Counselor, Alpha – $100,000/year USD

• $100,000/year W2 salary paid weekly; health, dental, and vision benefits starting day one
• On-site at an Alpha K-8 campus located in Denver, CO; Oklahoma City, OK; Tulsa, OK; Nashville, TN; Austin, TX; Brownsville, TX; Fort Worth, TX; Houston, TX (Central, South, or The Woodlands); Park City, UT (Salt Lake City area); or Toronto, Canada (relocation assistance available)

Your role is not to teach. Your role is to motivate.

The most meaningful thing you can do for a student who reaches 99% of their goal is to refuse to accept it as finished. If that expectation makes you uneasy, this role is not for you. If it energizes you because maintaining high standards is how you demonstrate belief in a student’s potential, continue reading.

At Alpha, academic learning happens through AI-driven applications. No lectures. No textbooks. You will spend half your day facilitating one-hour life-skills workshops covering public speaking, focus, and the giving and receiving of constructive feedback. The remaining half is spent working with students individually or in small groups, analyzing their progress via Coachbot analytics, and driving each one toward 100% completion of their weekly app targets. You will not follow a script—workshops provide a foundation, but top performers in this role customize them and create new content when gaps emerge.

Success in any given quarter means every student in your cohort completes their weekly app goals, passes the Test2Pass for all life-skills workshops, and 90%+ report that they love you. Falling short on any of these three measures means the role is not being fulfilled. In your first year you will master the playbook; once you demonstrate you can maintain standards, advancement to Lead Guide becomes possible, where you mentor new hires while continuing direct work with students.

If you prefer traditional teaching methods, want a ready-made curriculum delivered to you, or view warmth and rigorous expectations as incompatible, this position will not suit you. If you have been an athletic coach, a camp counselor, a tutor who would not allow a student to give up, or a performer capable of commanding the attention of eight-year-olds, the final stage before an offer is a full-day on-campus session coaching actual Alpha students. If that prospect excites you most, submit your application today.

What you will be doing

• Facilitating one-hour life-skills workshops for K-8 cohorts covering public speaking, focus, feedback, and other foundational skills, customizing the playbook and creating new sessions when you identify a need
• Conducting daily 1:1 and small-group motivation sessions that drive every student to 100% completion of their weekly app goals, leveraging Coachbot analytics, Alpha’s incentive structures (school currency, leaderboards), and your individual relationships to overcome resistance
• Delivering the Test2Pass (Alpha’s mastery-based assessment) for each life skill, then coaching students who do not pass until mastery is achieved
• Adjusting your coaching approach across a broad age spectrum, from kindergarteners requiring high energy and physical engagement to 8th graders needing direct conversation and accountability
• Serving as the adult who maintains high expectations and the adult students trust and want to engage with; warmth creates the foundation to challenge, and challenging demonstrates your belief in their capability

What you will NOT be doing

• Delivering instruction at a whiteboard; academic content is housed in the apps, not delivered by you
• Creating curriculum from the ground up; you animate an established playbook with energy and narrative
• Passively monitoring students on computers; motivation in this role is active, individualized, and persistent
• Reducing a weekly target to make it easier for a student to achieve; when a student falls behind, the solution is supporting the student, not lowering the standard
• Grading assignments, administering standardized test preparation, or handling parent outreach; Campus Leads manage parent-facing responsibilities, and the rest does not exist in this model

Key Responsibilities

Ensure every student in your K-8 cohort completes their weekly learning targets, achieves mastery in each life skill, and finishes the year reporting that they loved you.

Candidate Requirements

• Willing to work on-site at an Alpha campus in Denver, CO; Oklahoma City, OK; Tulsa, OK; Nashville, TN; Austin, TX; Brownsville, TX; Fort Worth, TX; Houston, TX (Central, South, or The Woodlands); Park City, UT; or Toronto, Canada (relocation assistance provided)
• Bachelor’s degree in any discipline
• At least 3 years of direct experience working with K-8 students (classroom instruction, coaching, tutoring, camp counseling, or youth program leadership)
• A concrete example you can articulate of motivating a K-8 student toward a challenging goal: the objective, your actions, and the result
• Willingness to allow AI to manage instructional content while you concentrate on motivation and life-skills coaching
• Daily usage of generative AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude)
• Legal authorization to work in the US without visa sponsorship (or in Canada for the Toronto campus)

Nice to have

• Background in youth sports coaching, debate, camp leadership, theater, or after-school programs where you held direct responsibility for motivating children toward measurable goals
• Personal record of high achievement (academic, athletic, or professional), such that holding others to rigorous standards is a consistent pattern, not an adopted stance
• Storytelling ability and stage presence sufficient to engage a room of 12-year-olds for an hour without needing to raise your voice
• Demonstrated success converting disengaged or resistant students into active, motivated participants

This position is also known as:

• Youth Mentor
• Career Coach
• Tutor
• Coach
• Youth Counselor
• Camp Counselor
• Youth Program Director
• Youth Development Specialist
• Youth Program Coordinator
• Associate