Academic Coach, Alpha - $120,000​/year USD

The most difficult aspect of this role is recognizing when not to teach. A frustrated six-year-old sits before you, and the correct response rarely involves providing the answer directly.

You remain with the same group of students throughout the entire day. From morning launch through app-based core learning, lunch, recess, life-skills workshops, and closing. By Tuesday, you will identify which student is masking their true fluency level. When you discover a learning gap, you do not wait for formal referrals or committee approvals. You gather two to four students, deliver the fifteen-minute targeted sequence you created for that specific gap, and observe as the gap closes.

Core instruction is delivered through the apps, eliminating the need to write lesson plans for twenty-four children late into the night. Your role is to determine who requires your intervention, what will advance their learning, and maintain the daily objective without compromise. "She's doing fine" does not suffice here; parents receive weekly data and will expect you to identify the specific gap.

Alpha is establishing campuses nationwide. Those who demonstrate competence in this role contribute to hiring and training subsequent cohorts, and develop the curriculum standards that other campuses adopt. Some advance into lead coaching positions for these teams, where the pedagogical judgment underlying the literacy work becomes the primary function.

Your resume alone will not determine this outcome. Prior to an offer, you will record a brief video presenting a story to young children, then complete a full day on campus. If your strengths in this work have never translated well to paper, that is precisely the intent.

This is a full-time, on-site position, five days per week, at an Alpha campus. We recruit nationally, so job boards may list this opportunity in nearby cities that do not currently have a campus.

• CA
  - Beverly Hills, La Jolla (San Diego), Malibu, Palo Alto, Piedmont, San Francisco, and Santa Monica
• CT
  - Greenwich
• MA
  - Boston
• NY
  - New York City
• WA
  - Seattle

• Guiding students through app-based core learning: identifying who is struggling, asking the question that removes the obstacle, maintaining the daily objective.
• Conducting short structured-literacy sessions with two to four students. Identifying a phonics or decoding gap using running records and fluency probes, delivering a sequence you created, and verifying transfer.
• Facilitating morning launch, life-skills workshops, and check-chart activities that sustain engagement with six-year-olds.
• Motivating students toward their weekly app goals using school currency, leaderboards, and gamification.
• Remaining with your students through lunch, recess, and closing, addressing frustration and resistance with an individualized plan for that child.

• Creating lesson plans for an entire class each night. Your planning is targeted and diagnostic.
• Managing a pull-out caseload from a separate intervention room. Reading groups represent approximately a tenth of your week and occur within the regular day.
• Implementing a published curriculum or scripted program with fidelity to another's sequence.
• Drafting IEPs, 504 plans, managing testing paperwork, or participating on curriculum committees.
• Leaving for a prep block while another adult supervises your students. You remain with them from launch to closing.

Ensure every K-3 student reaches their daily learning goals, and eliminate the reading gaps preventing them from achieving these goals independently.

• Willing to work on-site at a campus listed above, with relocation support
• At least 3 years working directly with children ages 4-9: teaching, coaching, tutoring, camps, youth programs, children's theater, or similar settings where kids showed up because of you
• At least 2 years of that experience teaching reading in grades K-3, within the last 5 years
• Completed structured-literacy training: LETRS, IMSE, Orton-Gillingham, Wilson Reading System, Fundations, UFLI, CERI, Neuhaus, SIPPS, Really Great Reading, or similar; or a master's in reading or literacy
• Bachelor's degree in any subject. A teaching certificate is not required
• Comfortable spending about 90% of your day guiding students through app-based learning, workshops, and campus routines, and 10% on reading sessions
• Willing to work with all K-3 students, not only struggling readers
• Legally authorized to work in the US without visa sponsorship

• You captured a six-year-old's attention using only your energy and an engaging activity
• You maintained tired children's attendance in an after-school reading program
• Parents requested you by name
• Experience with reading platforms (Amira, Lexia, i-Ready) or diagnostic assessments (DRA, DIBELS, AIMSweb)
• You can identify a child whose decoding you corrected and describe how

Alpha reimagines the…