Director of Curriculum & Instruction: Science

Director of Curriculum & Instruction: Science

• Serve as Summit K12’s senior academic authority for K–12 science teaching and learning.
• Establish and maintain science principles, disciplinary frameworks, quality indicators, and non-negotiable design expectations that guide curriculum and learning experiences across the portfolio.
• Define expectations for coherent scientific knowledge building, phenomena-based learning where appropriate, scientific and engineering practices, modeling, investigation, data use, evidence-based reasoning, explanation, argumentation, and scientific discourse.
• Guide interpretation and application of state science standards and frameworks, including disciplinary core ideas/content knowledge, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts where applicable.
• Maintain coherence across physical, life, Earth and space sciences, engineering and technology connections, disciplinary literacy, grade-level learning progressions, and assessment expectations.
• Ensure science solutions build knowledge systematically rather than treating standards or activities as isolated instructional events.

• Define science-specific quality indicators, acceptance criteria, exemplars, validation requirements, and decision rules within Summit K12’s broader academic governance and Curriculum Lifecycle.
• Partner with Principal Curriculum Designers to ensure gold-standard prototypes accurately reflect Summit K12’s science principles before production scales.
• Review high-impact or novel curriculum designs, instructional models, assessments, investigations, simulations, and state adaptations for scientific accuracy and pedagogical integrity.
• Validate that phenomena, investigations, models, data representations, explanations, argumentation, engineering tasks, and assessment experiences are purposeful and aligned to intended learning outcomes.
• Identify systemic science-quality issues and determine whether improvements are needed in domain guidance, architecture, prototypes, specifications, templates, professional learning, or production calibration.
• Support academic readiness and release decisions for significant science solutions and escalated disciplinary issues without becoming the routine reviewer of every lesson or asset.

• Provide domain guidance to Principal Curriculum Designers while preserving their ownership of detailed instructional architecture for assigned science solutions.
• Translate science principles into usable specifications, exemplars, rubrics, decision rules, and guidance that internal writers, AI-enabled workflows, and approved external production partners can execute consistently.
• Support calibration of curriculum teams and external partners on science quality expectations, especially for work involving complex disciplinary judgment, data, investigations, models, or scientific explanations.
• Help distinguish science decisions that can be standardized and scaled from decisions that require expert domain review.
• Reduce dependence on downstream expert correction by making science expectations explicit before large-scale curriculum production begins.
• Partner with Project Management leaders to design the overall team coordination process and set clear guidelines for tracking work, ensuring all solutions move forward together and have the right people assigned to them.

• Build organizational capability so strong science learning principles are consistently applied across science solutions, assessment, adaptive learning, interdisciplinary literacy, and related product experiences.
• Partner with other domain Directors and curriculum leaders to ensure disciplinary literacy and language demands are addressed without weakening the integrity or rigor of science learning.
• Develop reusable science frameworks, guidance, exemplars, and quality indicators that can be applied across grade bands and state solutions.
• Promote coherence among content knowledge, practices, investigations, models, data, discourse, assessment, and the intended learner experience.
• Serve as the escalation point for complex science questions that cross products, courses, science domains, or state frameworks.

• Develop the science expertise of Principal Curriculum Designers, Senior Curriculum Writers, Curriculum Writers, Learning Experience Designers, assessment teams, and other relevant academic staff.
• Coach curriculum leaders on science learning progressions, phenomena, investigations, modeling, evidence-based reasoning, disciplinary literacy, assessment, and appropriate cognitive demand.
• Use calibration, design reviews, exemplars, professional learning, and criteria-based feedback to strengthen independent disciplinary judgment across the organization.
• Build bench strength so scientific accuracy and strong science pedagogy do not depend on a single expert.
• Identify capability gaps and recommend targeted professional learning, hiring, external expertise, or other capacity-building strategies.

• Establish domain-specific standards and validation criteria for responsible AI use in science curriculum, assessment, differentiation, and content development.
• Partner with Principal Curriculum Designers to strengthen science-specific prompts, exemplars, rubrics, specifications, and validation processes used in AI-assisted workflows.
• Evaluate high-risk or representative AI-generated explanations, questions, investigations, phenomena, models, data sets, answer keys, assessments, and teacher guidance for scientific and instructional quality.
• Identify weaknesses automated systems may miss, including scientific inaccuracies, fabricated or implausible data, misleading models, weak causal reasoning, inappropriate cognitive demand, bias, unsafe investigation guidance, and standards misalignment.
• Use AI and emerging technologies to improve science design, differentiation, quality, and scalability while maintaining expert human judgment and accountability.
• Contribute science expertise to the organization’s evolving AI governance and quality systems.

• Partner on science assessment blueprints, disciplinary requirements, cognitive demand, and interpretation while preserving that function’s ownership of assessment-system design, validity, item-bank quality, analytics, and reporting.
• Monitor research, standards, policy, assessment expectations, and emerging evidence relevant to science education and translate significant developments into actionable guidance.
• Partner with the CAO, Executive Director, and Research & Evaluation to translate efficacy findings, implementation evidence, and science-education research into domain guidance and solution improvements.
• Bring research and assessment evidence upstream by helping define design requirements, prototypes, measures, and quality indicators—not only interpreting results after development.
• Use educator feedback, student outcomes, implementation evidence, assessment insights, and customer feedback to identify opportunities to strengthen Summit K12’s science approach.

• Collaborate with Product, Engineering, Assessment & Learning Analytics, Learning Experience Design, Professional Learning, Customer Success, Marketing, and Sales on initiatives requiring advanced science expertise.
• Represent the disciplinary perspective of science in cross-functional product, curriculum, assessment, and implementation decisions.
• Support accurate interpretation and communication of Summit K12’s science approach, evidence base, instructional design, and academic value.
• Support state reviews, adoptions, standards correlations, academic narratives, and strategic customer conversations requiring senior science expertise.
• Represent Summit K12, as appropriate, in professional associations, research partnerships, conferences, state conversations, and other external forums related to science education.

• Summit K12’s science solutions consistently demonstrate scientific accuracy, rigorous standards alignment, coherent knowledge building, and strong science pedagogy.
• Science expectations are explicit enough to guide solution architecture, gold-standard prototypes, curriculum production, assessment, AI workflows, and final quality review.
• Science quality and coherence strengthen across products, grade bands, courses, state solutions, and science domains.
• Principal Curriculum Designers and curriculum teams demonstrate deeper science expertise and greater independence in applying disciplinary principles.
• Internal and external production teams achieve stronger first-pass quality with less dependence on downstream expert correction.
• Domain-specific AI standards improve the quality and scalability of AI-assisted science development without compromising scientific or instructional integrity.
• State solutions and major science releases maintain coherence while appropriately addressing state-specific standards and requirements.
• Research, implementation evidence, assessment insights, and customer feedback lead to measurable improvements in science architecture and instructional practice.

• Master’s degree required; doctorate preferred in Science Education, Curriculum & Instruction, a science discipline, Learning Sciences, or a related field.
• 8+ of progressively responsible experience in science education, science curriculum design, instructional leadership, or academic leadership.
• Deep expertise in K–12 science standards, learning progressions, scientific practices, inquiry and investigation, modeling, evidence-based reasoning, disciplinary literacy, and standards-aligned assessment.
• Experience designing, leading, or establishing quality expectations for science curriculum across multiple grade bands, courses, science domains, or state frameworks.
• Demonstrated ability to translate disciplinary expertise, standards, and research into scalable frameworks, specifications, exemplars, quality indicators, and instructional practice.
• Demonstrated ability to develop the expertise and independent judgment of curriculum leaders and teams.
• Demonstrated proficiency with generative AI and AI-assisted curriculum development, including the ability to establish science-specific quality standards and critically validate AI-generated scientific and instructional content.
• Strong cross-functional communication and the ability to translate complex science-learning expectations into actionable guidance for academic, product, technical, and customer-facing teams.

• Experience in educational technology, digital curriculum, assessment, simulations, or large-scale instructional programs.
• Experience with state adoption processes, state science assessments, or multi-state science solutions.
• Experience working with external curriculum-production partners or distributed content-development teams.
• Experience contributing to research, publications, professional learning, or state/national initiatives related to science education.

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance with multiple plan options
• Company-paid short-term disability, long-term disability, and life insurance
• 401(k) retirement plan
• Paid Time Off (PTO) program
• 10 paid holidays plus 1 floating holiday annually
• Wellness resources and support programs