[Hiring] Lead Core Literacy Consultant @Curriculum Associates

Role Description

Core Literacy Leads are experienced literacy educators and pilot specialists who both lead a team of Core Literacy Specialists and continue to deliver hands-on pilot support themselves. In this player-coach role, they coach, develop, and manage the performance of Core Literacy Specialists while carrying an active, focused caseload of their own pilots — modeling the same high-quality professional learning and consultative support they expect from their team.

Core Literacy Leads own the consistency and quality of pilot delivery across their team. They co-observe professional learning sessions, calibrate expectations, and provide direct, actionable feedback that helps Core Literacy Specialists grow. They partner with the Senior Manager, Curriculum & Instruction on staffing, workload balancing, and hiring decisions, and they serve as the first point of escalation when a Core Literacy Specialist needs support with a complex district relationship or instructional challenge.

Essential Duties/Responsibilities

• Travel: Up to 65%; a blend of personal pilot delivery, team co-observation/coaching visits, and internal collaboration; overnight travel.
• Lead and Develop the Core Literacy Team:
  • Coach, manage, and develop a team of Core Literacy Specialists, providing regular, actionable feedback that strengthens their facilitation, consultation, and classroom-modeling skills.
  • Conduct co-observations and calibration sessions to ensure consistent, high-quality pilot professional learning and consultative support across the team.
  • Partner with the Senior Manager, Curriculum & Instruction on staffing, workload balancing, and capacity planning across pilots and territories.
  • Onboard and train new Core Literacy Specialists, helping them build deep program knowledge and facilitation confidence.
  • Serve as the first point of escalation for Core Literacy Specialists navigating complex district relationships or instructional challenges, looping in Impact Specialists or National Directors when deeper expertise is needed.
  • Partner with the Senior Manager on interviewing and hiring decisions for new Core Literacy Specialists.
• Deliver High-Quality Pilot Professional Learning (Player-Coach):
  • Carry an active, focused caseload of pilots, delivering the same high-quality professional learning expected of Core Literacy Specialists, so coaching stays grounded in current field experience.
  • Facilitate pilot orientations and other professional learning experiences that build educators' understanding of program design, instructional routines, resources, and expectations for implementation.
  • Apply principles of adult learning to differentiate professional learning based on educator experience, grade level, pilot context, and district needs.
  • Tailor pilot professional learning and consultation based on the competitive landscape, helping educators understand the distinctions that matter most within the context of the district's evaluation.
  • Maintain strong facilitation and presentation skills, modeling the bar for quality that the rest of the team is coached toward.
  • Serve as an ambassador for Curriculum Associates, exemplifying the company's mission-driven approach and commitment to creating better classrooms for students and teachers.
• Provide Consultative Support Throughout the Pilot:
  • Build trusted relationships with teachers, coaches, school leaders, and district leaders and serve as a consistent instructional partner throughout the pilot experience.
  • Provide targeted consultation related to lesson planning, pacing, instructional routines, use of program resources, and other questions that emerge as educators experience the program.
  • Demonstrate lessons and instructional routines when appropriate, followed by reflection that connects instructional decisions to program design and student learning.
  • Conduct classroom walkthroughs and engage educators and leaders in conversations that build understanding of how the pilot is taking shape across classrooms.
  • Listen deeply to educator experiences and help teams problem-solve implementation challenges while building their capacity and confidence.
• Elevate Team-Wide Insights and Connect Specialist Support:
  • Aggregate insights from across the entire Core Literacy team — not only personal pilots — and communicate meaningful patterns, successes, and emerging challenges to Curriculum & Instruction leadership.
  • Recognize when questions or implementation challenges require deeper content expertise, strategic intervention, or leadership support, and proactively engage Impact Specialists, National Directors, or other subject matter experts.
  • Provide clear, timely context that enables specialists and field partners to quickly understand the need and determine appropriate next steps.
  • Contribute a team-wide view of field insights that helps internal teams strengthen pilot strategy and better understand districts' experience with the program.
• Support Installation and the Transition to Implementation:
  • Support districts moving from pilot to adoption during the installation period, helping create continuity between the pilot experience and full implementation.
  • Partner with district leaders and internal teams to identify key learnings from pilots — across the whole team — that should inform implementation planning, professional learning, and instructional expectations.
  • Surface potential barriers or unresolved questions from pilots that should be addressed before broader implementation begins.
  • Support the handoff from the pilot team to the teams responsible for ongoing implementation, ensuring important context, district needs, and pilot insights are carried forward.
• Commit to Continued Professional Learning:
  • Demonstrate a commitment to continuous professional learning in literacy, curriculum, instruction, adult learning, and people management.
  • Stay informed about emerging literacy research, instructional practices, standards, and trends that influence classroom instruction and core curriculum implementation.
  • Actively participate in ongoing product, facilitation, leadership-development, and instructional training to maintain a high level of expertise and effectiveness as both a coach and a practitioner.

Qualifications

• Deep knowledge of evidence-based literacy instruction and current best practices in reading and writing.
• Strong knowledge of elementary literacy instruction and the instructional demands of implementing a comprehensive core literacy program.
• Exceptional facilitation skills and ability to engage adult learners in meaningful professional learning.
• Strong classroom presence and ability to confidently model lessons and instructional practices with students.
• Ability to coach, mentor, and develop other consultants, providing direct, actionable, growth-oriented feedback.
• Experience balancing individual client-facing delivery with team leadership and management responsibilities — the player-coach dynamic.
• Comfort making staffing, workload, and capacity-planning decisions across multiple pilots, consultants, and territories.
• Ability to observe classroom instruction and professional learning delivery, recognize meaningful patterns, and clearly communicate insights to consultants, educators, leaders, and internal partners.
• Ability to provide consultative support while building educator capacity and maintaining appropriate boundaries between consultation and deeper specialist support.
• Ability to recognize when a district or team need requires additional expertise and effectively engage the appropriate internal partner.
• Strong organizational skills with an ability to manage a team, multiple pilots, stakeholder relationships, schedules, and competing priorities.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Comfort using digital tools and data to support professional learning, implementation insights, team performance, and communication.
• Embody and model the CA culture tenets in all activities, internal and external.

Requirements

• Minimum of 5 years of experience in education with a strong focus on literacy instruction.
• Demonstrated experience coaching, mentoring, or managing other adult professionals, ideally in a remote or field-based setting.
• Prior people-management experience preferred.
• Demonstrated successful classroom teaching experience in literacy; experience teaching with a comprehensive core literacy program strongly preferred.
• Experience providing professional learning, coaching, or instructional support to teachers and/or school leaders.
• Experience supporting curriculum implementation and/or participating in a curriculum pilot or adoption preferred.
• Demonstrated effectiveness working cross-functionally, building relationships with remote teams, and working with a broad range of stakeholders.
• Bachelor's degree in education, literacy, English language arts, or related field required; advanced degree in literacy, curriculum and instruction, or related field preferred.

Benefits

• Pay Range: This role’s range is $69,250 - $118,250.
• Benefit eligible employees (and their families) are covered by medical, dental, vision, and basic life insurance.
• Employees can enroll in our company’s 401k plan and receive an employer match.
• Access to a flexible vacation and sick policy in addition to twelve paid holidays and a winter office closure between Christmas and New Year's.
• A number of additional perks and benefits.