POSITION: Senior Director, Liz Smith Center for Adult & Family Literacy (NEW position)
STATUS: Full-time
LOCATION: New York City (remote and in-person)
START DATE: Immediately

REPORTING TO: Chief Executive Officer

Literacy Partners strengthens families through a two-generation approach to education. Parents come to Literacy Partners to transform their lives and create a brighter future for their children through the power of literacy. They use our classes, workshops, and educational media to further develop the literacy and language skills they need to solve problems and achieve their goals. Our research-based curricula also incorporate child development and parenting support to help parents boost their children’s early learning, school readiness, and social emotional growth.

The Senior Director of the Liz Smith Center for Adult & Family Literacy (Center) is a new leadership position at Literacy Partners. One of two program divisions, the Center has 13 full-time staff, several adjunct instructors, and 97 volunteers and interns. Serving 415 students, the Center achieves the Literacy Partners two-generation mission with three distinct offerings:

1. Reading for Adults (adult basic education)

2. College Transition for Young Adult Moms

3. English for Immigrant Parents

A Dream Job in Adult Literacy. The heart of this position is teaching and learning: leading our team to create the conditions, organize the resources, and facilitate the encounters with students that enable parents who enroll with Literacy Partners to transform their lives and create a brighter future for their children. The opportunity is to lead organizational development and growth: to plan and execute visionary next steps for each of our program offerings; advance our culture of excellence through reflective practice and data-driven analysis; cultivate external partnerships and funding opportunities to catalyze our growth; and develop our talent to their fullest potential so that our team can thrive and we can achieve our goals. The context is a Center committed to racial equity and social justice, working to translate our anti-racist theory of change into practices specific to the parents we engage that yield important results while connecting our day-to-day work to the broader movements for social change.

The Senior Director reports to the Chief Executive Officer and is a member of the Executive Leadership Team, along with the Chief Operating Officer, Chief External Affairs Officer, and the leader of our other program division, La Fuerza de Familias Latinas.

Areas of Responsibility: Working closely with the Director of Adult Education (who oversees the Center’s operations and ensures compliance with government contracts), the Senior Director will strengthen our capacity to deliver on our promise to a growing number of students and sustain our impact over the long term by focusing on three areas of leadership:

a. Program Development & Implementation

■ Collaborate with relevant staff to articulate a vision and define strategy for the growth and development of each of the Center’s programs
■ Work with key external partners from early childhood development, k-12 education, the City University of New York and from the healthcare sector to scale our programs in ways that respond to key priorities across these systems
■ Pitch the Center’s programs to funders and other stakeholders
■ Provide mentorship and coaching to develop the Center’s team, promote teacher leadership, and ensure high performance

b. Teaching & Learning

■ Support our teachers and volunteer tutors to continue translating liberatory goals into effective and practical learning encounters for our students
■ Back our team to fully implement our existing curricula and to develop new curricula where needed to inform the growth and expansion of each program
■ Observe teachers and oversee reflective practice, lifting up the key routines, rituals and instructional practices that should animate our program
■ Back our staff to monitor volunteer tutors and enhance their skills

c. Analytics & Impact

■ Oversee goal-setting, metrics, and data analysis to advance our progress and deepen our impact
■ Develop dashboards of relevant KPI and promote a proactive culture to use data to drive program impact
■ Report on progress and impact to internal and external stakeholders

The Senior Director will serve as a spokesperson for the Liz Smith Center and will have ample opportunity for professional growth and advancement.

Qualifications

● Track record of success in a director-level position of an educational program for adults in a non-profit or public alternative education setting for a minimum of three years
● A Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in adult education, TESOL, public administration, or related area
● Proven experience supervising teachers and overseeing curriculum in a social justice-oriented or anti-oppressive context
● Experience working in communities of color, with immigrant families, and with adults with undiagnosed or untreated learning disabilities
● Proven ability to supervise, mentor, and coach non-teaching staff
● Experience managing program/department budgets
● Familiarity with Salesforce and experience with project management software
● Ability to work in-person in NYC and remotely as needed
● Bilingual in Arabic, Mandarin, or Spanish preferred (but not required)
● Great sense of humor

Compensation and Benefits

Salary: $110,000-$120,000 (annualized)

Benefits include:

● Flexible work environment (in-person and remote)
● 20 vacation days, 3 personal days, 12 holidays
● Excellent medical, vision and dental plan
● Employer-matched contributions to retirement plan

How to Apply: Send resume with a brief cover letter to job@literacypartners.org. Please include salary range expectation and earliest start date in the cover letter. Put “Senior Director” with your name in the subject line. Interviews will be granted on a rolling basis until the position is filled.

Mission-driven, family-friendly work environment. We focus on results and support our team with flexibility in hours and other work arrangements to get there.

Literacy Partners is committed to diversity and is a proud Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.