KIPP Durham Middle:
Re-Founded

We are assembling a dream team of exceptional educators eager to “re-found” our Durham middle school to create a dynamic and engaging learning environment that maximizes the brilliance and boundless potentials of our students. (And we're paying that team for the lift: Our Master Teachers salaries range from $69K to $100K.)

The academic achievement of too many of our country’s schools doesn’t match their students’ brilliance, and their student cultures don’t create an environment where each and every student is seen, valued, and loved. 

KIPP Durham Middle School on the east side of Durham, NC, has been one such school. Every 6-8-Grade student in our classrooms is brilliant, but our efforts over the past decade have not successfully harnessed that collective brainpower to get exceptional results on the state’s middle school exams, the benchmarks that ensure they are on track towards being academically prepared to lead the choice-filled lives they envision for themselves.

Changing that Reality: A Re-Founding

While we founded Durham Middle in 2015, we are approaching the 2024-25 school year as a “re-founding” school year, an endeavor that requires a staff with a founder’s mentality around doing what it takes, sweating the small stuff, and creating a reimagined reality for our students.

A unique partnership with the KIPP Foundation
The national KIPP Foundation and KIPP North Carolina are partnering to make an historic investment in a turnaround effort at KIPP Durham Middle. This will be a “first of its kind” blueprint for other turnaround efforts across all of KIPP.

Investing in Exceptional People

A Dream Team of 18 exceptional educators
Starting in the 2024-25 school year (and for the next 2 school years after that), we are assembling exceptional educators who are eager to re-found our Durham middle school and harness the brilliance of our students.

A higher bar for re-founding
This Dream Team will be paid salaries commensurate with the difficult work at hand: Delivering exceptional Tier 1 lessons daily, creating individualized learning plans for every student in their care, deeply internalizing lessons with colleagues until 5:00 PM daily, creating lasting relationships with students and their families, running Saturday school (select weekends), hosting summer school (select weeks of each summer), and engaging in the transformative work of school turnaround.

Eager to join us?

The Team
Founding and re-founding a school is not for the faint of heart. If you are interested in joining this team, we hope you will click on these remaining open positions to learn more.

We. Are. KIPP. Strong.

Picturing the Pride
In 2016, nearby Duke University and its Center for Documentary Studies spent hours at KIPP Durham Middle documenting the lives of our middle school students in a project they called Picturing the Pride. We encourage you to learn more about the many stories of our now alumni, the history of KIPP on the east side of Durham, and our abiding commitment to the dynamic Bull City.

Educator Competencies

Our re-founding educators will blow the following four crucial competencies out of the water (We are indebted to North Carolina-based Public Impact for this language and framework):

Driving for Results

Our educators will have a strong desire to achieve outstanding student learning results and the task-oriented actions required for success. Our educators will set high goals for themselves and their students, making well-planned efforts to achieve these goals despite resistance; holding others accountable for doing their part to achieve results; and putting in all the extra effort necessary to ensure success.

Influencing for Results

Our educators will motivate others and influence their thinking and behavior to obtain outstanding student learning results. Our educators will understand that they cannot accomplish change alone, but instead must influence the work of others. They will use a variety of influencing moves as the situation requires. 

Problem-Solving

Our educators will be LASER FOCUSED on planning, organizing, and delivering high quality Tier 1 instruction, AND they will continually analyze data to determine student learning needs and next steps for intervention blocks during the day, on select weekend academies, and during select weeks over summers.

Personal Effectiveness

Our educators will exhibit flexibility and optimism when faced with stressful, uncomfortable, and unfamiliar situations; maintain confidence in themselves and a willingness to keep improving despite the many challenges of their role; actively embrace the constant changes needed to ensure student learning in high-challenge situations; and maintain a strong belief in the human potential for learning and improvement, despite significant societal pressures to settle for less. 

All interested educators should carefully read the job descriptions linked above and reach out with their interest and questions.

All applications for the re-founding of KIPP Durham Middle are now open.

Selection will begin in April 2024.