Instructional Support Manager of Professional Learning
Job Description
Organizational Overview:
At Literacy Trust, we believe education is a basic human right and access to high-quality literacy instruction is a cornerstone of our democracy. Our mission is to leverage existing resources in school communities to increase educational capacity to create fluent, motivated, self-confident readers.
Through our signature program Reading Rescue, we provide professional development for teachers, paraprofessionals, and other school community members. Simultaneously, students are provided literacy intervention, particularly students of color in high-poverty neighborhoods. We strive to implement sustainable intervention models that eventually become a core component of the school’s literacy ecosystem. Reading Rescue is currently partnering with 100 New York City schools, reaching over 800 educators and 1200 students, throughout the five boroughs.
Literacy Trust is an organization that values diversity, equity and inclusion. We demonstrate this by ensuring that our programs and offerings reflect our values. Our focus is on promoting self-empowerment for educators by providing additional resources and support, and by providing more students with opportunities to become readers.
At Literacy Trust, we promote events, ideas, thinking, programs, and communities that inspire action in pursuit of universal access to literacy. To learn more about Literacy Trust, please visit: www.literacytrust.org
Position Summary:
The Manager of Professional Learning’s primary role is to train, mentor, develop, and mobilize a team of school-based staff (classroom teachers, literacy coaches, and paraprofessionals) to deliver high-quality, one-to-one literacy instruction to low performing students. The Manager of Professional Learning will be responsible for ensuring the current Reading Rescue training package is up-to-date, aligned with the latest reading science, and differentiated to meet the needs of the target audience. The Manager of Professional Learning will also assume all responsibility for creating targeted professional development sessions that promote the use of best practices in classroom instruction for school staff who do not receive formal Reading Rescue training.
Key Responsibilities:
- Become an expert in the Reading Rescue program
- Organize and execute the Reading Rescue training for all Literacy Trust partnerships
- Modify current professional development to foster engagement, adult learning, and teach literacy best practices
- Collect and analyze data about professional development activities to track program quality and effectiveness
- Work with Literacy Trust staff and partners to determine professional development needs
- Oversee the maintenance of a database containing records of professional development initiatives
- In collaboration with Senior Staff, research, develop and manage other professional development opportunities that meet Literacy Trust organizational goals
- In collaboration with Senior Staff, research, study and share current information on curriculum, teaching practices and instructional strategies relevant to Program Managers and school needs
- Other duties as required
Requirements
- Passion for Literacy Trust’s mission and impact, and interest in investing external stakeholders in our work
- Ability to work independently in an innovative, fast-paced environment
- Must possess excellent human relations, communication, and organizational skills
- Willingness to travel across all five (5) boroughs of New York City to deliver professional development
- Flexibility and adaptability in your work schedule, including early morning, and occasional evenings
- Possess a strong familiarity with current trends in educational practices and professional development
- Have excellent instructional methods, participation strategies, delivery techniques and the ability to coach and train teachers and administrators in effective pedagogical strategies
- Ability to utilize effective interpersonal skills and a variety of strategies and techniques to reach mutually beneficial goals over time
- Ability to utilize verbal and writing skills to effectively communicate a message particular to an audience and to meet relevant goals, using a clear, concise, and compelling style
- Spanish speaking preferred
- US Citizenship or Permanent Resident Status
Preferred Qualifications
- Hold a Masters Degree in education, early literacy or other literacy-related field
- At least five (2) years experience as a teacher, as well as some experience coaching/instructing adults
- Knowledge of the New York City elementary education community
Benefits:
- Salary: Literacy Trust offers competitive salaries.
- Excellent benefits package: We provide employees with 100% coverage for medical, dental, vision, and life insurance, in addition to partial coverage for family members. We also provide retirement accounts with an employer match.
- Professional development: We provide employees with a professional development budget after your first year of service because we want to see you grow in a way that’s meaningful to you.
- Vacation: We offer employees 15 vacation days. Additionally, employees have the Department of Education winter break and the first week of July as paid time off.
- Work-life balance: In case the vacation time or summer Fridays didn’t make it clear, we pride ourselves in supporting staff to have a healthy work-life balance.
- Fun work environment: We love to celebrate accomplishments, birthdays and more. Our office is also located in a WeWork office space that promotes celebrations and team building.
