Instructional Support Education Director
Job Description
About Us
Youth Communication provides powerful, teen-written stories and professional development to help educators and youth workers connect with the teens they serve and build their social and emotional competencies and literacy skills. To our knowledge, we are the only organization that puts the voices of struggling youth at the center of curricula and professional development.
The education department is fairly new at our 38-year-old organization. Beginning four years ago, we built a curriculum and professional development framework that would enable educators to be more effective in engaging struggling teens. Based on that framework, we developed five curricula, each with about two dozen lessons (topics include SEL for middle and high school students, gender, and work readiness). We also created day-long interactive professional development sessions for each curriculum. Last year, we trained more than 400 educators at several dozen schools, after school programs, and city agencies.
We want to expand the programs we offer and dramatically increase the number of schools and agencies that use them. Our employees must be self-directed, hands-on, and passionate about serving educators and marginalized youth, including youth in alternative schools, after school programs, and the foster care and juvenile justice systems. We want someone who is just as comfortable presenting our work to principals and education directors as s/he is writing monthly lessons to accompany our teen-written magazines.
Moving forward, the Education Director will play a key role in developing new training programs for educators on specialized topics, like restorative practices and trauma, which are based on our stories but are not tied directly to our five curricula. We also expect to develop several new mini-curricula of about 10 lessons each.
Qualifications
We are looking for a master trainer who can also write curricula and provide the educational vision to sustain and grow this work. The ideal candidate will have the following skills and background:
- A background in education, including teaching experience, and an advanced degree in education.
- Knowledge of the NYC educational landscape.
- Strong understanding of social and emotional learning and literacy for struggling readers.
- Experience providing professional development to diverse staff (school-based, after school, etc.)
- Experience developing lessons and curricula.
- Familiarity with the challenges of educators who work with marginalized teens.
- Ability to work independently, manage multiple projects at once, and set and meet deadlines.
- Familiarity with and/or interest in social science research and how it applies to educational practice.
- Passion for reading and writing.
Scope of Responsibilities
Supervisor: Deputy Director
Direct Reports: Per Diem trainers and other staff as we grow (e.g., per diem curriculum writers)
Works closely with: YC management team, editorial, and administrative staff
Manage Professional Development and Coaching (40%)
- Manage all aspects of professional development, including: Provide full- and half-day trainings on our curricula and on specialized topics; Hire, supervise, and train several per diem trainers and coaches, as needed, who work with schools and contract agencies to implement our programs; Refine PD offerings, as needed, based on feedback from trainers and sites. Work with YC administrative staff to coordinate training schedules, coaching, etc.
- Provide coaching to YC partner sites (teachers, afterschool workers, etc…) to improve their group facilitation and youth development skills. This will also include developing and refining our coaching model.
Create Lessons and Curricula (40%)
- Update existing curricula in response to changing needs.
- Create new curricula and trainings based on customer needs (e.g., create a 10-lesson mini-curriculum on middle school to high school transition; design story-based workshops to build staff awareness and youth development skills).
- Complete an in-progress “casebook” that will use our stories to help pre-service teachers better understand struggling students, develop greater empathy for them, and identify strategies for engaging them (in collaboration with the Hunter College School of Education).
- Stay abreast of new ideas in education (including core youth development, social and emotional learning and literacy issues, and topic-specific issues, such as gender, restorative practice, middle school to high school transition, etc.), and integrate them into our training and curricula as needed.
- Write lessons for our two teen magazines (9 issues per year).
Manage Continuous Improvement and Growth (20%)
- Work to improve lessons and professional development—and develop new programs—based on feedback obtained through surveys, observation, and new trends and research on social-emotional learning, literacy, and youth development.
- Work with YC management team to assess customer demand, available funding, workload, and other factors to determine need to hire per diem and/or permanent staff to support Education Department activities.
