Early Elementary Teacher, Alpha - $100,000/year USD

Alpha operates fundamentally differently from traditional schools. Students complete their full academic core in approximately two hours each morning using AI-adaptive applications—no traditional instruction, printed curriculum, or unified pacing calendar. The remainder of the day focuses on life-skills instruction. As a Guide (not a traditional teacher), you ensure students engage with their work, remain motivated, and overcome obstacles when technology falls short. You stay with the same group of students from morning opening through dismissal, covering core academics, workshops, lunch, recess, and progress-tracking sessions.

About the Role

You will identify and address literacy gaps in real time, delivering targeted interventions without bureaucratic delays. For example, within two weeks, you might spot a student masking reading difficulties by memorizing text rather than decoding it. You’ll then gather 2–4 students for a 15-minute workshop on phoneme-grapheme correspondence, blending, or decodable passages, verify skill transfer, and return them to independent work. Your preparation is diagnostic: determining who needs support tomorrow and what intervention will yield measurable progress. Families receive weekly performance data, so accountability is built into the role.

Alpha is expanding nationwide, and top performers may advance into hiring, training, or leadership roles, where diagnostic literacy judgment becomes the primary function. Advancement is performance-based, not automatic.

Responsibilities

• Deliver brief structured-literacy interventions (15–30 minutes) with 2–4 students, identifying phonics/decoding deficits through running records and fluency assessments, designing targeted sequences, and confirming skill transfer.
• Support students through app-based core instruction by troubleshooting stalls, asking problem-solving questions, and maintaining daily performance expectations.
• Facilitate morning opening routines, life-skills instruction, and progress-tracking activities to sustain engagement for 6-year-olds.
• Motivate students toward weekly goals using school currency systems, leaderboards, and age-appropriate gamification.
• Remain with your students throughout lunch, recess, and dismissal, using individualized strategies to address resistance and frustration.
• Ensure every K–3 student meets daily learning targets and eliminates reading deficits preventing independent progress.

What You Won’t Be Doing

• Developing full-class lesson plans nightly (preparation is targeted and diagnostic).
• Managing a pull-out intervention caseload in a separate space (reading groups occur within the regular schedule).
• Implementing a commercial program with rigid scope/sequence adherence.
• Drafting IEPs/504 plans, managing assessment documentation, or participating in curriculum committees.
• Transferring students to other staff during planning periods (you stay with them from opening to dismissal).

Requirements

• Willing to work on-site at one of Alpha’s campuses (AZ: Phoenix; OK: Oklahoma City/Tulsa; TX: Dallas/Fort Worth/Plano/The Woodlands; UT: Park City) with relocation support available.
• At least 3 years of direct experience with children ages 4–9 (teaching, coaching, tutoring, camps, youth programs, or similar).
• At least 2 years of K–3 reading instruction experience within the last 5 years.
• Completed structured-literacy training (LETRS, IMSE, Orton-Gillingham, Wilson, Fundations, UFLI, CERI, Neuhaus, SIPPS, Really Great Reading) or a master’s in reading/literacy.
• Bachelor’s degree in any subject (teaching certificate not required).
• Comfortable spending ~90% of your day guiding students through app-based learning/workshops/routines and ~10% on reading sessions.
• Willing to work with all K–3 students, not just struggling readers.
• Legally authorized to work in the U.S. without visa sponsorship.

Nice-to-Have Qualifications

• Ability to maintain engagement for a room of 6-year-olds using only presence and well-designed activities.
• Experience with reading platforms (Amira, Lexia, i-Ready) or diagnostic assessments (DRA, DIBELS, AIMSweb).
• Track record of repairing a specific child’s decoding skills (able to explain methodology).
• Background in non-traditional school models (charter, micro-school, Montessori, hybrid).

About Alpha

Alpha reimagines the school day around faster learning, stronger mentorship, and more time for real-world skills. Roles include Guides (teachers), operators, admissions experts, and school/curriculum leaders. Compensation reflects the impact: six-figure salaries for those building a radically better school experience. The culture is fast-moving, ambitious, and student-focused—ideal for those who want to improve the system, not maintain it.

Pay

$100,000/year, paid weekly.

Schedule

40-hour work week across five days, on-site at a single Alpha campus.

Benefits

• Health, dental, and vision coverage from day one.
• Relocation assistance available.