A profile of the people we are building Davis Chicago around, in every role.
We integrate rigorous academics with deep Jewish learning and values. We hold, without apology, both high human warmth and uncompromising intellectual excellence.
Davis School Chicago is a college-preparatory high school, built from the ground up to prepare students to think, create, and lead in the modern world. The Davis Difference is our refusal to settle for the status quo. We open in the fall of 2027 on the Chicago River, with downtown as our extended classroom. Chicago is in our name for a reason: we will learn in this city, partner with it, and contribute to it.
This is a profile of the educator we are looking for. We mean “educator” broadly: whether you teach calculus, mentor a capstone, lead admissions, or keep our operations humming, you shape who our students become. The bar below is deliberately high. So is the work.
We refuse the trade-off that lesser places accept: you can be deeply warm and relentlessly excellent. We expect both. We call it high health and high results.
These aren’t aspirations. They’re standards.
You are genuinely kind, the person who makes a room feel safe. You are also formidably bright: intellectually serious, deeply versed in your subject, the kind of mind that raises the level of every room you enter. We are hiring for intellectual horsepower. Students reach their full potential only in the hands of people who think with rigor, prize evidence over assertion, and relish a hard question. “Nice” is necessary here, but never sufficient.
You teach, support, present, and lead with visible passion. People feel your conviction: in person, on a screen, across a table. Your energy and belief are what families and students will see first. It doesn’t have to be loud. Quiet conviction, genuinely felt and clearly shown, can hold a room as surely as high energy. Authenticity matters more than volume. But the passion must be real, and when the moment calls for it, you can bring it.
You have an unambiguous growth mindset: you seek feedback, name your mistakes openly, and get better fast. You seek the truth, not validation. You give candor as generously as you take it. Nobody here is finished growing.
You have the stamina and flexibility of a builder. You wear many hats, you don’t wait to be told, and you thrive where there is no big back office and the playbook is still being written. You would rather build the thing than inherit it.
You love ideas and pursue them systematically. You can hold, deliberate, and debate hard questions, including the controversial ones our world is wrestling with, with rigor and respect. In the spirit of machloket l’shem shamayim, argument for the sake of heaven, you present honestly and let students reach their own conclusions, rather than handing them yours. Ideas become stronger when they’re tested. So do people.
You draw on the best of ancient wisdom and modern knowledge alike, and you apply both to today’s most complex problems. You believe, as we do, that great knowledge without wisdom and goodness is dangerous, and that the two together make a life of meaning.
You have real facility with technology and see it as we do: not a replacement for great teaching, but a force multiplier for it. At Davis, AI-enabled practice and a state-of-the-art campus free you to do the human work: discussion, mentoring, creation, and real-world projects.
You are after more than a job. You pursue depth, purpose, and meaning in your own life, and you take it as an obligation to cultivate the same in your colleagues and your students. In the spirit of tikkun olam, the repair of the world, you see this work as how the world gets better. You want a humane community and results that are second to none, and you refuse to choose between them.
Davis is a proudly Jewish school. Our Jewish identity and our connection to Israel as the Jewish state run through everything we do. Not added afterward. Built in from the beginning. We are clear about who we are, and we will not budge on it.
Israel has a right to exist. That is not up for debate. That is what Zionism means here: Israel’s right to exist as the homeland of the Jewish people. Everything else is fair game. You don’t have to be Jewish to belong here, and you can be critical of Israel’s actions and engage in spirited debate about them, as citizens do in any vibrant democracy. You are genuinely excited to help build a proudly Jewish, pro-Israel school, and to bring the courage and resilience to stand with Israel and the Jewish people. Debate here comes from a place of shared commitment. We embrace the diversity of Jewish thought and we welcome those who learn from many sources. If this is what you’re looking for, you will find a home here. If it isn’t, this won’t be the right fit. And that’s okay.
Our founding “anchor” faculty and staff will generally have a few years of experience, enough to be past the early scramble of learning the craft, because the first team sets the standard everyone after them is measured against. But years alone don’t impress us: a stunningly talented educator, carefully developed, outruns tenure that is merely coasting. Some people grow in three years what others never do in thirty. We are more interested in a strong track record of excellence, and a real commitment to our mission, than in any particular credential or number of years. Progress here is measured by what you’ve mastered, not how long you’ve sat in a seat.
This isn’t for everyone, by design. If you want a settled institution with a long track record and a narrow lane, Davis will feel like a lot. But if you read this and felt something pull, if you want to help build a proudly Jewish, academically fearless, future-facing school from its very first day, then we should talk. The work will be hard. It will also be some of the best work of your life.
