Job Description
• $100,000 annual W2 compensation distributed weekly, with health, dental, and vision coverage starting day one
• On-campus placement at an Alpha K-8 site in Denver, CO; Atlanta, GA; Oklahoma City, OK; Tulsa, OK; Nashville, TN; Austin, TX; Brownsville, TX; Fort Worth, TX; Houston (Central, South, or The Woodlands), TX; Park City, UT (Salt Lake City metro); or Toronto, Canada (relocation assistance available)
This is not a teaching position. This is motivation work.
The most meaningful support you can offer a student who reached 99% of their target is to insist it's not finished. If that expectation feels uncomfortable, this role isn't for you. If it energizes you—because maintaining high standards is how you communicate belief in a student's capacity—read on.
Alpha students complete their academic learning through AI-driven applications. No classroom lectures. No traditional textbooks. Half of your day is spent facilitating one-hour life-skills workshops covering topics like public speaking, focus, and constructive feedback exchange. The other half involves sitting with students individually or in small groups, analyzing their Coachbot progress data, and driving each toward 100% completion of weekly app objectives. You won't follow a rigid script—workshops provide a foundation, but top performers customize them and create new sessions when needs arise.
A successful quarter means every student in your group completes their weekly app targets, passes the Test2Pass for all life-skills workshops, and 90%+ report they love working with you. Fall short on any of these three metrics, and the role isn't being fulfilled. Year one centers on mastering the operational playbook; once you demonstrate the ability to uphold standards, advancement to Lead Guide becomes possible—coaching new team members while continuing direct student work.
If traditional teaching appeals to you, you prefer ready-made curriculum, or you see warmth and rigor as incompatible, look elsewhere. If your background includes athletic coaching, camp counseling, tutoring where you wouldn't accept defeat, or performance work that captivated young audiences, the final interview stage is a full day on campus coaching actual Alpha students. If that prospect excites you most, submit your application now.
What You Will Be Doing
• Facilitating one-hour life-skills workshops for K-8 groups on public speaking, focus, feedback, and other foundational competencies, modifying the existing playbook and creating new sessions when you identify missing elements
• Conducting daily individual and small-group motivation sessions that drive every student to 100% completion of weekly app objectives, leveraging Coachbot analytics, Alpha's incentive architecture (campus currency, performance leaderboards), and individual rapport to overcome resistance
• Delivering the Test2Pass (Alpha's competency-based evaluation) for each life skill, then coaching students who fall short until they achieve mastery
• Adjusting your coaching approach across a broad age spectrum, from kindergarteners requiring high-energy and kinesthetic engagement to 8th graders needing direct conversation and responsibility
• Serving as the adult who maintains standards and the adult students choose to confide in; building trust earns you permission to challenge, and challenging demonstrates your confidence in their potential
What You Won’t Be Doing
• Delivering whiteboard instruction; academic content resides in the applications, not with you
• Building curriculum from the ground up; you animate an established playbook with enthusiasm and narrative skill
• Passively monitoring students at workstations; motivation here is engaged, individualized, and persistent
• Reducing a weekly target to enable a student to reach it; when a student falls behind, the solution is supporting the student, not adjusting the goal
• Evaluating homework, facilitating standardized test preparation, or handling family communications; Campus Leads manage parent interactions, and the other tasks don't exist in this model
Youth Development Specialist Key Responsibilities
Guarantee that every student in your K-8 group completes their weekly learning objectives, achieves mastery in each life skill, and finishes the year reporting they loved you.
Basic Requirements
• Available to work on-site at an Alpha campus in Denver, CO; Atlanta, GA; Oklahoma City, OK; Tulsa, OK; Nashville, TN; Austin, TX; Brownsville, TX; Fort Worth, TX; Houston, TX (Central, South, or The Woodlands); Park City, UT; or Toronto, Canada (relocation assistance provided)
• Bachelor's degree in any discipline
• Minimum 3 years of direct experience working with K-8 students (including classroom instruction, coaching, tutoring, camp counseling, or youth program management)
• A concrete example you can articulate of motivating a K-8 student toward a challenging objective: the objective itself, your actions, and the result
• Comfort with AI managing instructional delivery 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 US without requiring visa sponsorship (or in Canada for the Toronto location)
Nice-to-have Requirements
• Background in youth sports coaching, debate, camp leadership, theater, or after-school programming where you held direct accountability for motivating children toward defined outcomes
• Demonstrated personal achievement record (academic, athletic, or career-based), indicating that maintaining rigorous standards for others reflects consistent practice, not affectation
• Narrative and presentation skills capable of engaging a room of 12-year-olds for an hour without volume escalation
• Proven ability to convert disengaged or oppositional students into committed participants
About Alpha
Want to join a learning rebellion that’s transforming the traditional classroom?
Alpha School is on a mission to reshape education with a bold approach that harnesses AI to accelerate learning and unleash student potential.
They don’t play by the old rules.
Alpha is creating a new paradigm where students master core academics in just two hours a day, freeing up time for hands-on, passion-driven learning that truly prepares them for the real world.
Alpha School is rewriting the rules of education.
Sounds too good to be true? It’s not.
There is so much to cover for this exciting role, and space here is limited. Hit the Apply button if you found this interesting and want to learn more. We look forward to meeting you!
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.
Crossover Job Code: LJ-4415-US-Atlanta-YouthDevelopme.015
