Office of School Safety Director

Full Job Description

Requirements

• The mission of the Office of School Safety (OSS/Office) is to assist educators, students, parents, emergency responders, and community organizations to create safe and positive school environments for all Colorado students in prek-12 grades and higher education schools.
• The OSS assists schools in preventing, preparing for, responding to, and recovering from all types of emergencies and crisis situations.
• The OSS comprises three units: The Colorado School Safety Resource Center (CSSRC/Center), the Grants Unit and the Crisis Response Unit.

The Center provides resources, training, and technical assistance to foster safe, positive, and successful learning environments where early intervention occurs to prevent crisis situations.

This includes, but is not limited to a resource website, providing regional conferences, consultation, and training in school safety issues, and a newsletter.

The Center works with an advisory board, with members appointed by the Governor, the Attorney General, Executive Directors of state agencies, the Colorado Association of School Board, school personnel and other state-wide agencies.

• The Grants Unit manages state grants provided by the Colorado General Assembly and assists schools in finding additional grants.
• The Crisis Response Unit trains school professionals in crisis response and is available, on a limited basis, to respond to critical incidents in schools when requested.

• Hybrid, minimum of two days onsite in the Lakewood office

• Work unit core business hours, Monday-Friday, 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., with some flexibility available

• Must be available to respond quickly to a school crisis situation anywhere within the state, if requested

The purpose of this position is to provide a vision and strategic oversight, leadership, and direction to the Office of School Safety, including the coordination and promotion of effective efforts to improve school safety.

This position serves as an expert advisor on school safety to CDPS leadership, other state agencies, the General Assembly, and the Office of the Governor.

This position is responsible for decision making at the strategic and interpretive level, establishing plans, processes, staffing patterns and funding structures to achieve office and department priorities, as well as any priorities set by the Governor’s Office.

This position requires a unique level of knowledge and expertise in school safety, public safety, and stakeholder engagement and coalition building.

This position will build and maintain relationships with state, community, and national stakeholders in school safety, and will leverage and respond to the media regarding these topics.

This position conducts responsive and culturally relevant community engagement to ensure that all initiatives are inclusive.

This position navigates politically sensitive situations with professionalism and diplomacy.

This position is responsible for the administration of budgets, setting and tracking unit accomplishments and outcomes, regularly reporting on progress to CDPS leadership, Colorado General Assembly, and management and professional development of the Office of School Safety Staff.

This position resides in the Executive Director’s Office division and reports to the Deputy Executive Director of CDPS.

Management/Leadership

This position provides overall strategic direction, leadership, management and supervision of the work and staff of the Office of School Safety.

This position develops and oversees the implementation of strategic and operational work plans.

Work plans include continuation of existing grant programs and implementation of a new grant program, compliance with statutory reporting requirements, provision of equitable and inclusive technical assistance and training, and maintenance of the resource bank operated by the School Safety Resource Center.

Strategic planning will include setting goals, metrics, and regularly assessing resources and Office structure and capacity.

This position supports the executive leadership in the Department in school safety matters and participates in ongoing planning and improvement of the Office.

This position applies sound organizational leadership principles to establish a positive, inclusive, and forward thinking work culture that results in quality and equitable program implementation and productive internal and external partnerships.

This position ensures work efforts are aligned with CDPS values and objectives, as well as the work of other partner state agencies.

This position identifies and pursues opportunities to engage the Office in relevant stakeholder work and conversations, and is always seeking new partnerships.

This position directly supervises the three unit managers, the Program Assistant, the Data Analyst and the Resource Specialist/Web Developer and is the second line supervisor for approximately 13.0 additional FTE.

This position plans, assigns, prioritizes, analyzes and monitors workflow and maintains appropriate staffing levels and reviews progress to ensure the quality and quantity of work meets standards, deadlines, and program goals and objectives.

The position identifies training and development needs of staff and provides skill development.

This position provides coaching and mentorship, writes and reviews performance plans, and evaluates and signs performance evaluations for Office employees.

This position is responsible for hiring Office staff.

Partnerships and Collaboration/Public Awareness and Education

This position is responsible for building and maintaining relationships internally and statewide with diverse and varied school safety stakeholders.

This position will intentionally focus on including underrepresented communities in school safety conversations.

This position forges strategic partnerships and works effectively with staff, internal, external, state, national, local, public, and private organizations to advance the work of the Office.

This position ensures exceptional stakeholder engagement throughout all of the Office’s work, and also ensures program staff effectively leverage these partnerships.

This position builds relationships through effective collaboration, negotiation, facilitation, communication and conflict management in working with staff and partners.

This position communicates expertly in writing and verbally, and facilitates groups to gather and share information, create strategic and action plans, and build consensus as needed.

This position builds and maintains strong and effective working relationships with the leadership and staff internal to CDPS, and works with CDPS leadership on legal, budget, and legislative matters related to school safety.

This position oversees the strategy for public awareness about school safety by engaging stakeholders, setting priorities and making decisions regarding the dissemination of educational materials throughout the state.

This position is responsible for ensuring that statutory requirements are met. This position raises awareness about school safety topics and shares materials and resources with local partners.

This position oversees the existing training and education work being done by the Office of School Safety and devises strategies to enhance that work.

This position may work closely with the EDO PIO, who supports the OSS, to determine strategic messaging campaigns and fulfill media requests related to the OSS.

Performs other duties as assigned and necessitated to support Department and program objectives.

Qualifications

Note, to be considered for this position, you must meet one of the following options for consideration.

Proven Experience, Knowledge, Skills
Ten (10) years of progressively responsible professional school safety or school administration experience including leading complex organizations and diverse teams, and planning, developing, directing and implementing projects that are in alignment with organizational goals and result in service optimization.

OR

Education and Experience, Knowledge, Skills
Six (6) years of progressively responsible professional school safety or school administration experience including leading complex organizations and diverse teams, and planning, developing, directing and implementing projects that are in alignment with organizational goals and result in service optimization AND a Bachelor's Degree or higher in any field from an accredited institution.

Preferred Qualifications and Competencies

• Demonstrated leadership skills and emotional intelligence

• Integrity

• Concern for others

• Change management leadership

• Ability to take input from a variety of stakeholders and work collaboratively

• Excellent negotiation and consensus building skills.

• Management and leadership experience with an emphasis on reorganization, streamlining and restructuring to increase efficiency.

• Proven experience managing a staff with diverse professional experience and qualifications.

• Proven experience in policy analysis, development and implementation.

• Excellent interpersonal, verbal and written communication and public speaking skills.

• Demonstrated ability to problem solve and execute decisions.

• Ability to work in a complex political environment.

• Demonstrated transparency in management and staff communications.

Conditions of Employment

Appeal RightsIf you receive notice that you have been eliminated from consideration for the position, you may protest the action by filing an appeal with the State Personnel Board/State Personnel Director within 10 days from the date you receive notice of the elimination.

Also, if you wish to challenge the selection and comparative analysis process, you may file an appeal with the State Personnel Board/State Personnel Director within 10 days from the receipt of notice or knowledge of the action you are challenging.

Refer to Chapters 4 and 8 of the State Personnel Board Rules and Personnel Director's Administrative Procedures, 4 CCR 801, for more information about the appeals process.

The State Personnel Board Rules and Personnel Director's Administrative Procedures are available at www.colorado.gov/spb. A standard appeal form is available at: www.colorado.gov/spb.

If you appeal, your appeal must be submitted in writing on the official appeal form, signed by you or your representative, and received at the following address within 10 days of your receipt of notice or knowledge of the action: Colorado State Personnel Board/State Personnel Director, Attn: Appeals Processing, 1525 Sherman Street, 4th Floor, Denver, CO 80203.

Fax: 303-866-5038. Phone: 303-866-3300. The ten-day deadline and these appeal procedures also apply to all charges of discrimination.

Additional Information

• Applications are considered complete and accurate at the time of submission. Therefore, additional information may not be solicited or accepted after your application has been received.

Closing Date: All applications that are received by the closing of this announcement will be reviewed against the Minimum Qualifications in this announcement.

Candidates who meet the minimum qualifications may proceed to the next step.

Colorado Revised Statutes require that state employees are hired and promoted based on merit and fitness through a comparative analysis process.

Supplemental Question: Effective responses to Supplemental Questions will directly relate to your professional experience, career accomplishments, and views about organizational values and approaches, and how they relate specifically to this position and requirements as you understand them.

Answers generated by AI-tools will typically be unresponsive.

Transcripts: An unofficial copy of transcripts must be submitted at the time of application should education be used as qualification.

Transcripts from colleges or universities outside the United States must be assessed for U.S. equivalency by a NACES educational credential evaluation service.

This documentation is the responsibility of the applicant and must be included as part of your application materials.

Failure to provide a transcript or credential evaluation report may prevent your application from moving forward in the selection process.

Military Veterans: If you are a military veteran you must submit a copy of your DD-214, Member 4 Copy, and VA disability letter if available/applicable at the time of application so we can determine if you are eligible for veteran's preference points.

Military personnel who are stationed outside of Colorado may be eligible for this position by submitting the completed DD-2058 "State of Legal Residence" form.

• Application Tips: For an overview of State of Colorado application process and application tips, please view this video.

• Resumes, Cover Letters, or other documents submitted will not be reviewed, assessed, or used in the initial stages of the comparative analysis (transcripts submitted to verify that the applicant meets either the education requirement or minimum qualification substitution are exempt from this).

Notifications: All correspondence regarding your status in the selection/examination process will be sent via email to the email address listed on your application.

Include your current working email address on your application and check the email provided on your application frequently as you could receive time sensitive correspondence regarding this position.

We highly recommend that you set up your email to accept messages from "state.co.us" and "info@governmentjobs.com" addresses.

It is your responsibility to ensure that your email will accept these notices and/or review your junk mail and spam filtered email.

• Comparative Analysis Steps may include:

  • Structured application review by a panel of SMEs - March 19-25

  • In-person panel interview - April 1-10

  • Anticipated start date - June 1, 2026