Youth Counselor, Alpha - $100,000/year USD

About the role

This role is not about teaching. It is about motivation. The most meaningful support you can offer a student who reaches 99% of their target is refusing to accept it as complete. If that expectation feels rigid, this position is not for you. If it resonates because you understand that maintaining high standards communicates belief in a student's capacity, continue reading.

Responsibilities

• Facilitating one-hour life-skills sessions for K-8 groups on subjects including public speaking, focus, feedback, and related competencies, customizing the existing framework and developing new content when gaps emerge
• Conducting daily one-on-one and small-group coaching that drives each student to complete 100% of weekly app objectives, leveraging Coachbot data, Alpha's motivational infrastructure (school currency, leaderboards), and individual relationships to overcome resistance
• Delivering the Test2Pass (Alpha's competency-based evaluation) for each life skill and coaching students through retakes until they achieve mastery
• Adjusting your approach across a broad developmental spectrum, from kindergarteners requiring high energy and physical activity to eighth graders needing candid conversation and accountability
• Serving as the adult who maintains rigorous expectations while also being the person students trust and want to confide in; genuine connection earns the authority to challenge, and challenge demonstrates confidence in their potential

Requirements

• Able to work on-site at an Alpha school in Scottsdale (Phoenix), AZ; Oklahoma City, OK; Tulsa, OK; Nashville, TN; Austin, TX; Brownsville, TX; Fort Worth, TX; Houston, TX (Central, South, or The Woodlands); Park City, UT — relocation assistance provided
• Bachelor's degree in any discipline
• Minimum 3 years of direct experience with K-8 students (teaching, coaching, tutoring, camp counseling, or youth program management)
• A concrete example you can articulate of guiding a K-8 student to achieve a challenging objective: the objective itself, your actions, and the result
• Comfort allowing AI to deliver instructional content while you concentrate on motivation and life-skills development
• Regular use of generative AI platforms (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude)
• Authorization to work in the United States without sponsorship (or in Canada for the Toronto location)

Nice-to-have Requirements

• Background in youth sports coaching, debate, camp direction, theater, or extracurricular programs where you held direct accountability for motivating children toward defined outcomes
• Demonstrated record of personal excellence (academic, athletic, or career-related) such that maintaining high expectations for others reflects consistent practice, not adopted rhetoric
• Communication and presentation skills sufficient to engage a group of 12-year-olds for an hour without needing to escalate volume
• History of converting unmotivated or resistant students into engaged contributors

About Alpha

Join the team building school around student growth. 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. There is so much to cover for this exciting role, and space here is limited.

What You Won’t Be Doing

• Delivering whiteboard instruction; academic content is embedded in the applications, not your direct teaching
• Creating curriculum materials from the ground up; you activate an established playbook through compelling delivery and narrative
• Passively monitoring students on devices; motivation in this context is proactive, interpersonal, and sustained
• Reducing a weekly target to enable a student to meet it; when a student falls behind, the solution is supporting the student, not adjusting the standard
• Evaluating assignments, facilitating standardized exam preparation, or handling family outreach; Campus Leads manage parent relations, and the other tasks are not part of this model

Working with us

This is a full-time (40 hours per week), long-term position. The position is immediately available and requires entering into an independent contractor agreement with Crossover as a Contractor of Record. The compensation level for this role is $50 USD/hour, which equates to $100,000 USD/year assuming 40 hours per week and 50 weeks per year. The payment period is weekly. Consult www.crossover.com/help-and-faqs for more details on this topic.