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 the technology cannot address. 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. Within two weeks, you’ll spot students masking reading difficulties and intervene immediately—no referrals, committees, or waitlists. You’ll gather small groups for 15-minute workshops on phonics, blending, or decodable passages, verify skill transfer, and return students to independent work. Your preparation is diagnostic, not lesson-planning for a full class. Families receive weekly performance data, so you’ll maintain daily targets transparently.

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 (2–4 students) by identifying phonics/decoding deficits through running records and fluency assessments, designing targeted sequences, and confirming skill transfer.
• Support students through app-based core instruction: troubleshoot stalls, ask problem-solving questions, and uphold daily performance expectations.
• Facilitate morning opening routines, life-skills instruction, and progress-tracking activities to sustain engagement for six-year-olds.
• Motivate students toward weekly goals using school currency systems, leaderboards, and age-appropriate gamification.
• Remain with students during 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 blocking 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 are ~10% of your week, integrated into the schedule).
• Implementing a commercial program with rigid scope/sequence adherence.
• Drafting IEPs/504 plans, managing assessment documentation, or serving on 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 our 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, children’s theater, etc.).
• 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, and 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 six-year-olds using only your presence and well-designed activities.
• Experience with exhausted children returning to your after-school/summer program.
• Familiarity with reading platforms (Amira, Lexia, i-Ready) or diagnostic assessments (DRA, DIBELS, AIMSweb).
• Track record of repairing a specific child’s decoding skills, with explainable methodology.
• Experience in non-traditional school models (charter, micro-school, Montessori, hybrid).

Benefits

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

Pay

$100,000/year salary, paid weekly.

Schedule

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

About Alpha

Alpha reimagines the school day around faster learning, stronger mentorship, and more time for students to build real-world skills. We hire Guides, operators, admissions experts, and school leaders for roles with direct student impact. Compensation reflects the value of this work, with six-figure roles for those ready to build a radically better school experience. Our culture is fast-moving, ambitious, and student-focused—ideal for people who want to improve the system, not maintain it.