Academic Operations Manager

Summary: The Academic Operations Manager is responsible for leading the daily execution, performance, and continuous improvement of key academic operations functions, including the Support Team. This role ensures that academic support services are delivered accurately, efficiently, and consistently while maintaining strong service standards for schools, students, families, teachers, and internal partners.

The Academic Operations Manager serves as an operational leader who balances people management, process discipline, service quality, production accuracy, and cross-functional coordination. This position is responsible for managing team performance, resolving escalations, improving workflows, supporting operational readiness, and ensuring that academic support processes align with organizational goals and service-level expectations.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:   Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential duties.

• Manage the daily operations of the Support team, ensuring work is completed accurately, timely, and in alignment with established service expectations.
• Lead, coach, and develop team members by setting clear expectations, monitoring performance, providing feedback, and supporting accountability.
• Oversee case intake, triage, routing, escalation, and resolution processes to ensure consistent service delivery and timely support for schools, students, families, teachers, and internal partners.
• Monitor, analyze, and report on team performance, production output, quality results, backlog, SLA adherence, and support trends to identify risks, support accountability, and drive operational improvements.
• Maintain and improve standard operating procedures, workflow documentation, training resources, escalation protocols, and quality standards.
• Partner with academic, IT, data, product, and school-facing teams to resolve operational issues, support system/process changes, and improve cross-functional execution.
• Lead operational readiness for peak support periods, school launches, academic calendar transitions, system updates, and other high-volume business cycles.
• Identify process gaps, recurring issues, and manual workarounds; recommend and implement improvements that increase efficiency, accuracy, and service consistency.
• Prepare clear updates for leadership regarding team performance, operational risks, staffing needs, process improvements, and key priorities.
• Perform other duties as assigned by the manager to support departmental goals and business needs.

Supervisory Responsibilities: Directly supervises 10-20 full-time (FTE) employees and/or contractors.  Carries out supervisory responsibilities in accordance with the organization's policies and applicable laws. Responsibilities include interviewing, hiring, and training employees; planning, assigning, and directing work; appraising performance; rewarding and disciplining employees; addressing complaints and resolving problems.

Required Qualifications:

• Ten (10) years of related professional experience in academic operations, education operations, customer support, service delivery, production support, or a related operational function.
• Five (5) years of leadership experience, including direct people management, team development, performance management, and operational accountability.
• Demonstrated ability to lead teams, manage competing priorities, improve processes, and drive results in a fast-paced operational environment.
• Experience monitoring performance metrics, service levels, quality standards, backlog, production output, and operational trends.
• Strong interpersonal, written, and verbal communication skills with the ability to work effectively with frontline teams, leadership, and cross-functional partners.
• Ability to create a team environment that supports accountability, active listening, professional communication, and constructive problem-solving.
• Ability to travel up to 5% of the time.
• Ability to clear required background check.

DESIRED Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in education, business administration, operations management, organizational leadership, or a related field; equivalent combination of education and experience may be considered.
• Academic or Administration Certification.
• Experience leading remote or distributed teams.
• Experience in K–12 education, online learning, academic services, student support, or education technology.
• Experience with systems such as Salesforce, Canvas, PowerSchool, SharePoint, ticketing platforms, learning management systems, student information systems, or reporting tools.
• Master’s degree or MBA.

Certificates and Licenses: None

Work Environment: The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• This is a home-based position. 

COMPENSATION & BENEFITS: Stride, Inc. considers a person’s education, experience, and qualifications, as well as the position’s work location, expected quality and quantity of work, required travel (if any), external market and internal value when determining a new employee’s salary level.  Salaries will differ based on these factors, the position’s level and expected contribution, and the employee’s benefits elections.  Offers will typically be in the bottom half of the range.  

We anticipate the salary range to be $52,000-$78,000.  Eligible employees may receive a bonus. This salary is not guaranteed, as an individual’s compensation can vary based on several factors.  These factors include, but are not limited to, geographic location, experience, training, education, and local market conditions. Stride offers a robust benefits package for eligible employees that can include health benefits, retirement contributions, and paid time off. 

The above job is not intended to be an all-inclusive list of duties and standards of the position. Incumbents will follow any other instructions, and perform any other related duties, as assigned by their supervisor.  All employment is “at-will” as governed by the law of the state where the employee works.  It is further understood that the “at-will” nature of employment is one aspect of employment that cannot be changed except in writing and signed by an authorized officer.