Director of Instruction

About GO and our Fellowship

The mission of the Great Oaks (GO) Foundation is to provide students with access to a quality education through high-dosage tutoring. We recruit, train, and support a corps of young adults who are placed in partner schools where they intensively tutor students as a part of a year of service through the federal AmeriCorps program. We call our tutors "Fellows" to encompass the several roles they play to instruct, mentor, and develop the students with whom they are matched. In the 2023-24 school year, Fellows are serving in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Washington, DC.

To learn more about the Fellowship: https://gofellows.org/become-a-fellow/about-the-program/

Position Summary

The challenge: GO Fellows serve in more than a dozen school buildings, each of which has its own instructional expectations. One of our goals is for Fellows to lead their students to significant academic growth, but in many cases, Fellows do not receive formal training on how to tutor.

The solution: Join our team as the Director of Instruction, a brand new position. You'll lead Fellow training and development during the summer and throughout the year. You'll be charged with training Fellows on research-based instructional strategies that will work for them no matter which school they're placed in. You'll also observe Fellows in action and work with their school-based managers to help them get really good at tutoring.

Key Responsibilities

• Vision for Instruction (20% of role, higher initially) - Our Fellowship model has three components: Develop a Community, Mentor for Leadership, and Instruct for Mastery. You'll refine our vision for tutorial instruction by building a set of curriculum-agnostic skills that will help Fellows succeed in any of our school placements. Included in this vision should be a focus on culturally responsive strategies that honor the identity of both Fellows and students; you will collaborate with our Chief Equity Officer in this area.
• Professional Development Planner and Facilitator (60% of role) - You'll develop training materials to help Fellows understand, practice, and master the key skills required for effective tutoring. As a strong event planner, you will design key parts of the GO Forum (summer training) and collaborate with colleagues and school partners to plan and execute Fellow training throughout their service year (via professional development days in their cities). You will choose when to personal facilitate a session, when to leverage your colleagues' expertise, and when to bring in external practitioners.
• Team Member (20% of role) - Our team is highly collaborative and we all show up to help make our programming successful. You will be expected to facilitate and support programming involving Fellows, Teacher Residents, and school leaders. You will also participate in monthly GO Foundation staff meetings and in-person collaboration days. As part of this work, you'll visit schools throughout our network to gather data on Fellow performance and support site-based leaders with their coaching of Fellows.

Must Have (we will not consider candidates without):

• 7+ years of instructional experience (includes tutoring, teaching, and administration) within grades 3-12
• Track record of leading students to significant academic growth
• Experience working with students from low-income backgrounds
• Previous instructional leadership experience as a school- or network-based coach, supervisor, or administrator
• Extensive facilitation experience and understanding of how adults learn
• Exceptional project management skills with an ability to invest others in what you're building
• Demonstrated experience using data to drive decision-making
• Superb organizational skills and communication skills, both electronically and in-person
• Awareness of and comfort with issues of diversity, specifically around race, class, sexuality and gender; ability to engage in and facilitate discussion about these topics
• Ability to balance working remotely with frequent travel (see Location section below)

Nice to Have:

• Previous experience with AmeriCorps programs
• Previous experience as a GO Fellow or someone who has worked closely with GO Fellows
• Previous experience working with early-career professionals

The Director of Instruction reports to the Chief Program Officer. For questions about this role, reach out to the CPO, Elie Bilmes, at ebilmes@gofellows.org

Start Date

• Our ideal start date is no later than July 8, to ensure ample time to prepare for the GO Forum (Fellow summer training) beginning July 29.

Location

• You must live within one of the states where GO Fellows are serving (CT, NY, NJ, DC) and within 35 miles of one of our service sites. The GO Fellowship will expand to Boston, MA, in Fall 2024.
• GO Foundation staff work remotely most days, but you will need to be able to work in-person 7-8 days per month. This includes up to 2 in-person staff meeting days in New York City, up to 2 in-person Fellow development days (in DC, NYC, CT, or MA), and 3-4 days in which you visit schools in our network.
• The GO Foundation covers the cost of work-related travel.

Compensation

• Annual salary range for this role is $100,000-110,000, dependent on experience.

Benefits

• Unlimited Paid Time Off
• 403B
• Flexible spending account
• Health insurance
• Vision insurance
• Dental insurance
• Health savings account
• Life insurance
• Parental Leave