Instructional Support Program Manager
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 and create fluent, motivated, self-confident readers.
We provide professional development to allow teachers, paraprofessionals, and other school community members to utilize our signature literacy intervention program, Reading Rescue. We strive to build 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 1500 students, throughout the five boroughs.
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.
The Program Manager’s primary role is to develop a team of school-based educators to deliver high-quality, one-to-one instruction to struggling first-grade readers. The Program Manager manages all aspects of program quality, delivery, and implementation in up to twenty schools. The Program Manager is an inspiring team leader, is goal-oriented, and is excited by both detail-oriented work and big-picture thinking.
What you’ll do:
School Relationship Building and Communication
- Foster positive relationships with school staff including teachers, paraprofessionals, principals, parents, and students.
- Train, coach and support Program Coordinators and instructors.
- Act as liaison to school sites, the New York City Department of Education, and external partners.
- Work collaboratively as an ambassador of the program, especially with school leaders and staff.
- Establish and maintain strong systems for communication and messaging.
- Break down complex topics for a variety of audiences and employ excellent written communication skills.
Program Implementation, Leadership and Quality Control
- Schedule and deliver professional development focused on program implementation to school staff.
- Conduct site visits to monitor program fidelity and quality control.
- Observe instructors and provide structured and targeted feedback.
- Lead implementation of our organization’s assessment and curriculum and become an expert on Reading Rescue’s curriculum.
- Ensure high fidelity to the Reading Rescue model at all school sites.
- Assess student performance using observations. Analyze data and develop strategies aimed at increasing student achievement.
- Monitor and assess overall implementation of the program including administrator support for the program.
- Utilize both qualitative and quantitative data, as available, to ensure the majority of students make significant gains and or reach grade level.
Facilitation of Adult Learning
- Prepare to facilitate each of the 8 days of the Reading Rescue Professional Development series by internalizing the content.
- Prepare facilitator materials, activities, and technology prior to each scheduled facilitation day.
- Facilitate sessions in alignment with Literacy Trust facilitator rubric.
- Utilize a high level of knowledge and competency in literacy strategies to respond to questions and comments during facilitation.
- Manage PD accountability systems including attendance, sign in / sign out procedures, and CTLE forms.
- Follow-up with instructors to answer any outstanding questions from the session.
Project Management
- Demonstrate an ability to manage time effectively, balance multiple competing priorities at once and above all remain adaptable, flexible, and positive while navigating challenges.
- Anticipate challenges and/or questions, and proactively act to address them. Understand larger strategic priorities and make measurable progress against these larger goals.
- Other duties as required
Requirements:
- Deep belief in our mission
- Master’s degree in education or related subject area
- 2+ years working with elementary-aged students in an educational setting, teaching experience is strongly preferred
- Expertise in early literacy
- Knowledge and understanding of current best practices in literacy
- Experience with literacy assessments, teaching strategies, and student data analysis
- Access to reliable transportation to travel throughout the 5 boroughs, as needed
- Flexibility and adaptability in your work schedule, including early mornings, and occasional evenings
- Excellent computer skills, including MS Office, Keynote and Google Docs
- US Citizenship or Permanent Resident Status
Preferred qualifications:
- Direct management experience of tutors and/or school staff
- Two or more years of experience as a Program Manager or classroom teacher
- Familiarity with Salesforce
- Fluency in Spanish or other language other than English
- Knowledge of and connection to 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.
