Join our team

Aspiring Principal Coach (Aspiring Principal Program)
Location: Austin, TX

The Holdsworth Center is a non-profit organization founded and largely funded by Charles Butt, Chairman of H-E-B, a regional retail company. Our mission is to impact, over time, the quality of K-12 public education for all Texas students by supporting and developing leaders. Based in Austin, Texas, we were founded in 2017 in honor of Charles’ mother, Mary Elizabeth Holdsworth Butt, who was an educator, a philanthropist, and a lifelong champion for social justice.

We partner with public school districts to help them grow outstanding leaders at all levels so that staff thrive, and students excel in every classroom. At Holdsworth, we believe leadership isn’t just about titles. We make a deep investment in leaders at both the district and campus levels, including teachers who lead students in the classroom and influence and lead their colleagues.

The Holdsworth Center is seeking three (3) Aspiring Principal Coaches who shares a deep commitment to our mission and whose experience and vision will deepen our capacity and enhance our impact as we aim to be of service to public school districts across the state of Texas.

Purpose & Responsibilities

In Summer 2025, Holdsworth will launch new program offerings for aspiring principals (initially on a regional basis, with the first cohorts anticipated to be in the Permian Basin region of Texas and New Mexico), with the aim of enhancing the readiness and quality of certified school leaders for their first principalship.

The Aspiring Principal Coach will lead and facilitate the effective implementation of all components of the Aspiring Principal Program, including learning sessions, coaching, campus visits, and peer collaboration. Alongside and in collaboration with other Aspiring Principal Coaches and a program team, the Aspiring Principal Coach will guide cohorts of aspiring principals through a year-long program.

Currently reporting to the Managing Director of Campus Programs, the Aspiring Principal Coach will work closely with aspiring principals, mentor (rotation) principals, and site principals to ensure efficient and effective communication, high-quality program delivery, and participant success. They will work with talented, mission-driven peers in a fast-paced, dynamic environment to:

Coaching & Support

• Provide exceptional coaching and mentoring support to aspiring principals through a variety of directive and non-directive skills as necessary in biweekly sessions.
• Draw on personal experiences and academic concepts to deliver highly engaging and productively challenging coaching and support in formal and informal coaching settings.
• Develop tailored responses for individual aspiring principals based on their focus areas, their learning journey, and their unique needs.
• Continuously work to improve the coaching and facilitation skills of yourself and the team.

Campus Visits/Rotations

• Engage aspiring principals in deep reflection and preparation before visiting campuses outside their current district.
• Facilitate planning and reflection with aspiring principals before and after rotations.
• Develop relationships with rotation principals to ensure positive experiences for all parties.
• Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of rotations.
• Work collaboratively with Aspiring Principal Team to ensure reliable logistics, operations, and communications prior to and throughout each rotation.

Peer Collaboration & Relationship Management

• Serve as one of the “faces” of our new programs, building relationships with aspiring principals and increasing coherency of the overall program through on-site facilitation and delivery (initially, most facilitation will take place in the Permian Basin with groups ranging in size from ~30 to ~40).
• Develop and negotiate relationships between site principal, rotation principal, and aspiring principal to foster the growth of the aspiring principal.
• Leverage our Learning Management System (LMS) to support leaders’ individualized learning paths, self-reflection, and peer collaboration to maximize impact on learning.

Learning Sessions

• Ensure the team delivers the highest possible quality learning sessions by providing excellent facilitation of specific content, on-the-spot coaching during simulation learning, and incorporating lessons learned from prior cohorts and sessions
• Collaborate with a team of faculty, presenters, facilitators and coordinators to deliver effective and engaging learning experiences that bring cohorts together, building a psychologically safe environment for aspiring principals to grow their capacity and ability to lead sustainable improvement towards excellent and equitable outcomes for students.
• Work collaboratively with the Aspiring Principal Team to ensure reliable logistics, operations, and communications prior to and at each session

Desirable candidates will have a range of prior experience and capabilities including:

• Strong alignment with organizational mission and values—Drive for Excellence & Equity, Be of Service, Believe in People
• Recent experience as a school principal
• Proven ability to facilitate engaging, challenging, and thought-provoking discussion among diverse audiences, manage group dynamics and use questioning techniques to identify solutions and actions rather than taking a wholly directive approach (with large audiences as well as smaller groups)
• Working knowledge of the education landscape in Texas and New Mexico, including knowledge of the context within which our participants work.
• Strong project planning skills and detail orientation to effectively plan for multiple program elements at one time.
• Self-motivated individual who demonstrates initiative without waiting for direction, openness to receiving feedback from peers and Holdsworth staff, and a deep curiosity and motivation to learn coupled with a results-focused orientation.
• Experience delivering challenging and supportive coaching experiences to leaders that both helps them make progress on their own leadership goals and serves as a model of outstanding coaching practice
• Has significant experience with leading and/or participating in extensive coaching development and skill-building
• Credibility with school leaders, faculty/experts, and our partner organizations
• Ability to work well in a team environment, establish good rapport at all levels of the organization, collaborate with other faculty and experts and work with and relate to people from diverse backgrounds.
• Flexible; ability to adapt to an ever changing, growing organization as we pilot and learn from these new endeavors; Embraces a portfolio of work that may change over time as we learn from our expansion programming.
• Demonstrated commitment to promote educational opportunity and access for all students in Texas.
• Engage alongside Holdsworth staff in personal and professional development.

Geography

• Candidates must currently reside in Austin, Texas or currently live in Texas and be willing to relocate to Austin by September 1, 2025.
• This full-time role has up to 50% travel in the Permian Basin. Some evenings and weekends may be required while executing program sessions with leaders.

Compensation & benefits

• Salary Range: $100,000 $110,000
• Compensation for the role will depend on several factors, including but not limited, your qualifications, skills, competencies, and experience. The Holdsworth Center also factors internal pay equity in evaluating compensation.
• This position is eligible to participate in company benefits including but not limited to medical, dental and vision coverage, life and AD&D, short-term and long-term disability coverage, four weeks of paid time off, an employee assistance program, participation in a 401k program that includes company match, and many other additional benefits.

Education Programs Paid Internship (hiring two interns) - $15/hr.
Part time: April 2025-May 2026, in-person, 10-20 hours/week (per intern)

The Holdsworth Center seeks Interns who believe in the promise of public schools to deliver excellent and equitable results for students, and who believe their unique skills and inner purpose would be a great match for Holdsworth’s mission, culture, and values.

Our organization & mission

Driven by the belief that teachers and students thrive with great leadership, The Holdsworth Center builds stronger leaders for Texas public schools. Founded as a nonprofit in 2017 by H-E-B Chairman Charles Butt, Holdsworth provides world-class leadership development programs and services within districts and at its Campus on Lake Austin, a one-of-a-kind place dedicated to the idea that public education holds worth.

Our founder Charles Butt believes educators deserve rigorous professional learning in a world-class setting and envisioned the Campus as a gift to hardworking educators and a testament to the importance of public schools. The serene and peaceful setting allows teams of educators to step back from the day-to-day and see their challenges and opportunities more clearly.

Our work

Leadership is not a skill people are born with—it can be taught. That’s why we offer world-class leadership programs, coaching and other services unparalleled in the education field.

In our programs, superintendents, principals, teachers and other educational leaders engage with some of the nation’s top experts in their fields from a variety of sectors, including preK-12 and higher education, government and business.

In some of our partner districts, we embed Holdsworth consultants to work hand-in-hand with central office leaders to define what great leadership looks and help them build custom solutions to identify and develop future campus leaders, place them in leadership roles and support them as they progress in their leadership journey.

Our culture & values

We have three core values at Holdsworth: Drive for Excellence & Equity, Be of Service and Believe in People. Our values flow from the vision and beliefs of our founder, Charles Butt, and guide our daily words and actions, bringing meaning to the work we do.

About the Position

We are seeking two organized and driven individuals to serve as interns with the Campus Programs team. The Campus Programs team will deliver two programs in 2025-26: the Campus Leadership Program (CLP), a two-year journey for principals and their school teams consisting of 12 multi-day, in-person learning sessions, and the Aspiring Principal Program, a one-year opportunity for high potential future principals in the Permian Basin region. In the coming year, we will serve more than 130 schools and 400 campus leaders across Texas and parts of New Mexico. The interns will assist Program Coordinators with communications, logistics and execution of large-scale events (learning sessions).

Responsibilities:

• Provide logistics support for multi-day learning sessions
• Create, review, and finalize printed and digital assets and communications
• Collect, enter, and track data on spreadsheets
• Organize and manage programs storage and supplies
• Proof-read documents
• Research various topics to support team projects

Desirable candidates should be able to:

• Work at our Campus on Lake Austin
• 20 hours per week late April through mid-August
• 10 hours per week mid-August through May
• Organize personal work
• Manage time effectively
• Work independently/be self-motivated
• Work on multiple projects at the same time
• Effectively and efficiently manipulate data and spreadsheets
• Communicate clearly both verbally and in writing
• Proof-read print and digital assets
• Use Microsoft Office and Google Suite comfortably
• Quickly learn new systems and processes
• Ask clarifying questions to gather necessary information for projects
• Support multiple team members with different projects
• Collaborate on projects with peer

Insights we hope candidates will acquire in this position

• Large scale event planning
• Use of the planning tool, ASANA for managing projects
• Work as part of a team and team meeting dynamics
• Gain confidence in giving and receiving feedback
• Lead with values at the center of decision-making
• Exposure to world-class personal leadership development content and faculty
• Understand the inner workings of the programs department of an educational non-profit

Compensation & Benefits

$15/hr.
Part time: April 2025-May 2026, in-person, 10-20 hours/week [20 hours/week from April through mid-August; 10 hours per week from mid-August through May]