An AI system can deliver academic instruction to a six-year-old. It cannot make that child care about learning. Bridging that gap is your responsibility.
At Alpha, students in grades K–3 complete their academic work through AI-powered applications in two hours each day. As a Guide, you oversee one cohort band—either K-1 (Kindergarten and 1st grade) or 2-3 (2nd and 3rd grade)—and adjust your approach, tempo, and workshop delivery to fit that group. There are no lectures or worksheets. You spend half your day facilitating one-hour life-skills workshops covering topics like public speaking, focus, and feedback exchange. A structured playbook is provided, but top performers customize it for their students and create new material when needed. The remaining half of your day is dedicated to individual or small-group sessions, where you analyze Coachbot data and coach each student toward completing 100% of their weekly app targets. Building trust allows you to set high expectations. Those expectations communicate your confidence in their abilities.
Success for a quarter means every student completes their weekly app goals, passes the Test2Pass for all life-skills workshops, and 90% or more report that they love you. Falling short on any of these three measures means you did not fulfill the role. During your first year, you will internalize the playbook; after demonstrating you can maintain standards, you become eligible for Lead Guide, where you mentor new hires while continuing to run your own cohort.
If you prefer traditional classroom teaching, need a fixed curriculum, or see warmth and rigor as incompatible, this role is not suitable. If your background includes early-elementary teaching with a focus on circle time, camp counseling for young children, youth sports coaching, or children's theater performance, the final step before receiving an offer is a shadow day coaching actual Alpha students. Apply today.
What you will be doing
- Facilitating one-hour life-skills workshops for K-3 cohorts on topics including public speaking, focus, feedback, and other foundational skills, customizing the playbook for your group rather than following it verbatim.
- Conducting daily one-on-one and small-group coaching sessions to ensure every student stays on track for their weekly app targets, leveraging Coachbot analytics, Alpha's motivational tools (school currency, leaderboards), and the individual rapport you establish with each child.
- Delivering the Test2Pass, Alpha's mastery-based evaluation, for each life skill, and providing targeted coaching to students who do not pass until they achieve mastery.
- Engaging kindergarteners through songs, stories, movement, and play while simultaneously maintaining concrete, measurable expectations for second and third graders.
- Serving as the warm adult children are excited to see at arrival AND the adult who will not allow them to settle for less than their best.
What you will NOT be doing
- Delivering lessons from the front of the room. Academic content is handled by the apps, not by you.
- Creating curriculum materials from the ground up. Alpha supplies the playbook and you execute it effectively.
- Passively monitoring students at computers. Motivation in this role is hands-on, individualized, and continuous.
- Reducing a weekly target so a child can meet it. When a student falls behind, the solution is coaching the student, not adjusting the goal.
- Grading assignments, preparing for standardized tests, or handling parent outreach. Campus Leads manage parent communication, and the other tasks do not exist in this role.
Key Responsibilities
Ensure 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
- Willing 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 Beach, or Palm Beach Gardens, FL; Chicago, IL; or Boston, MA (relocation support provided).
- Bachelor's degree in any subject.
- At least 3 years working directly with children ages 4 to 9 (early-elementary teaching, coaching, tutoring, camp counseling, or youth program leadership).
- A specific example you can describe of motivating a young child to a hard goal: the goal, what you did, and the outcome.
- Willingness to let AI handle the instructional content while you focus on motivation and life-skills coaching.
- Willingness to hold high standards with students even when they push back.
- Legally authorized to work in the US without visa sponsorship.
Nice to have
- Experience in youth athletics coaching, children's theater, camp leadership, Montessori/progressive early education, or after-school programs where you were directly responsible for motivating young kids toward specific goals.
- Personal history of high achievement (academic, athletic, or professional), such that holding others to a hard bar is a pattern, not a posture.
- Natural performer's presence with little kids: the ability to hold a room of kindergarteners through voice, silliness, and movement.
- Track record of turning shy or resistant little kids into confident, active participants.
This position is also known as:
- Youth Development Coach
- Student Success Coach
- Early Childhood Educator
- Learning Coach
- Kindergarten Teacher
