Virtual School Director

Witt/Kieffer; Columbus (OH); On-site; USD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

FusionEd/Career Prep Schools seeks a visionary leader to oversee a virtual high school in Ohio. The role requires building and leading a fully remote staff of teachers, enrollment specialists, and support personnel while ensuring a rigorous, career-focused student experience.

You will own student outcomes such as graduation and credit recovery, and implement systems to engage students online, maintain compliance with state rules, and drive continuous improvement across operations.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated experience building and leading a virtual/online high school.
• Track record of leading and developing remote staff.
• Strong operational processes, schedules, and systems to run a school.

Responsibilities

• Own the virtual student experience from first login through graduation.
• Lead curriculum and instruction with high rigor and career readiness.
• Build systems to keep online students engaged and progressing.
• Oversee credit recovery to help students catch up and graduate.
• Ensure counseling and wraparound support reach students remotely.
• Recruit, hire, and develop the full virtual school staff.
• Lead a largely remote team with clear expectations and accountability.
• Grow a school culture grounded in core values.

Skills

Virtual school leadership

Staff development

Operational discipline

EdTech fluency

Outcome ownership

Tools

Student Information System (SIS)

Learning Management System (LMS)

EMIS

Job description

About the Organization At Career Prep schools we make a generational change by caring enough about each student to give them a personal, career-focused graduation plan and then helping them every step of the way to achieve their dreams. We have life-changing goals. We need incredibly dedicated and passionate people throughout Ohio to help us reach them.
Career Prep schools provides high school students with an alternative education option designed to help every student succeed. Career Prep schools are designed with every type of learner in mind, regardless of the academic or career goals they have. We provide students with a flexible schedule and the personalized supports they need.
Learn more at www.careerprepschool.org

EOE Statement We are an equal employment opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.

Category Administration

Location Career Prep Schools (Columbus)

Req Number ADM-26-00027

Description

Characteristics

Who You Are

• You have built or led a virtual high school, and you know what it takes to make learning work when the classroom is a screen and the student is somewhere you cannot see.
• You have a heart for students who have been counted out. You believe a young person who has fallen behind, or walked away entirely, can still build a life of meaning, and you want to be a reason they come back.
• You lead people well. You can hire, train, and hold accountable a full staff of teachers, enrollment specialists, and support staff, most of whom you will lead remotely.
• You think in systems. You know a remarkable student experience is not an accident. It is the product of clear processes, good data, and consistent execution.
• You are comfortable owning outcomes. Graduation, attendance and participation, credit recovery, and re-engaging students who disappear. You track them, you own them, and you move them.
• You know how to keep students engaged from a distance, and you are honest that this is the hardest part of virtual education, not a footnote to it.
• You move with urgency and care at the same time. You act fast, but never at the expense of a student or a teammate.
• You are a builder. You would rather help shape something still taking form than inherit a machine that already runs itself.
• Above all, you want your work to matter. You measure success by the futures your students are able to build.

Who We Are

Our mission is to empower others to achieve their full potential. That includes our students, our partners, and you. We are a network of dropout prevention and recovery charter schools in Ohio committed to helping our students build a life of meaning and impact. Regardless of a student's background or past, we strive to give them the tools, resources, and vision needed to become the best version of themselves. We believe that when young people gain real-world skills, confidence, and purpose, they can create the futures they desire.

Our schools blend academics, career readiness, and wraparound services that meet the needs of the whole student. We are in constant pursuit of not only serving students in the best way possible but also becoming a pillar in the communities we serve.

Everything we do in our organization is guided by our mission. Our culture is a natural outgrowth of our amazing people, whose lives and work are defined by our governing values of growth, excellence, integrity, service, and teamwork.

Responsibilities

Student Experience and Academics

• Own the quality of the virtual student experience from a student's first login through graduation, and make it something students actually want to show up for.
• Lead the delivery of curriculum and instruction across the school, holding a high bar for rigor, relevance, and genuine career readiness.
• Build the systems that keep students engaged and progressing online, where attendance and participation can never be taken for granted.
• Oversee credit recovery so students who have fallen behind can catch up and graduate on a realistic path.
• Ensure counseling, coaching, and wraparound support reach students effectively even at a distance.

People and Team Leadership

• Recruit, hire, and develop the full virtual school staff, including teachers, enrollment specialists, and support staff.
• Lead a largely remote team with clear expectations and real accountability to them.
• Train and empower staff to execute the vision without constant oversight, building leaders at every level of the school.
• Grow a school culture rooted in our governing values of growth, excellence, integrity, service, and teamwork, even without a shared building to hold it together.

Enrollment and Retention

• Partner with the enrollment and marketing team to hit enrollment targets and keep the school at healthy capacity.
• Own student retention. Reduce dropout and re‑engage students who disconnect before they are lost for good.
• Watch the early signals of disengagement and act on them before a student slips away.

Operations and Compliance

• Run the day-to-day operations of the virtual school so that staff and students always have what they need to succeed.
• Ensure full compliance with Ohio's requirements for e-schools and dropout prevention and recovery schools, including attendance and participation documentation, EMIS reporting, and Ohio Department of Education and Workforce (ODEW) rules.
• Manage the technology backbone of the school, including the student information system, learning management system, and communication tools, in partnership with central support.
• Deliver the compliance, performance, and reporting the school board and state sponsor rely on.

Data and Performance

• Own the school's core numbers: graduation rate, attendance and participation, credit completion, and retention.
• Use data to find where students are stalling and redesign the parts of the experience that are not working.
• Report performance honestly to the Vice President of School Operations and drive continuous improvement against Ohio's dropout recovery report card measures.

Position Requirements

Qualifications

Required

• Demonstrated experience building and leading a virtual or online high school. This is a must, not a preference.
• A track record of leading and developing staff, including remote teams.
• Strong operational discipline. You have built the processes, schedules, and systems that make a school actually run.
• Fluency with the technology that powers a virtual school, including student information systems, learning management systems, and virtual instruction tools.
• A real belief that at-risk students can succeed, and the drive to prove it.
• The ability to own and move hard numbers like graduation, attendance and participation, and retention.

Useful

• Experience in dropout prevention and recovery (DOPR) education. Strongly preferred. Adjacent experience serving at‑risk, disconnected, or credit-deficient students can substitute.
• Knowledge of Ohio's education landscape, e-school rules, and the dropout recovery report card.
• Ohio principal or administrator licensure.
• Familiarity with EMIS and Ohio Department of Education and Workforce (ODEW) reporting.
• Experience launching or scaling a new school or program from an early stage.

FusionEd/Career Prep Schools is an equal opportunity employer committed to creating an inclusive environment where all team members can thrive.

Open Date 7/27/2026

Full-Time/Part-Time Full-Time