Manager of Literacy Practice

Job Description

Job Description

Manager of Literacy Practice

Home Office (Bay Area)
Reports to: Senior Director of Learning Experience – Literacy (Schools Team)

The Manager of Literacy Practice is a systems-level instructional leader responsible for strengthening literacy teaching, learning, and student outcomes across Summit Public Schools. This role leads the coordination and implementation of the organization’s strategy for literacy development, ensuring all students build strong skills in reading, writing, and academic discourse through access to rigorous, standards-aligned instruction.

Working in a Home Office role as part of the Schools Team, the Manager ensures coherence and quality in the implementation of Summit’s literacy curricula across grade bands, including EL Education (middle school), Odell Education (grades 9–10), and Advanced Placement (grades 11–12), while supporting intervention systems such as Coursemojo for middle school literacy support. This role also builds and moves the systems that support strong instruction, effective intervention, and data-driven improvement.

The Manager partners closely with regional leaders, school leadership teams, Deans of Culture and Instruction (DCIs), and Literacy Specialists to translate organizational priorities into school-level practice. Through professional learning, curriculum stewardship, and strategic use of student achievement data, this role ensures Summit’s literacy program consistently advances student mastery of grade-level standards and college-ready literacy skills.

A central lever of this role is the development and coaching of site-based Literacy Specialists. By building the capacity of specialists as instructional leaders, this role drives improved teaching and learning outcomes across classrooms and schools.

The Manager reports to the Senior Director of Learning Experience (Literacy) and plays a key role in advancing Summit’s commitment to improving student outcomes and building strong literacy across the system.

How the work will happen: This role will require travel between school sites and quarterly travel to Washington State. The candidate should expect to be on site in our East Bay schools and schools across the peninsula on average 2–3 days per week.

Who We Are:

What if all students graduated high school with the knowledge, skills and habits they need to lead a fulfilled life? This is the question that guides our mission at Summit Public Schools.

To collectively prepare a diverse community of young people with the skills, knowledge, and habits to attain economic empowerment and success in a chosen concrete next step toward a fulfilled life. We operate 10 schools serving over 3,300 students in the Bay Area and Washington state. 100% of Summit graduates are college ready and Summit graduates complete college at double the national average.

We need exceptional, diverse, and mission-aligned people to join our team to help prepare our students for a fulfilled life. Join us!

What You'll Do

System Leadership for Literacy Instruction

• In partnership with the Senior Director of Learning Experience, support the development and continuous improvement of Summit’s system-wide literacy strategy focused on improving student outcomes and college readiness.

• Ensure coherent implementation of:

  • EL Education (middle school), maintaining fidelity to knowledge-building, complex text engagement, and student discourse

  • Odell Education (grades 9–10), maintaining fidelity to text-based writing, inquiry, and analytical thinking

  • Advanced Placement (grades 11–12), ensuring alignment to college-level rigor and assessment expectations

• Ensure coherent implementation of Coursemojo across middle schools, maintaining fidelity to intervention design and ensuring alignment to core literacy instruction.

• Partner with regional and school leadership to strengthen instructional systems that support high-quality literacy teaching.

• Identify and address system-level barriers to strong literacy instruction and student learning.

Professional Learning & Leadership Development

• Design and lead system-wide professional development for Literacy Specialists, teachers, instructional leaders, and Deans of Culture and Instruction.

• Lead network-wide professional learning for Literacy Specialists and DCIs focused on:

  • Instructional coaching

  • Curriculum internalization across grade bands

  • Instructional strategies for reading, writing, and discourse

  • Pacing and planning

  • Data-driven instructional decision-making

• Build leadership capacity among site leaders and specialists to effectively support literacy instruction and curriculum implementation.

Curriculum Stewardship & Instructional Resources

• Serve as the system steward for Summit’s literacy curriculum, ensuring coherence across grade levels and school models.

• Lead the development and maintenance of key curriculum resources, including:

  • Pacing guides across EL, Odell, and AP

  • Canvas course structures and instructional materials

  • Teacher and specialist implementation supports

  • Integration of Coursemojo with core literacy instruction

• Support strong curriculum internalization at the site level through Literacy Specialists and DCIs, ensuring alignment to instructional priorities and expectations.

• Ensure alignment between curriculum, assessments, and instructional expectations across schools.

Data Analysis & Continuous Improvement

• Lead analysis of network-, regional-, and school-level literacy achievement data to identify trends, opportunities, and priority focus areas (e.g., NWEA MAP Reading, SBAC, writing assessments, AP results).

• Regularly review student data with Literacy Specialists to guide targeted instructional decisions, including student groupings, intervention planning, and instructional adjustments.

• Partner with school leaders and school teams to develop data-informed action plans that drive improvements in literacy outcomes.

• Establish systems for monitoring progress toward organizational literacy goals.

Tiered Supports & Intervention Systems

• Ensure strong alignment across Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 literacy supports to improve student access to grade-level texts and tasks.

• Partner with schools to monitor and continuously improve intervention systems that accelerate student learning.

• Oversee the effective use of Coursemojo as a middle school intervention, ensuring it is strategically implemented and aligned with core instruction.

• Support alignment between core instruction, targeted supports, and extended learning opportunities.

• Guide specialists in making strategic, data-driven decisions about interventions and student groupings.

Literacy Specialist Coordination & Instructional Coaching

• Lead the system-level coordination and strategic deployment of Literacy Specialists across Summit schools.

• Serve as the primary coach for Literacy Specialists, building their capacity to:

  • Lead effective teacher coaching cycles

  • Internalize and implement curriculum with fidelity

  • Support strong reading, writing, and discourse instruction

  • Use data to drive instructional decisions and interventions

• Rotate across school sites to:

  • Conduct joint instructional walkthroughs with specialists and site-based leaders

  • Calibrate on literacy instructional quality and student experience

  • Identify patterns in instruction and curriculum implementation

• Use walkthrough observations and student data to identify misalignment in instruction or pacing, and partner with site leaders to reset direction.

• Ensure specialists and DCIs maintain clear and consistent pacing aligned to network expectations across literacy courses.

• Support internalization of curriculum at the site level through specialists and DCIs, strengthening day-to-day instructional execution.

• Strengthen instructional quality indirectly by developing specialists as the primary coaching lever, while providing direct teacher support selectively when:

  • A site requires additional support, or

  • A high-leverage opportunity exists to model instruction, co-plan, or build specialist capacity

• Facilitate collaboration among specialists to share best practices and increase collective impact across the network.

Success Metrics

Student Outcomes

• Measurable improvement in reading proficiency, writing outcomes, and AP performance across Summit schools.

• Increased percentage of students demonstrating grade-level mastery of literacy standards.

Literacy Instructional Quality

• Increased evidence of high-quality implementation of EL, Odell, and AP curricula.

• Improved classroom indicators of:

  • Text-based discussion

  • Analytical writing

  • Student engagement with complex texts

Instructional Leadership Capacity

• Increased capacity of Literacy Specialists, DCIs, and site leaders to support strong literacy instruction.

• Evidence of strong specialist-led coaching and instructional leadership at school sites.

• Positive feedback from teachers and leaders regarding the effectiveness of literacy professional learning.

Intervention Effectiveness

• Stronger alignment of Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 supports, resulting in improved outcomes for students receiving targeted literacy interventions.

System Coherence

• Consistent use of shared literacy curriculum resources, pacing guides, and instructional systems across schools.

• Effective coordination and deployment of Literacy Specialists to support priority school needs.

• Strong alignment between curriculum, pacing, instruction, and data across the network.

What You Need

• Deep expertise in secondary literacy instruction, including reading, writing, and discourse.

• Demonstrated experience implementing one or more of the following:

  • EL Education

  • Odell Education

  • Advanced Placement (AP) English

• Strong understanding of adolescent literacy development, including support for struggling readers and multilingual learners.

• Experience leading instructional improvement efforts across multiple schools or teams.

• Demonstrated success designing and facilitating professional development for educators and instructional leaders.

• Experience analyzing student achievement data and leading data-driven improvement initiatives.

• Experience designing or supporting multi-tiered systems of support (Tier 1, 2, and 3) in literacy.

• Strong systems thinking and the ability to translate organizational strategy into school-level practice.

• Exceptional collaboration and facilitation skills across diverse teams.

• Deep commitment to equity and ensuring all students have access to rigorous, grade-level literacy instruction.

What You Get:

In addition to joining a highly motivated team and engaging in meaningful work, you’ll have access to a comprehensive suite of benefits including a retirement plan, “take what you need” PTO policy, 11 paid holidays, and 3 weeks of organization-wide closures during the year. You and your dependents will have access to multiple health, dental, and vision plans at 25% cost (we cover the other 75%) and employee life and disability insurance at no cost. Our compensation policy strives to be equitable and transparent. The salary for this position starts at $102,148 and goes up to $120,888 commensurate with experience and qualifications.

Summit is an equal opportunity employer. We believe that diversity, equity, and inclusion are directly intertwined with education. We are ALL better when we are able to bring our whole selves to work and honor each other’s voices across identities, cultural backgrounds, and life experiences. We welcome and encourage applications from individuals who are members of historically marginalized communities. Spanish language proficiency is a plus.