Director of Marketing and Communications

Established in 1906, Colorado Academy (CA) is an independent nonsectarian, co-educational, college preparatory day school for students from Pre-Kindergarten through Twelfth Grade. The school's 94-acre campus is located in Lakewood, Colorado, and serves over 1000 students. With a 9:1 student to teacher ratio and an average class size of 15, CA's curriculum emphasizes group and individual study of the liberal arts and sciences, engagement through experiential and service learning. CA's educators work to create learners, leaders, and inspiring, thoughtful individuals who are ready to transform the future. Coming from over 80 zip codes in the Denver metropolitan area, CA students are highly motivated, perform at above average academic levels, seek community engagement and have a 100% acceptance rate to 4-year colleges.

Reporting to the Head of School, the Director of Marketing and Communications is responsible for leading the CA communications team, which consists of a Digital Media Specialist & Webmaster and a Communications & Content Strategist. In partnership with members of the leadership team and other colleagues, the Director of Marketing and Communications helps to advance the brand, mission, program, and goals of the school through both internal and external communications. The person in this position is responsible for the school's strategic communications plan, and oversees all content creation across all of CA's communication channels (web, social media, photography and videography, PR/press releases, email and SMS, and print publications).

The ideal candidate is a dynamic leader with excellent people skills, who has solid experience successfully managing a small team. This person is an excellent writer, a strategic thinker, and a creative problem solver, who is also able to roll up their sleeves to get work done. Possessing qualities of integrity, credibility, and commitment to the school's mission, the Director is able to maintain a high level of professionalism and confidentiality. The ability to listen and understand audience needs is critical.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Leading and managing the marketing and communications team, as well as supervising relationships with freelance writers, videographers, and photographers.
• Devising and overseeing CA's annual school-wide external communications plan, which encompasses timely news and feature stories, promotional videos, multimedia coverage of major school events, daily social media posts, weekly and monthly email digests, regular blogging by the Head of School and division/department leaders, and various print publications, including the twice-yearly CA Journal along with annually updated guides, brochures, and other collateral.
• Maintaining positive relationships with current and prospective families, faculty & staff, and alumni, through consistent, accurate, informative, and timely communications.
• Collaborating with the Head of School, division principals, and other key stakeholders to oversee consistent, accurate, on-brand, and on-message internal communications about school policies, news, and other critical content.
• Working closely with the Director of Admissions on key digital and print marketing initiatives, and working with the Director of Advancement to build a communications strategy around capital campaigns, major donor-funded initiatives, and other priorities.
• Owning CA's brand standards and overseeing their application across all digital and print communications both internally and externally.
• Overseeing the content, design, maintenance, and performance of CA's public website.
• Understanding and managing the flow of communications to key constituencies, including current parents, prospective families, faculty & staff, donors, and alumni.
• Monitoring and improving the performance of CA's communications channels, including the CA website, email newsletters, CA News site, social media channels, print publications, and press releases.
• Supporting the Head of School and other school leaders with their public communications such as speeches, letters, and blog posts.
• Engaging closely with the Director of Community & Culture and the Office of Inclusivity to ensure all communications reflect CA's commitment to DEI and providing a sense of belonging within the community.
• Providing crisis communications support as needed and serving as a spokesperson for the school when appropriate.
• Serving as an external relations liaison for media outlets (online, print, TV, radio, etc.) and community organizations.
• Monitoring media coverage, Google alerts, and social media outlets, in order to track mentions and public perception of CA.
• Promoting and marketing internal and external school events, including lecture series, donor stewardship and fundraising events.
• Delivering communications support to and fielding inquiries from the Colorado Academy Parent Association (PA) pertaining to events and programming.
• Managing the Communications Department budget.