Learning Coach, Alpha - $120,000/year USD

An AI can teach a six-year-old to read. It cannot make her want to. Closing that gap is what you're here for.

At Alpha, students in grades K through 3 complete academic learning through AI-powered applications in two hours each day. You will guide one cohort band—either K-1 (Kindergarten through 1st grade) or 2-3 (2nd through 3rd grade)—and customize your approach, energy, and workshop delivery to fit that band. There are no lectures. No worksheets. For half your day, you facilitate one-hour life-skills workshops covering public speaking, focus, and how to give and receive feedback. A playbook is provided, but top performers in this role modify it for their cohort and create new activities when gaps appear. During the other half, you work with students one-on-one or in small groups, analyze Coachbot data, and coach each child toward completing 100% of their weekly app targets. Warmth gives you permission to challenge. Challenging them demonstrates your belief in their capacity.

A successful quarter means every student completes their weekly app targets, passes the Test2Pass for every life-skills workshop, and 90% or more report that they love you. Fall short on any one of those three metrics and you've fallen short of the role. In your first year, you master the playbook; once you demonstrate you can uphold the standard, the opportunity opens to become a Lead Guide, where you mentor new hires while continuing to lead your own cohort.

If you're drawn to traditional teaching, prefer a curriculum that requires no adaptation, or see warmth and rigor as incompatible, this role isn't for you. If your background includes early-elementary teaching where you excelled in circle time, camp counseling with young children, youth sports coaching, or children's theater performance, the final step before an offer is a shadow day coaching actual Alpha students. Apply today.

What You Will Be Doing

• Facilitating one-hour life-skills workshops for K-3 cohorts on public speaking, focus, feedback, and other enduring skills, customizing the playbook for your group rather than following it verbatim.
• Conducting daily one-on-one and small-group coaching sessions to ensure every student stays on track for weekly app targets, leveraging Coachbot analytics, Alpha's incentive structures (school currency, leaderboards), and the individual relationship you've cultivated with each child.
• Delivering the Test2Pass, Alpha's mastery-based evaluation, for each life skill, and coaching students who fall short until they achieve mastery.
• Engaging kindergarteners at their developmental level with songs, storytelling, physical activity, and playfulness while maintaining real, quantifiable standards for second and third graders.
• Serving as the warm adult children are excited to see at drop-off AND the adult who will not permit them to settle for less.

What You Won’t Be Doing

• Delivering whiteboard lectures. Academic content is delivered through the apps, not by you.
• Building curriculum from the ground up. Alpha supplies the playbook and your job is to bring it to life.
• Passively monitoring children at computers. Motivation in this role is active, individualized, and continuous.
• Reducing a weekly target so a child can meet it. When a student falls behind, the solution is supporting the student, not adjusting the goal.
• Grading homework, conducting standardized test prep, or handling parent communication. Campus Leads manage parent-facing responsibilities, and the rest doesn't exist here.

Learning Coach Key Responsibilities

Ensure every student in your K-3 cohort completes their weekly learning targets, achieves mastery in each life skill, and finishes the year reporting they loved you.

Basic Requirements

• Willing to work on-site at an Alpha campus in La Jolla (San Diego), Lake Forest (Orange County), Palo Alto, Piedmont, San Francisco, Santa Monica, or South Bay (LA), CA; Greenwich, CT; Boca Raton, Miami Beach, or Palm Beach Gardens, FL; Chicago, IL; or Boston, MA (relocation support provided).
• Bachelor's degree in any subject.
• At least 3 years working directly with children ages 4 to 9 (early-elementary teaching, coaching, tutoring, camp counseling, or youth program leadership).
• A specific example you can describe of motivating a young child to a hard goal: the goal, what you did, and the outcome.
• Willingness to let AI handle the instructional content while you focus on motivation and life-skills coaching.
• Willingness to hold high standards with students even when they push back.
• Legally authorized to work in the US without visa sponsorship.

Nice-to-have Requirements

• Experience in youth athletics coaching, children's theater, camp leadership, Montessori/progressive early education, or after-school programs where you were directly responsible for motivating young kids toward specific goals.
• Personal history of high achievement (academic, athletic, or professional), such that holding others to a hard bar is a pattern, not a posture.
• Natural performer's presence with little kids: the ability to hold a room of kindergarteners through voice, silliness, and movement.
• Track record of turning shy or resistant little kids into confident, active participants.

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. 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 $60 USD/hour, which equates to $120,000 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-5634-US-SantaMon-LearningCoach.005