Director of Learning Job Description

A Director of Learning decides what good teaching and learning look like across an education organization, then builds the systems that make it happen: the curriculum, the assessments, the professional learning for staff and the data routines that show whether any of it is working. The title appears in K-12 districts, charter networks, independent schools, colleges and education companies. In a public district the same job may be posted as director of teaching and learning or director of curriculum and instruction, and the work sits in the central office rather than inside one school.

The Washington County School District in Utah gives a concrete picture. Its Director of Teaching & Learning reports to the assistant superintendent for elementary education, plans and oversees the K-12 standardized testing program, organizes and manages district-wide professional learning, provides guidance in the selection of textbooks and other teaching materials, and prepares the department budget. The position also supervises the staff in the district's professional learning areas. Another district might give assessment its own office, but the center of the job holds: one leader answers for instructional quality across many schools.

The year has a rhythm. Summer goes to planning: reading last spring's state results, setting priorities with principals and building the professional learning calendar. Fall brings new-teacher induction, the first round of screeners and classroom walkthroughs with school leaders. Winter is when curriculum reviews and pilot classrooms run, and when budget requests for the following year get written. Spring is testing season, followed by the adoption recommendations and program reports that go to the superintendent and the board.

Professional learning is where the job parts ways with curriculum writing. Learning Forward, which publishes the Standards for Professional Learning, says leadership in professional learning can come from educators serving in a range of positions, and that leaders recognize effective professional learning as a key strategy for improving teaching and realizing the potential of high-quality curriculum and instructional materials. In practice, the director decides how coaching hours are spent, which sessions are required, and how new materials are introduced so teachers can use them well in the first semester instead of the third.

The data side is just as concrete. Directors pull results from state tests, local benchmark assessments and attendance systems, then sit down with principals to decide which grade levels or student groups need attention first. They also pick the measures that will show whether a new program is working, ideally before it launches, so the evaluation is not invented after the fact.

On campuses and at education companies, the director may run faculty development or staff training instead of a K-12 curriculum. The systems change, from a district student information system to a learning management system such as Canvas or Moodle, but the questions stay the same: what should people be able to do, how will we teach it, and how will we know it worked?

Education. As a rough guide, a Director of Learning in a school system holds a master's degree in education, curriculum and instruction, educational leadership or instructional design. BLS lists a bachelor's degree as the typical entry-level education for training and development managers, the broader occupation O*NET uses for this title, and says those managers typically need a bachelor's or master's degree and related work experience.

Experience. BLS lists 5 years or more of work experience in a related occupation as typical for training and development managers. In schools the path typically runs from classroom teaching to an instructional coach, curriculum specialist, assistant principal or principal role, and then to the central office. As a rough guide, expect 8 to 10 years in education before a district-level director post. The Washington County School District in Utah, for example, asks for a master's degree or equivalent with a minimum of eight years of related experience and/or training.

Licensure. Public district roles may require a state administrator or school leadership license, issued by the state, and requirements differ from state to state. Independent schools, colleges and education companies set their own rules.

Certifications worth knowing.

• ISTE+ASCD Edtech Leader Certification, grounded in the ISTE Educator Standards, for directors who lead technology integration across a school or organization.
• Certified Professional in Talent Development (CPTD), from the ATD Certification Institute, for directors whose remit includes staff training and adult learning programs.
• National Board Certification, from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, a teaching credential a candidate may already hold from classroom years.

Skills that come up in interviews.

• Reading assessment data: state reports, benchmark screeners, item analysis and results by student group.
• Curriculum review: building rubrics for materials, running pilots and writing an adoption recommendation a board can follow.
• Adult learning design: coaching cycles, professional learning communities and sessions teachers find worth their time.
• Budgets and grants: federal Title programs, state grants and their allowable-use rules.
• Technology judgment: student data privacy reviews, accessibility checks and clear rules for staff use of generative AI.
• Communication: presenting to a school board, writing for families and holding hard conversations with principals.

Bring evidence, not adjectives. A strong candidate can walk a hiring panel through a professional learning plan they led, the data they used to judge it, and what they changed when the results came back. Directors moving over from corporate training should be ready to show they understand school calendars, collective bargaining limits on teacher time and state testing rules.

BLS projects employment of training and development managers, the occupation O*NET uses for learning directors, to grow 6 percent from 2025 to 2035, faster than the average for all occupations. The occupation held about 50,200 jobs in 2025, and BLS expects about 4,100 openings a year on average over the decade. Those figures span every industry, from banks to hospitals, so treat them as a backdrop for school and college roles rather than a count of them. BLS does not report Director of Learning jobs separately.

Pay in education trails the occupation's all-industry figure. The May 2025 median for training and development managers across all industries was $133,000, above the educational services median that sets this page's band. Within education, the row for colleges, universities and professional schools showed a median of $114,770.

Federal policy now names educator AI training directly. Executive Order 14277, Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth, signed April 23, 2025, established the White House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence Education, chaired by the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Section 7 directed the Secretary of Education, within 120 days, to take steps to prioritize the use of AI in discretionary grant programs for teacher training authorized by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and Title II of the Higher Education Act. The listed uses include reducing time-intensive administrative tasks, improving teacher training and evaluation, and providing professional development for all educators so they can integrate the fundamentals of AI into all subject areas. For a director who writes grant applications, that language shows where the Department was told to steer its discretionary grant programs for teacher training.

States are writing rules as well. The Center for Innovation, Design, and Digital Learning (CIDDL), in a review updated as of June 2026, counted 33 qualifying state guidance documents on AI in K-12 education, 23 of which address students with disabilities. It also reported that eight states (Idaho, Illinois, Maryland, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia) have signed laws requiring state agencies to develop AI guidance and/or requiring local school districts to adopt formal AI policies. Where a state requires a formal district policy, someone has to train principals and teachers to follow it, and the learning office is a natural owner of that work. The attention to students with disabilities matters for drafting: guidance has to account for assistive technology and accommodations, so special education staff belong at the table.

For candidates, the practical preparation is a record of three things: a professional learning program with outcome data behind it, a curriculum adoption carried all the way into classroom use, and staff guidance on new technology that held up under questions from teachers, families and the district's privacy reviewers. Those are the stories a superintendent or provost will ask about, and they travel across districts, campuses and education companies.

Dear Dr. Okafor,

I am applying for the Director of Learning position with Riverbend Unified School District. For the past four years I have served as the K-8 literacy and professional learning lead for a neighboring district, and before that I taught fifth grade and coached teachers at two elementary schools. The work you describe in the posting, aligning curriculum, assessment and teacher development under one plan, is the work I have been doing piece by piece and would like to lead as a whole.

In my current role I led our district's adoption of a new K-5 reading program. I chaired the review committee, ran pilot classrooms at three schools, and wrote the recommendation our board approved. The part I am proudest of came after the vote: I built a coaching cycle so every teacher had in-class support during the first semester, and I met with principals monthly to review screener results and decide where coaches should spend their time. When one school's early results lagged, we shifted coaching hours there and adjusted the pacing guide rather than waiting for spring scores.

I also drafted our staff guidance on generative AI tools. I worked with our technology director, special education team and legal counsel so the guidance covered student data privacy, accommodations and the review a teacher must do before using an AI-drafted reading passage or quiz. I then trained every principal to explain it to their staff.

Riverbend's strategic plan puts early literacy and new-teacher retention at the top. I would bring a practical approach to both: clear priorities, professional learning teachers find useful, and honest reporting to the board about what is working.

Thank you for your consideration. I would welcome the chance to discuss the role.

Sincerely, Jordan Alvarez