Director of Residential Life

THE ROLE

The Director of Residential Life (House Director) will partner with the Assistant House Director and AmeriCorps Residential Life Assistant/House-Sister(s) 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.

• Develop a culture of intentionality, empathy and community.

• Must be available from 1:30pm until the scholars head to school the next morning, as well as live in the dorm. This includes being on-call throughout the night. 

• Enforce all policies and protocols 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).

• Run emergency and safety drills, keeping documentation of all drills.

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

• Co-lead Weekly House Meetings with the scholars, preparing the agenda in advance.

• Co-lead scholar and peer leader check-ins.

• Plan and co-lead programming, field trips, and House Team Days with fun activities.

• Ensure scholars are getting to programming on time and support volunteer workshop facilitators with classroom management. 

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

• Assist as bus aide a few times a week or as needed. 

• Coordinate with Stouts on weekly transportation needs.

• Alert schools of any transportation delays.

• Co-run study hall and oversee cohorts of scholars to ensure scholars are getting the support they need academically. 

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

• Serve as an on-site coordinator of program events such as Parent/Scholar  orientation, HomeWorks graduation and other special house events. 

• Work with the COO and Program Director 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 as well as parent and alumni engagement.

Parent Engagement

• Lead and manage all parent communication and relationships. 

• Conduct quarterly parent/scholar meetings. 

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

• Oversee and support the HomeWorks Parent Association (HPA) and serve as the HPA treasurer.  

• Co-build and implement parent engagement program strategies.

Recruitment

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

Organization, Team and Communication

• Co-lead and manage the house team. This includes training, 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.

• Co-build a house team culture aligned with our mission, vision and values. 

• Have a strong working relationship with the House Team, Mental Health Counselors and Administrative Team. Communicate consistently with the team.

• Keep up-to-date on house emails.

• Coordinate 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 Workspace, Salesforce 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 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 Wednesday Meetings -12pm - 1:30pm

• 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 $93,044-$97,044, with a salary between $70,000-$75,000, 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:

  • Medical, Dental, Vision plan offerings

  • Life Insurance

  • Employee Assistance Program

  • 401k plan (coming January 2025!)

  • Paid Time Off

    • During the school year - Following our partner school holiday schedules, which is approximately 22 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