Fugees Family | Director of K–12 State & District Partnerships

Location: Remote (Ohio, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan)

Reports to: CEO

 

The Work

For nearly two decades, Fugees Family has been building something the education system was never designed to create: schools and programs where refugee and immigrant students are treated as assets, not afterthoughts.

Our Teranga Academy model partners directly with school districts to design and implement high-impact newcomer programs — combining academic acceleration, English immersion, and genuine student support. Districts come to us because what we've built works, and demand is growing faster than our current team can meet it.

We're hiring a Director of K–12 State & District Partnerships to change that.

What This Role Actually Is

This is a business development role in a mission-driven organization — and we want to be honest about both halves of that.

You will be responsible for closing partnerships. Real ones. Multi-year, six-figure agreements with school districts that commit to implementing our model for students who have often been failed by every system they've encountered. That matters. The revenue sustains the work. The work changes lives.

You'll also grow our national professional learning business — workshops, institutes, and training for educators and school systems who want to do better by newcomer students.

This is a team-of-one role right now. You'll build the function: the strategy, the pipeline, the systems, and eventually the team. You'll work directly with the CEO and have real influence over how we grow.

If you want a defined playbook and a big support structure, this isn't the right fit. If you want to build something, this is.

What You'll Do

Close and grow district partnerships

• Develop relationships with superintendents, cabinet members, and district leaders
• Move opportunities from initial interest to signed, multi-year agreements
• Negotiate contracts that are both financially sustainable and mission-aligned
• Represent Fugees Family at national and regional convenings on multilingual learner education

Build our professional learning revenue stream

• Drive growth of workshops, institutes, and webinars for educators and school systems
• Identify and cultivate training partnerships at the district, state, and organizational level
• Build and manage a pipeline across both implementation partnerships and training services

Own strategy and infrastructure

• Develop and execute a national growth strategy
• Build pipeline tracking, forecasting, and reporting from the ground up
• Partner with Programming to ensure what we sell is what we can deliver
• Work with our communications director to sharpen outreach and proposals

Who We're Looking For

Required:

• 8–12+ years in partnerships, business development, or sales in K–12 education
• Demonstrated track record closing large, complex deals — six-figure+ — ideally with school districts
• Real understanding of how districts make decisions (the political, the bureaucratic, and the human)
• Experience working with or deep knowledge of multilingual learners, newcomer students, or adjacent populations
• Exceptional communicator — in writing, in rooms with superintendents, and on a stage
• Self-directed and comfortable building structure where none exists
• Deeply committed to equity and to the students we serve

Strong plus:

• Background in edtech, curriculum, or professional learning organizations
• Experience working at a national level across multiple states
• Familiarity with CRM systems and pipeline management

Compensation

• Base salary: $95,000–$105,000
• Performance bonus of up to 30% of base, tied to closed partnerships and revenue growth
• Opportunity to grow into leading a partnerships team

How We Work

We are small, mission-driven, and serious about outcomes. We move fast, take ownership, and don't have layers of process between a good idea and action.

The people who thrive here are resourceful and proactive. They care about results because they care about kids — and they understand that closing a partnership isn't a sales win, it's the beginning of something that will shape the experience of hundreds of students who didn't choose to leave their home countries.

We value direct communication, ownership over tasks, and a mission that isn't just a line in a document.

Fugees Family is an equal opportunity employer. Fugees Family is dedicated to the goal of building a culturally diverse staff committed to teaching and working in a multicultural environment and strongly encourages applications from those with a refugee/immigrant background, women, and minorities.