House Director (Full-Time)

THE ROLE

The House Director will partner with the Assistant House Director and NJ Bonner AmeriCorps Program Coordinator/House-Sister to co-lead the HomeWorks house and cultivate a culture around our values of intentionality, empathy and community.

• House

• Ensure and meet the needs of scholars’ emotional and mental well-being. The House Director takes initiative in engaging in healthy conversations with the scholars and maintaining open communication.

• Must be available from dinner until the girls head to school the next morning, as well as live in the home. This includes being on-call throughout the night.

• Enforce all policies and protocol and use restorative justice practices.

• Keeping a record of scholars’ medical requirements and dosages, monitoring scholars' hygiene, and accounting for each scholar at lights out (bedtime).

• Manage all household expenses, including coordinating buying house and program supplies, and updating the house expense tracker.

• Develop a culture of intentionality, empathy and community.

• Run Weekly House Meetings

• Co-Lead scholar and peer leader check-ins

• Plan and co-lead Programming and House Team Days with fun activities

• Build structure and guide scholars to start and lead their own club activities

• Assist as bus aid a few times a week.

• Coordinate with Stouts on weekly transportation needs.

• Alert schools of any transportation delays.

• Work with the COO to build towards the future of HomeWorks. This can look like developing and implementing program strategy, which includes projects such as the climate and culture and alumni engagement.

• Ensure all scholar grades are up-to-date and contact parents or teachers about any concerns.

• Create missing assignment trackers, when needed, to support scholars  getting back on track.

• Parents

• Lead and handle all parent communication and relationships.

• Create the agenda and lead monthly parent meetings/community potlucks.

• Recruitment

• Co-Lead on Scholar Recruitment, which includes reading applications, interviewing and calling prospective scholars and parents, deliberation etc.

• Field Trips

• Attend, lead and manage field trips.

• Organization, Team and Communication

• Work alongside the COO to co-lead and manage the house team. This includes communicating with and providing feedback to staff and program volunteers. This also includes overseeing, coordinating and delegating certain activities and responsibilities, such as planning and leading activities, completing incident reports, daily logs and other house admin-related tasks.

• Have a strong working relationship with the Academic Director, House Team, Mental Health Counselor and Admin Team. Communicate consistently with the team.

• Keep up-to-date on house emails.

• Complete incident reports and daily log as needed.

• Occasionally assist with transportation, bus routes and any other substitution needed at the house with the scholars.

• Remain adaptable and assist in other projects that may arise. Uphold HomeWorks values for incidents and situations that arise

• Follow local and federal laws (i.e. drug & alcohol use, mandated reporting).

The House Director’s goal is to co-create a culture around HomeWorks values and build a healthy and safe learning and living environment for our scholars. The House Director will do this through working closely with the House and Admin team, as well as building relationships with scholars and parents. We will use tools like Asana, Google and Slack to amplify the work.

We hope the person in this role will have a passion for justice, education and community building, and is excited about the opportunity to lead the house, develop house culture that will ultimately equip Black and Brown girls in Trenton, NJ to be academically successful and become community leaders.

THE PERSON

The person we would be over-the-moon to work with is excited to add to our culture based on a deep belief in our mission and a deep commitment to intentionally build our organization alongside a team with differing personalities, cultures, experiences, backgrounds. The House Director will see themselves in the examples below:

• Culture Builder - You are an educator and community builder at heart, and thrive being in community with other folks. You are excited and knowledgeable on how to curate experiences, guidelines and activities that build our culture of intentionality, empathy and community. You go above and beyond to build a safe, healthy and fun community for our scholars.

• Efficiency and Organization - You organize your time in an efficient and productive manner. You have and can further develop your own systems and tools and know how to leverage those tools to hold yourself accountable, and help lead others. You are efficient and effective in your work.

• Follow through on commitments. You live up to your professional and personal commitments and do not miss deadlines. You are reliable - in showing up in the work space and in following through what you commit to leading and creating.

• Initiator. You take initiative to solve a problem on your own. You understand how you best absorb information and will take proactive steps to do what you need to do to learn something new even if your manager or boss is not presenting the information in a way that is most helpful.

• Detail oriented. You do not let important details fall through the cracks and use tools (e.g. pen and paper, video notes, google docs, etc.) to keep yourself and others on track.

  
  

• Team Player. You are community-oriented. You are flexible and are willing to jump in and do things that may not have been outlined in your job description. You have a growth mindset and welcome feedback as an opportunity to learn and grow as an individual and as a team.

• Honest Communicator. You communicate honestly and with transparency. You are willing to engage in courageous conversations.

THE TANGIBLE GOODS

• Location: Lawrence/Trenton, NJ

• Typical Working Hours (Schedule Attached Below). Please note that times may be scheduled to change, and may vary if an emergency or unexpected situation occurs.

• Sunday: 4:30-10pm

• Monday to Thursday: 1:30 -10pm

• Monday to Friday: 6:15-6:45am/8am (occasionally until 8am if on bus route)

• Monthly Friday Meetings - 3:30-5:00pm

• Salary range: HomeWorks Trenton values our employees highly and acknowledges the importance of salary in recognizing and compensating for the value that employees create. We are continually growing in our ability to compensate employees as highly as we want to, and are actively fundraising in order to do so. Joining HomeWorks means being part of a deeply mission-driven and community-oriented organization that invests in development of staff as both people and professionals. We are, however, a young non-profit, and want to be transparent about what you can expect. In your first year, expect a compensation package of $83,044-$93,044, with a salary between $60,000-$70,000, fully furnished housing valued at $22,000/year during the school year and daily dinners valued at $1,044/year when the program is in session.

• Benefits:

• Insurance HRA stipend of $150/month for any medical expense.

• Paid Time Off

• During the school year - Following the Trenton Public School System holiday schedule, which is approximately 24 days.

• During the summer - 10 days

• Smartphone and fully paid wireless plan through Mint Mobile

• Work laptop

• Professional development and leadership growth opportunities

• A rewarding career that positively impacts our amazing scholars

• Start date:

• ASAP

• Application Deadline: Rolling

• Application Link: https://www.jotform.com/build/222893876441164

Non-negotiables: 

• Experienced educator, residential life expert or mental health counselor

• Experience working with high school students of similar demographic in Trenton, NJ.

• [Preferred] Experience working with high school students.

• [Preferred] Experience working with/in the Trenton Public School System or comparable public school system.

• [Preferred] Experience working in residential environments.

• Physical Demands: Walking up and down stairs, moving furniture and boxes during Move In and Move Out Day.

THE CULTURE

Every organization has its particular brand of crazy. We just try to be up-front about ours:

• Our team is driven and determined, as we feel this is what is best for our scholars and our mission, and we do it because we care so much. We work efficiently, are ruthless in getting things done, and will even roll up our sleeves and get down to sweep the floors. We are passionate and detail-oriented Type A folks.

• We are obsessive about documenting everything so that we can replicate and scale what we are doing to expand our impact. Everything– from lesson plans to field trip procedures– will be added to manuals, put in the shared drive, documented on Asana and more.

• We believe that our biggest strength comes from having a team with a rainbow of personalities, working styles, backgrounds, experiences, and cultures. We respect and value everyone's voices, and challenge each other to grow as professionals, individuals, and as an entire organization.  

• We are intentional in living our values of intentionality, empathy and community in all we do. We all show up fully in the work. Every day.