After School Educator

This highly challenging and rewarding position requires someone who is the perfect combination of gregarious, autonomous, and professional. The position requires a highly motivated individual who thrives with minimal oversight. This position is typically part-time with an average of 6-15 hours a week, although the weekly hours may vary depending on the client's need and the selected candidate’s availability.

Each afterschool class taught by the employee will be considered one shift, and each shift will pay $60. Employees in good standing will receive automatic $6/shift raises each semester they return to coach, up until they reach the $90/shift cap. Bonuses are lavish and given to coaches who exceed expectations. This job pays well and allows for immense flexibility and autonomy, and it is also deeply rewarding to foster the intellectual growth of students.

The five most important outcomes of this position in order of importance are as follows:

• Foster and maintain a safe and well-managed environment for children. Parents and faculty trust you to ensure a safe, controlled atmosphere.
• Empower children to practice good sportsmanship and character. The employer believes growing as a person is far more important than growing as a chess player.
• Create a fun atmosphere. Without compromising the first two outcomes, make chess class the most energetic, party-driven, exciting, rewards-filled, and fun part of every child’s entire week.
• Teach classes of children to become good at chess. Research shows that children who become good at chess forge self-identities as being smart people, which leads to confidence, academic performance, and ultimately professional success. **No prior chess knowledge is required or expected.
• Build engagement and excitement with every child, parent, and faculty member you interact with to help spread The Knight School’s addictive, revolutionary approach to chess class to every child in every corner of America.

The position of Chess Instructor and has the following qualifications:

• Strong character and integrity, including the ability to pass a background check and any school-required background check; the safety and wellbeing of our students is our highest priority.
• A love for working with kids, including the ability to create a fun and focused environment
• Highly gregarious, personable, extroverted, and affirming personality, or the ability to theatrically perform as an extrovert while conducting classes
• Highly conscientious, including a high sense of responsibility for the well-being of all children in our care
• Highly professional and dependable including excellent communications skills, as the School Coach will serve as Liaison between the client and students, teachers, principals, and parents
• Highly patient and emotionally stable and actively demonstrates grace for others
• Believes in and advocates for kids developmentally; additionally has a growth-oriented general mindset for themselves and others
• Absolute punctuality and attendance reliability; arriving late or missing class could result in unattended children or school personnel having to cover our class
• Demonstrates the skill or ability to pay careful attention to detail and follow instructions, including following classroom management rules and curriculum format
• Professional demeanor and appearance; the School Coach must present himself or herself as a professional person and meet the dress code and grooming standards of teachers in our schools. In general, shorts (except knee-length, dressy shorts), sweat pants, jeans, tank tops, mesh shirts, cutoff shirts, t-shirts, unkempt facial hair, ear gauges (these may be covered with clothing or bandages) are prohibited. Specific dress code exceptions may be granted depending on the specific school and for religious reasons.
• The ability to maintain order in a classroom or “classroom management” skills
• Reliable transportation to cover multiple classes at multiple locations within a week
• Completed University Education (Bachelor’s Degree or higher) OR in progress University Education
• Experience working with kids preferred

The Physical Requirements of this position are such that the selected candidate must be able to:

• Transport a backpack weighing 17-22 pounds along with other hand-held supplies, into a school, set up a projector called a “tech pack,” breakdown that tech pack after class, and transport those supplies back out of the school for every class taught.
• Carry in and distribute numerous chess sets (each weighing approximately two pounds) and t-shirts to new students. School Coaches distribute numerous chess sets and t-shirts in the initial week of a class, and then just as needed throughout the rest of the year.
• Be aware of and continuously and solely responsible for children within their care and supervision without hindrance or interruption.

The position of Chess Instructor carries the following responsibilities, although the terms of the School Coach’s Employment Contract and any specific instructions from the City Coach take precedence over this general outline:

• Chess Instructors will meet their students at the designated place at the host school, begin class in a group setting, set up and run a lesson (PowerPoint or video) produced by Dr. David Brooks, and will guide and supervise children through the lesson of the week. Class will generally after the end of school (some of the locations have varying hours and Coach will give you details for your location) at which point Instructors escort the class out to the designated area at the host school. Preschool classes typically run for 45 minutes, and Elementary classes typically run for 75 minutes. At most schools, the Chess Instructor must additionally escort the class members to/from a designated area at the host school.
• Instructors must arrive at their assigned schools for set-up thirty minutes before school dismisses for the day and must remain at the school until all students are delivered to parents or after-school care providers and until all technology is repacked and the facilities are left in the same condition as prior to the class. The arrival time may vary depending on the specific school, and it is the Instructor’s responsibility to know the arrival time for each of their classes.
• Instructors will be assigned by the City Coach to schools according to what fits best in terms of geography, schedule, and personality fit with individual schools. The school to which Instructors are assigned will remain generally stable but may shift from time to time, especially at the beginning of the year as a few locations may close from lack of sufficient enrollment.
• Instructors are expected to work for a full academic year commitment that runs from approximately the final two weeks of August, every week each of the 9 full months school is in session (Sept-May); other obligations may be detailed in your individual Employment Contract. There are typically 16 weeks in a semester and 32 in a year. No class meets whenever a host-school is not in session—for example there is no chess on spring break, holidays or inclement weather days—and Instructors are paid only for those sessions they attend. Further summer employment is available but not guaranteed, in the form of chess camp coaches.
• Chess Instructors should assume that some of their locations may involve traveling over congested areas and school traffic may lead to slow transportation times. Part of the Instructor’s responsibility is to plan travel times carefully since traffic can be challenging and tardiness means leaving children unattended, which is grounds for discipline up to and including immediate termination.
• The client and all the school systems it serves are extremely careful regarding all aspects of a child’s well-being; the safety and well-being of our students is our first priority.
• Chess instructors may not provide any students with transportation to or from classes. Chess Instructors must wait at the school until each chess student is picked up by his or her ride.
• At the client's discretion, the position of Chess Instructor may additionally carry additional responsibilities depending on time of year and business need.