AI technology can teach a six-year-old to decode words. It cannot make that child want to learn. Bridging that gap is your purpose.
At Alpha, students in grades K–3 complete their academic instruction through AI-powered applications in a two-hour daily block. As a Guide, you are assigned to one cohort band—either K-1 (Kindergarten through 1st grade) or 2-3 (2nd through 3rd grade)—and you calibrate your approach, rhythm, and workshop delivery to match that band. There are no lectures. There are no worksheets. Half of your day is devoted to facilitating one-hour life-skills workshops covering public speaking, attention management, and feedback exchange. A structured playbook is provided, but the most effective Guides tailor it to their group and create supplemental activities when needed. The remaining half is spent working with students individually or in small clusters, analyzing Coachbot data, and coaching each child to complete 100% of their weekly app targets. Warmth creates the trust necessary to challenge. Challenge demonstrates your belief in their capability.
A successful quarter means every student completes their weekly app goals, passes the Test2Pass assessment for every life-skills workshop, and 90% or more report that they love you. Fall short on any of those three and the role has not been fulfilled. In your first year, you master the playbook; once you demonstrate you can maintain the standard, progression opens to Lead Guide, where you mentor newer team members while continuing to lead your own cohort.
If you are drawn to conventional teaching, prefer a fully scripted curriculum, or view warmth and rigor as incompatible, this role is not the right fit. If your background includes early-elementary teaching with a focus on circle time, camp counseling for young children, youth sports coaching, or performing in children's theater, the final stage before an offer is a shadow day where you coach live Alpha students. Apply today.
What you will be doing
- Facilitating one-hour life-skills workshops for K-3 cohorts on subjects including public speaking, attention management, feedback skills, and other foundational competencies, personalizing the playbook to your group rather than delivering it verbatim.
- Conducting daily individual and small-group coaching sessions that keep every student on track to meet weekly app goals, drawing on Coachbot data, Alpha's motivation tools (campus currency, performance leaderboards), and the trust you have established with each child.
- Delivering the Test2Pass, Alpha's mastery-based evaluation, for each life skill, and continuing to coach students who do not initially pass until mastery is achieved.
- Engaging kindergarteners with age-appropriate techniques—songs, narratives, physical activity, and playfulness—while simultaneously holding second and third graders to concrete, quantifiable expectations.
- Serving as the warm, welcoming adult children are excited to see at morning arrival AND the adult who will not permit them to settle for less than their capability.
What you will NOT be doing
- Teaching content from the front of the room. Academic instruction is delivered through the applications, not by you.
- Creating lesson plans from the ground up. Alpha supplies the playbook and you execute it with your cohort.
- Passively monitoring children at screens. Motivation in this role is hands-on, individualized, and continuous.
- Adjusting a weekly target downward so a child can reach it. When a student falls behind, the solution is to support the student, not to lower the bar.
- Correcting homework, facilitating standardized test preparation, or handling parent outreach. Campus Leads manage family-facing responsibilities, and the other tasks do not exist in this model.
Key Responsibilities
Guarantee that every student in your K-3 cohort completes their weekly learning targets, achieves mastery of each life skill, and finishes the year reporting that they loved you.
Candidate Requirements
- Available to work on-site at an Alpha campus in La Jolla (San Diego), Lake Forest (Orange County), Palo Alto, Piedmont, San Francisco, Santa Monica, or South Bay (LA), CA; Greenwich, CT; Boca Raton, Miami, Miami Beach, or Palm Beach Gardens, FL; Chicago, IL; or Boston, MA (relocation assistance available).
- Bachelor's degree in any field.
- A minimum of 3 years of direct experience working with children ages 4 to 9 (including early-elementary education, coaching, tutoring, camp counseling, or youth program management).
- A concrete example you can articulate of guiding a young child toward a difficult goal: the goal itself, your actions, and the result.
- Comfort with allowing AI to deliver academic content while you concentrate on motivation and life-skills development.
- Commitment to upholding rigorous expectations with students even in the face of resistance.
- Legal authorization to work in the United States without requiring visa sponsorship.
Nice to have
- Background in youth sports coaching, children's theater, camp program leadership, Montessori or progressive early childhood education, or after-school initiatives where you were directly accountable for motivating young children toward defined objectives.
- Personal track record of exceptional performance (academic, athletic, or career-related), such that expecting high standards from others is ingrained, not adopted.
- Innate performer's energy with young children: the capacity to command a room of kindergarteners using vocal expression, playfulness, and physical presence.
- Demonstrated success in transforming hesitant or reluctant young children into engaged, confident contributors.
This position is also known as:
- Youth Development Coach
- Student Success Coach
- Early Childhood Educator
- Learning Coach
- Kindergarten Teacher
