Davis School Chicago is a proudly Jewish, college-preparatory high school opening in fall 2027 in downtown Chicago, in a state-of-the-art building at the heart of a great city for learning. Every adult at Davis is an educator and a culture-builder, held to two expectations at once: deep human warmth and uncompromising intellectual excellence.
Davis is hiring a founding Humanities Department Chair to build — and then teach in — one interdisciplinary program where students read, write, and argue across literature and history at a college level. This is a teaching chair: in the launch years the Chair carries a substantial teaching load while building the department from scratch, with increasing time for curriculum, coaching, and professional development as the school grows.
Responsibilities: • Architect the humanities course sequence from first principles across English, History, Social Sciences, and Philosophy, meeting or exceeding AP frameworks (AP World, European, and U.S. History; AP English Language and Literature) • Lead the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of a vertically aligned humanities curriculum • Recruit, hire, onboard, mentor, supervise, and evaluate department faculty, and serve as an instructional coach • Facilitate weekly common planning time centered on student work, and run peer observation and coaching cycles • Cultivate a reading culture built on complete major works — books worth loving and reading whole rather than excerpted • Support academic competitions, publications, speaker series, and experiential learning opportunities • Build relationships with universities, research institutions, humanities organizations, and cultural institutions
Qualifications: • Master's degree required in Education, Educational Leadership, Humanities, English, History, or Social Sciences; doctorate preferred • Illinois Professional Educator License in high school social science and English preferred; National Board Certification a major plus • 3+ years of successful humanities teaching experience • Leadership experience with adults required; instructional leadership preferred • Being Jewish is not a requirement for this role
Salary: $77,543–$137,099, based on the school's faculty salary schedule, plus a leadership differential of $4,000–$8,000 determined by years of leadership experience.
Benefits: • Paid time off and holiday pay • Medical insurance • 401(k) with employer match
Davis School Chicago is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer.