2nd Grade Teacher, Alpha - $120,000/year USD

About the role

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 or 2-3—and adjust your approach, tempo, and workshop delivery to fit that group.

Responsibilities

• Facilitating one-hour life-skills workshops covering topics like public speaking, focus, and feedback exchange for K-3 cohorts, 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 Won’t Be Doing

• Delivering lessons from the front of the room.
• Creating curriculum materials from the ground up.
• Passively monitoring students at computers.
• Reducing a weekly target so a child can meet it.
• Grading assignments, preparing for standardized tests, or handling parent outreach.

Basic 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.
• Likely to be legally authorized to work in the US without visa sponsorship.

Nice-to-have Requirements

• 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.

About Alpha

Alpha reimagines the school day around faster learning, stronger mentorship, and more time for students to build real-world skills. Roles with real student impact: Alpha hires teachers (guides), operators, admissions experts, school & curriculum leaders, and remote team members. Education work that pays like it matters: Alpha offers six-figure roles for people ready to help build a radically better school experience. A culture built for builders: Alpha is fast-moving, ambitious, and student focused. It’s for people who want to improve the system, not maintain it. Alpha is where you can do the most meaningful work of your career.