Literacy Specialist, Alpha - $120,000/year USD

• On-site at an Alpha campus located in Lake Forest CA, Palo Alto CA, Piedmont CA, San Francisco CA, Santa Monica CA, Greenwich CT, Chicago IL, Boston MA, New York City NY, or Chantilly VA (relocation assistance available)
• Annual salary of $120,000, with weekly pay. Health, dental, and vision coverage begins on day one
• Daily integration of AI-powered tools and adaptive learning platforms
  
  

You're convinced that 20 minutes of sharply focused reading instruction outperforms 90 minutes of scripted curriculum, and your student outcomes support that conviction. You've seen children move past phonics barriers because you identified the specific gap yourself, rather than following what a prescribed program dictates. If building lessons from live student data feels like empowerment instead of added burden, this role deserves your attention.

Alpha's reading instruction operates on one core principle: every minute counts. Your workshops last 20 minutes and center on what individual students genuinely need, not what a standardized timeline assumes they need. You'll evaluate reading abilities, organize focused groups, and provide high-impact structured literacy teaching (phonics, fluency, comprehension) to children ages 4-7, advancing them measurably each week. AI-driven adaptive platforms work beside you, producing performance insights you'll apply to refine tomorrow's lesson before today's workshop concludes.

This position evolves. During the first year, you're immersed in classroom work: facilitating workshops, guiding motivational activities that transform hesitant readers into enthusiastic ones, and delivering detailed observations to the technology team improving Alpha's AI literacy platforms. As these platforms expand and your input shapes their development, your influence reaches beyond your immediate students. You'll contribute to building a reading system that functions across multiple campuses, scaling what you accomplish with 15 children into a framework serving hundreds.

If you've built your career demonstrating that structured literacy delivers results and you're prepared to combine that knowledge with technology that extends your reach, this is where your influence breaks free from classroom boundaries.

What You Will Be Doing

• Creating and facilitating 20-minute reading workshops derived from your own diagnostic evaluation of each student's reading ability and specific gaps
• Leveraging AI-generated student performance insights to modify groupings and lesson priorities between sessions, rather than waiting for quarterly assessments
• Conducting motivational activities that cultivate intrinsic reading motivation, incorporating age-appropriate gamification and personalized goal-setting with K-2 learners
• Piloting and assessing AI literacy platforms during live workshops, then delivering structured feedback to the technology team regarding effectiveness and areas for improvement
• Monitoring measurable results (fluency progress, decoding level gains, accuracy enhancement) and applying them to refine your methods on a weekly basis
  
  

What You Won’t Be Doing

• Implementing a scripted or pre-packaged reading curriculum. You identify needs and create instruction independently.
• Conducting 60-90 minute lecture-based literacy sessions. Workshops are brief, targeted, and high-energy.
• Serving exclusively struggling readers. You'll teach all K-2 students across the full range of reading abilities.
• Working independently from technology. AI adaptive platforms are integrated into your everyday practice, not an occasional supplement.
• Delaying instructional changes until quarterly data reviews. You make adjustments in real time based on current data.
  
  

Literacy Specialist Key Responsibilities

Advance early elementary students to grade-level reading proficiency through adaptive, AI-enhanced structured literacy instruction.

Basic Requirements

• Bachelor's degree (any subject)
• Master's in reading instruction OR structured literacy certification (Orton-Gillingham, Wilson Reading System, IMSE, CERI, LETRS, Neuhaus, UFLI, or equivalent)
• 2 years of full-time K-2 structured reading instruction in a school or clinical setting within the last 5 years, using systematic phonics or structured literacy
• Ability to design your own reading lessons and clearly describe what you teach and how, without relying on a published program
• Willingness to work in-person at an Alpha campus (Lake Forest CA, Palo Alto CA, Piedmont CA, San Francisco CA, Santa Monica CA, Greenwich CT, Chicago IL, Boston MA, New York City NY, or Chantilly VA; relocation support provided)
• Willingness to use AI and adaptive learning tools daily and adapt as tools evolve
• Legally authorized to work in the U.S. without visa sponsorship
  
  

Nice-to-have Requirements

• Familiarity with diagnostic reading assessments (e.g., DRA, DIBELS, AIMSweb) for creating differentiated groups
• Demonstrated history of measurable student reading improvements you can articulate with specific data (e.g., moved 12 students from Level C to Level G in one semester)
• Experience partnering with edtech teams, product teams, or instructional designers on platform development
• Background in a startup, micro-school, or non-traditional educational setting where you created systems instead of following existing ones
  
  

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 $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-5632-US-Boston-LiteracySpecia