff, providing regular appreciation, coaching, and evaluation to support their growth.

Running great meetings: regular 1-on-1's, weekly staff meetings, committee meetings, strategy meetings, and formation meetings.

Consistently overcommunicating with the pastor, teachers, staff, and families.

Being willing to have uncomfortable and difficult conversations about personal growth, accountability, and discipline with staff, families, and students.

Providing instructional leadership in best practices in Catholic education including development, review, and implementation of curriculum.

Overseeing the implementation and maintenance of operational processes.

Working closely with pastor and leadership teams to conduct long-term vision and strategy planning to achieve our long-term goals.

Qualifications include but are not limited to:

Faithful: A Catholic, grounded in prayer, able to be a witness to our Catholic faith.

Minimum of 5 years of successful educational experience in Catholic schools, OR clearly evidenced knowledge of the mission and operations of Catholic schools.

Master's degree in educational administration OR willingness to pursue one.

Leadership experience in planning, team management, and implementation.

Humble: Readily admits mistakes; easily receives and gives apologies; seeks opinions of others; emphasizes team over self; teachable and trusting.

Ambitious: Looking for a challenge; endless optimism; faith, and confidence in God's plan; willing to put in the extra work; problem-solver.

Compassionate: Good listener; takes interest in knowing staff, teachers, families, and students; recognizes how his or her behavior affects others.

Leadership: Good at delegating tasks, saying "no," and taking calculated risks.

Proficient with requisite technology skills, including familiarity with Google Suite.

Must hold or be able to attain Wisconsin licensure for a school principal or willingness to obtain certification.

Experience with voucher programs (preferred).

Experience with dual-language education (preferred).

A premium pay will be offered to those candidates who are fluent in Spanish.

Salary and Benefits: Salary to be negotiated based on experience and education, $70k-$90k. Benefits include a portion of premiums paid for Health Insurance and Dental Insurance, participation in our Retirement Plan, and free tuition for K-8th at St. James School.

We plan to hire by May 17th (before the end of the school year) to ensure time for a smooth transition with an anticipated start date of July 1, 2024.

To apply, please submit the following materials as separate PDF attachments in one email to Bonnie Moschkau at bmoschkau@stjamesschool.org.

Cover letter that aligns your experiences and skills with the current needs of the school as you understand them.
Current resume with all appropriate dates included.
Pastor's letter indicating you are an active, practicing Catholic.
List of three professional references with names, physical addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. No references will be contacted without your approval.
All inquiries and applications will be treated with the highest degree of confidentiality.

About the Employer

Our Lady of Guadalupe Pastorate is comprised of the parishes of Good Shepherd and St. Raphael Cathedral in Madison, WI, which include the churches of St. Patrick, St. Joseph, St. James, and Holy Redeemer, and the school of St. James.

We are a bilingual Catholic community that exists to make disciples and give glory to God. We expect everyone on our team to love God and their neighbor as themselves. As a pastorate, we are a community of nations, we strive to be accessible to the poor, and we know that for most people we are one stage in their journey.