Leadership Coaches (LCs) play a critical role at the heart of Teach For America's work – they coach, develop and inspire corps members to dramatically exceed previous years’ results, fundamentally transform their students’ lives, and become lifelong advocates for educational equity. At the end of a successful year of work, leadership coaches will have built a strong foundation of instructional excellence and fostered mindsets of a culturally responsive orientation and reflection in their corps members. As a result of maximizing the instructional development of their corps members, LCs will be able to see students on a new path of expanded life opportunities, due to major academic growth.
To reach this vision, you will work directly with a cohort of teachers and regularly collaborate and problem solve with other team members to ensure the success of the region. You will also play an important role in achieving critical organizational goals in multiple functional areas (for instance, matriculating and onboarding new corps members, recruiting alumni to join staff, or helping out at regional events). During the school year, you will develop teachers’ knowledge, skills, and mindsets, focused on providing them the foundation necessary to achieve ambitious academic goals with students and commit to our movement in the long term. You will serve as a critical member of the Program Strategy Team and will report to the Director of Leadership Development.
Coach and Empower Corps Members (35%)
- Support corps members in growing pedagogical skill through frequent practice of discrete skills, watching models of excellence, and facilitating peer learning
- Support corps members in internalizing ambitious academic goals for students
- Ensure corps members know what students need to learn in order to reach their goals and have the appropriate resources and support to realize those goals
- Help corps members diagnose top needs based on student progress and gaps in their learning, and ensure corps members pursue the best solutions and follow through with them
- Gather, reflect, and analyze data to form an opinion and make the best decisions for corps members and students
- Build relationships with school-based staff and stakeholders to best support corps members and students in achieving dramatic academic growth
- Gather information on the curriculum and resources of corps members and align instructional support to their context
Build Corps Member Leadership (35%)
- Build authentic relationships across lines of difference to connect with corps members' diverse styles, strengths and needs
- Help corps members to stay centered on their ambitious classroom goals as well as develop the mindsets and values to realize these goals
- Ensure corps members build perspective and situate their daily work in the broader context of our work, culturally responsive pedagogy, and the movement to attain educational equity
- Help corps members understand the community in which they teach and provide strategies for corps members to build meaningful relationships with multiple stakeholders within the community
- Help corps members make meaning of their experience in the classroom in relation to the broader system and position the corps member themselves as the sense-maker of their journey as they strengthen their agency as a decision maker and advocate
- Develop and maintain a culture in your cohort where all corps members feel included, valued, and developed, so that they fulfill their commitment and lead as alumni
Collaborate in the Collective Action Working Group to Refine Our Knowledge and Practice (15%)
- Share regularly with your peer Leadership Coaches and the Program Strategy Leadership Team what you’re trying in your work, what you’re learning, what you’re struggling with, and what you’re thinking about for the future in your cohort’s support, particularly as it relates to our theory of leadership development
- Collaborate with the Director, Program Design & Data Strategy to use what you’re learning in leading your cohort towards collective action to inform the development of our localized theory of leadership development
Lead Across the Movement: Engage in Regional Priorities and Activities (15%)
- Engage in and lead ongoing professional development with our team
- Participate in shared regional commitments such as biweekly staff meetings, quarterly staff retreats, communicating regularly with incoming corps members, and interviewing applicants to Teach For America
- Meet compliance expectations for timesheet, expense report, and performance management documentation and submission
- Support and participate in regional events, requiring occasional evening and weekend work
- Exhibit a desire to learn and develop your cultural competence and understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusiveness
- Minimum of two years of experience achieving ambitious outcomes as a classroom teacher in a low-income community; four or more years preferred
- Experience coaching or supporting teachers preferred
- Extensive knowledge of effective teaching practices
- Managing or influencing others to achieve a vision and take committed and positive action toward individual and organizational goals
- Operating with urgency and sense of possibility to achieve ambitious, measurable results
- Analyzing data to draw accurate conclusions
- Making informed, timely decisions and using sound judgment to prioritize actions
- Tracking tasks, assessing progress, and following through on the execution of plans
- Developing and cultivating relationships and networks across lines of difference in order to achieve results
- Reflecting and proactively working to grow and improve, including proficiency in diversity, equity and inclusiveness
- Exemplifying Teach For America’s core values and a deep commitment to our mission
Work Demands
- Ability to work an average of 50 hours per week, majority during business hours, starting in April 2019 in Charlotte
- Occasional evening and weekend work required
- Frequent independent travel to multiple school sites throughout the day that may be significant distances from one another
- Occasional travel to in-person meetings in various US cities (2-3 times per year)