Executive Director

The Helix School, a Cognia-accredited nonpublic school (NPS) in San Rafael, California, serving autistic and neurodivergent learners from kindergarten through age 22, seeks an empathetic, decisive, and deeply relational operational leader to serve as its next Executive Director. Founded in 2014, Helix has grown from two students to a close-knit community of approximately 65, distinguished by an interdisciplinary model in which clinical staff and teaching faculty work as a single integrated team around every student. For many families, Helix is the place where a child is finally seen, understood, and given room to thrive — a distinction that shapes the trust and loyalty at the heart of the Helix community.

Having completed its first decade of rapid growth, Helix is now focused on building the organizational systems, staffing depth, and financial discipline that will let its distinctive clinical-academic model reach more students without losing what makes it exceptional. The Board recently engaged an Interim Executive Director for the 2026-2027 school year, allowing time for a deliberate, thorough search for the leader who will guide Helix through this next chapter.

Reporting to the Board of Directors, the Executive Director serves as chief executive and President of the corporation, and as Helix's principal point of accountability across every dimension of the School's operation. This is a foundational leadership hire for Helix, and the person selected will shape the systems, culture, and external reputation of the School for years to come. The Executive Director will work closely with a small, capable Leadership Team and partner with Helix's Founder, who remains engaged across the wider Helix organization in external partnerships, fundraising, and overall direction. This is both a strategic leadership role and highly hands-on  — the size and specialization of Helix's program mean the Executive Director will be as involved in day-to-day academic and clinical decisions as in Board governance and long-range planning.

The Executive Director's scope spans academic and clinical program leadership, regulatory compliance and credential continuity, personnel and organizational development, Board relations, financial stewardship, and fundraising — with visible, sustained engagement across every constituency the School serves, including families, faculty and clinicians, the Board, funding districts, and the broader autism education community. Success in this role requires a leader who can operate at two altitudes at once: strategic enough to build the systems and leadership depth Helix's next decade demands, and present enough to be known personally by the community that defines its culture.

https://bit.ly/Helix_ExecDirector