Youth Development Specialist, Alpha - $100,000/year USD

• $100,000 annual W2 salary with weekly pay; comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage from day one
• Full-time on-site position at an Alpha K-8 school in Scottsdale (Phoenix), AZ; 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 region) - relocation assistance available
  
  

This is not a teaching position. This is a motivation role.

The most powerful support you can offer a student who reaches 99% of their target is to insist they finish. If that principle unsettles you, this role is not a fit. If it energizes you—because maintaining high expectations is how you demonstrate belief in a student's capacity—read on.

Alpha students complete academic content through AI-driven applications. No traditional lessons. No printed materials. You spend half your day facilitating one-hour life-skills sessions covering public speaking, concentration, and constructive feedback exchange. The remaining half is dedicated to individual and small-group check-ins, where you analyze Coachbot performance data and guide each student toward 100% completion of their weekly application targets. You will not follow a rigid script—workshop frameworks provide direction, but top performers customize them and create new content when needs arise.

Your quarter is successful when every student in your group completes weekly app objectives, passes the Test2Pass for all life-skills workshops, and 90% report positive relationships with you. Falling short on any component means the role expectations are not met. During your first year, you will internalize the operational model; as you demonstrate your ability to uphold standards, advancement opportunities open to Lead Guide, where you mentor incoming staff while continuing direct student work.

If you prefer conventional classroom instruction, need fully prepared materials, or see warmth and rigor as incompatible, this position will disappoint. If your background includes athletic coaching, residential camp leadership, tutoring where you refused to accept quit, or performance work that could captivate elementary audiences, the final interview stage is a full-day campus visit coaching actual Alpha students. If that prospect excites you most, submit your application now.

What You Will Be Doing

• Facilitating one-hour life-skills sessions for K-8 groups on public speaking, concentration, feedback, and other transferable competencies, customizing the framework and creating new modules when you identify unmet needs
• Conducting daily individual and small-group coaching conversations that drive every student to 100% weekly app completion, leveraging Coachbot data, Alpha's motivation systems (campus currency, performance rankings), and your personal rapport with each child to overcome disengagement
• Delivering the Test2Pass (Alpha's competency-based evaluation) for each life skill, and providing continued coaching to students until mastery is demonstrated
• Adjusting your approach across a broad developmental spectrum, from kindergarteners requiring energetic and kinesthetic engagement to eighth graders needing direct conversation and personal responsibility
• Serving as the adult who maintains rigorous expectations and the adult students trust; care creates the foundation for challenge, and challenge communicates your confidence in their ability
  
  

What You Won’t Be Doing

• Delivering traditional board instruction; academic teaching is embedded in the applications, not in your role
• Creating workshop content from the ground up; you execute an established framework with energy and narrative skill
• Passively monitoring students on devices; motivation in this model is direct, interpersonal, and continuous
• Reducing weekly targets to enable completion; when a student falls behind, the solution is increased effort, not lowered standards
• Scoring assignments, facilitating standardized exam preparation, or handling family correspondence; Campus Leads manage parent interaction, and the other tasks do not exist in this structure
  
  

Youth Development Specialist Key Responsibilities

Drive every student in your K-8 group to complete weekly learning targets, demonstrate mastery of each life skill, and conclude the year reporting a strong relationship with you.

Basic Requirements

• Available to work on-site at an Alpha campus 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 direct experience with K-8 students (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, your actions, and the result
• Comfort allowing AI to deliver instructional content while you concentrate on motivation and life-skills development
• Daily engagement with generative AI platforms (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude)
• Authorization to work in the United States without requiring visa sponsorship (or in Canada for the Toronto location)
  
  

Nice-to-have Requirements

• Background in youth sports coaching, competitive debate, camp direction, theater, or after-school initiatives where you held direct accountability for student motivation toward defined outcomes
• Demonstrated pattern of high personal achievement (academic, athletic, or career), such that maintaining rigorous standards for others reflects consistent behavior, not performance
• Communication and presence capable of sustaining attention from a room of middle schoolers for an hour without volume escalation
• History of converting reluctant or oppositional 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. 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-FortWort-YouthDevelopme.054