Chief Technology Officer

Chief Technology Officer

Aspire Public Schools NorCal Chief Technology Officer

Founded in 1998, Aspire Public Schools has served scholars and communities across California for nearly three decades. Following Aspire Los Angeles's transition into an independent organization, Aspire's Bay Area and Central Valley regions will come together to form Aspire NorCal.

Aspire NorCal will operate 22 schools serving approximately 10,000 scholars across Northern California, with schools located in Oakland, Richmond, East Palo Alto, Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, and Ceres.

This evolution comes at an important moment for Aspire. Changes in California's funding, policy, enrollment, and operating environment have created an opportunity to rethink how the organization supports its schools and scholars in its next chapter. The formation of Aspire NorCal creates an opportunity to strengthen support for schools across teams previously organized by geography, improve the consistency and effectiveness of school support, and create clear accountability systems for organizational and scholar outcomes. The new model will require the organization to balance greater coherence across Aspire NorCal with responsiveness to the different communities and contexts of its schools.

Aspire NorCal enters this transition with a long-standing mission focused on post-secondary success and a deep commitment to educational equity, along with decades of institutional knowledge across its schools and teams. Preserving those strengths while building Aspire NorCal as a unified region will be central to the work ahead.

About the Role

The Chief Technology Officer leads the technology, data and AI work at the heart of Aspire NorCal's plan to modernize how its support office serves 22 schools and approximately 10,000 scholars across the Bay Area, Sacramento and Central Valley. Reporting to the President, who sets the direction for this work, and serving on the Executive team, this leader owns Aspire NorCal's data, systems, technology vendors, data security, internet connectivity infrastructure, teammate and scholar devices and software, and the policy and training that make AI and our systems useful and appropriately safe.

At its core, this role is about redesigning how Aspire NorCal works, using technology to do it. As Aspire NorCal brings two regions and a support office together as one organization, this leader will make every teammate's work easier and more effective through data and systems that work. That means listening to schools and teammates to understand the current state, fixing the data and architecture, modernizing core systems, and redesigning the work, using AI throughout to speed up the work and help teammates do it better. It also means deciding what belongs with teammates and what belongs with vendors.

The foundation is already in place. Aspire NorCal has rebuilt its data warehouse and reporting layer, bringing together scholar, assessment, staffing and enrollment data, and is piloting self-service dashboards and plain-language AI questions with a small group of teammates. This leader will take that work from pilot to the way Aspire NorCal works every day.

Success is measured by the teammate's experience: a principal gets a trusted answer in minutes, a new hire is entered once, and no one navigates five systems to do one job. As technology continues to evolve, this leader will ensure Aspire NorCal adopts new tools thoughtfully, builds internal capability, and uses technology to create meaningful value for schools and the broader organization.

In the first year, this leader will:

• Draft Aspire NorCal's AI policy for Board adoption and start the security assessment, with the highest-risk gaps prioritized.
• Put self-service data in the hands of every principal, and name and assign the top teammate pain points.
• Agree a separation plan with Aspire Los Angeles by March 31, 2027, covering the data inventory, cutover approach and responsibilities.
• Deliver the data and systems separation from Aspire Los Angeles by July 1, 2027, with no lost history and no gap in service, and complete the security baseline with a remediation plan and an owner for each gap.
• Launch the IT service model and a new HRIS connected to payroll and finance.
• Show measurable reductions in manual work and rising teammate satisfaction with IT, data and systems.

Competencies

• Data Strategy and Service Delivery
• Instructional Technology and Academic Partnership
• AI Strategy and Governance
• Cybersecurity, Privacy, and Risk
• Enterprise Systems and Transformation
• Vendor Management and Financial Stewardship
• Team Leadership and Executive Partnership

Qualifications

• 10+ years leading data and technology, including at least 5 years as the senior technology leader in a national or multi-site organization.
• Built or rebuilt a modern data platform (warehouse, reporting layer, governed self-service) and drove real adoption by non-technical users.
• Led AI adoption beyond pilots: wrote the policy, trained the people, and put audited automation into daily work.
• Ran a security and privacy program covering sensitive personal data. Experience with K12 scholar data is strongly preferred.
• Managed outsourced IT and major vendors against service levels, including at least one make-or-buy decision carried through to results.
• Led technology through restructuring, rapid growth or a separation, designing systems while the organization changed around them.
• Sees technology as an enabler, not a gadget, and measures success by whether people's jobs got easier.
• Service-minded, treating principals, teachers and support teammates as customers.
• A teacher and manager at heart: explains clearly, builds others' capability, and makes the team less dependent on any one person.
• Disciplined about economics: knows automation and outsourcing are not automatically savings.
• Attracts strong talent and holds people and vendors to a high standard.
• Bachelor's degree required. An advanced degree in technology, business, education or a related field is preferred.

Compensation and benefits

The salary range for this role is $235,000$275,000 annually, commensurate with experience. This full-time, exempt position offers a comprehensive benefits package, including:

• Eligible for Aspire health benefits
• Retirement through CalSTRS or CalPERS, depending on the role's credential requirements, with a 403(b) option
• Paid time off and additional teammate benefits to be determined in accordance with updated employee value proposition to be shared prior to offer.

Location and Work Arrangement

• Must reside in a county where Aspire NorCal schools are located: San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, or Sacramento.
• Periodic travel required across schools spanning East Palo Alto to the East Bay Area, and Sacramento to Modesto, including attendance at Board of Directors meetings in Stockton.
• In person with work-from-home flexibility to be determined with the CEO.

Equal Opportunity

Aspire Public Schools is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), disability, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

Aspire Public Schools provides reasonable accommodations during the application and interview process.