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Associate Director of Early Literacy and Instructional Partnerships

Literacy in Community (LINC) is an award-winning nonprofit and a leading force in New York City's movement to ensure every child enters kindergarten ready to thrive.

Across the five boroughs, LINC empowers the adults in children's lives—parents, caregivers, educators, childcare providers, healthcare professionals, and community partners—with the knowledge, tools, skills, and confidence to support literacy development from birth through age five. Through joyful, play-based programming grounded in evidence-based literacy practice, cultural responsiveness, and meaningful adult learning, professional learning, and cross-sector partnerships, LINC embeds literacy into the places where young children live, learn, and grow.

By strengthening the entire early childhood ecosystem through its Two-Generation and Community Literacy Model, LINC is helping transform universal childcare into universal literacy so every child has the opportunity to become a confident reader.

Our Approach

At LINC, we believe children become confident readers when the adults around them have the knowledge, tools, skills, and confidence to support their literacy development.

Our approach brings together evidence-based literacy practice, cultural equity, popular education, and our Two-Generation and Community Literacy Model. We recognize parents and caregivers as children's first teachers and value the knowledge, languages, cultures, strengths, and lived experiences that families, educators, and communities bring to children's learning.

We believe research helps us understand what supports children's literacy development, while families and communities help us understand how that knowledge comes to life in culturally meaningful and developmentally appropriate ways. Both are essential to helping children become confident readers.

For this reason, LINC's learning experiences are participatory, joyful, practical, culturally and linguistically responsive, and grounded in relationships. We meet families where they are and create opportunities for adults to learn from research, from one another, and from their own experiences.

About the Instructional Partnerships Team

The Instructional Partnerships Team advances LINC's mission through partnerships with schools, 2K, 3K, Pre-K, Kindergarten, Head Start and Early Head Start programs, Family Child Care networks, and other instructional settings.

The team works across the full ecosystem surrounding the child. Through family workshops and professional learning, LINC equips parents, caregivers, educators, and childcare providers with a shared understanding of children's literacy development and practical strategies they can use at home and in instructional settings.

The team also develops and continuously improves LINC's curriculum, professional learning, assessment approaches, digital learning experiences, and other tools that allow LINC to strengthen quality and expand its reach. Working closely with the Community Programs Team, the team helps ensure families experience one cohesive literacy vision across home, classroom, and community.

All positions across LINC’s Community and Instructional teams play an important role in maintaining, strengthening, and expanding LINC’s relationships and partnerships. Staff are expected to work collaboratively across teams to ensure that community engagement and instructional programming are closely aligned, responsive to partner and family needs, and effectively promote LINC’s programs and services.

Together, the Community and Instructional teams are responsible for cultivating existing relationships, identifying opportunities for new partnerships, increasing awareness of LINC throughout the communities we serve, and maximizing participation and engagement in LINC workshops and programs. Through regular communication, shared planning, and coordinated outreach, team members will help expand LINC’s reach, strengthen its presence across communities, and increase the organization’s overall impact.

Job Title: Associate Director of Early Literacy & Instructional Partnerships, Full-Time

Reports to: Senior Director of Early Literacy & Instructional Partnerships
Supervises: Borough Instructional Managers

Location: NYC area – This role will require regular onsite and field presence across the city with occasional travel to Albany and other locations outside NYC, with flexibility to work remotely

Work Schedule: 5 days/week, with events requiring varied work hours and weekend work

Compensation range: $65,000 - $85,000 per year

How to Apply:
To submit an application, please email your brief cover letter and resume to: jobs@lincnyc.org with “Associate Director of Early Literacy & Instructional Partnerships” in the subject line.

Position Summary:

The Associate Director of Early Literacy & Instructional Partnerships leads the successful implementation of LINC's instructional model across a multi-borough portfolio of schools, early childhood programs, Head Start and Early Head Start programs, FCC networks, and other instructional partners.

Reporting to the Senior Director, the Associate Director supervises, coaches, and develops Borough Instructional Managers; strengthens relationships with instructional partners; leads professional learning for educators and childcare providers; and ensures family workshops and professional learning are implemented with quality, consistency, and responsiveness to each partner community.

This is a highly field-facing leadership role. Associate Directors are expected to know their partners, understand implementation on the ground, observe learning experiences regularly, coach Borough Managers, and step in to facilitate or support programming when needed. The Associate Director must work closely with Community Directors and their teams to ensure we operate as one team, uniting instructional and community efforts to reach every family in the borough.

Key Areas of Responsibility

Manager Leadership & Development

Supervise, coach, and develop Borough Instructional Managers across the assigned portfolio.
Facilitate workshops in support of borough managers when needed
Establish clear expectations, goals, work plans, and measures of success.
Observe Borough Managers facilitating family workshops and provide timely, actionable feedback.
Coach managers in partnership management, adult facilitation, planning, problem-solving, and use of data.
Identify development needs and work with the Senior Director to provide targeted professional learning.
Support staff directly in the field to ensure quality and successful implementation.

Instructional Partnerships & Regional Performance

Collaborate with community team leaders and leverage community models, resources and partners to ensure the success of the full borough.
Oversee the health and performance of instructional partnerships across assigned boroughs.
Build and maintain relationships with school and early childhood leaders and intervene strategically when partnerships require additional support.
Ensure each partner receives agreed-upon family workshops, professional learning, planning, communication, and follow-up.
Monitor partner participation, implementation, satisfaction, and progress toward goals.
Identify opportunities to deepen or expand successful partnerships.

Professional Learning & Adult Learning

Lead high-quality professional learning for educators and childcare providers.
Support Borough Instructional Managers in facilitating strong family learning experiences.
Ensure educators, childcare providers, parents, and caregivers receive complementary literacy messages and strategies that strengthen consistency between classroom and home.
Model facilitation that is participatory, culturally responsive, practical, joyful, and grounded in adult learning.
Quality, Fidelity & Continuous Improvement
Conduct regular observations of family workshops, professional learning, and partner implementation.
Use observation, data, participant feedback, and reflection to strengthen quality.
Ensure curriculum is implemented with fidelity while allowing appropriate responsiveness to participant language, culture, context, and learning needs.
Surface recurring implementation challenges and opportunities to the Senior Director.
Contribute to curriculum revisions, facilitator resources, professional learning, and instructional improvements.

Borough & Cross-Team Collaboration

Work with Community Programs Directors and Managers to develop a cohesive literacy vision across assigned boroughs.
Coordinate with Community Programs without duplicating ownership of community-based partnerships.
Partner with Family & Community Engagement Specialists, through the established cross-team structure, to strengthen family outreach and participation at instructional partner sites.
Collaborate with Evaluation & Learning and other organizational teams to support data quality, special initiatives, and shared priorities.

Equity, Cultural Responsiveness & Belonging

Every LINC team member shares responsibility for ensuring our work reflects and respects the communities we serve. In this role, you will:

Honor and build upon the strengths, languages, cultures, identities, and lived experiences of children, families, educators, and community partners.
Approach families and communities as knowledgeable partners and contributors, not simply recipients of services.
Foster welcoming, joyful, and inclusive environments where participants feel respected, represented, and valued.
Ensure programs, curriculum, professional learning, and partnerships are culturally, linguistically, and developmentally responsive.
Apply cultural humility and curiosity to relationships with families, colleagues, and partners.
Promote equitable access to high-quality literacy experiences, resources, and opportunities.
Seek and incorporate family, participant, educator, and community feedback to continuously strengthen LINC's work.
Balance evidence-based practice with cultural responsiveness, recognizing that research and community wisdom are both essential to creating meaningful learning experiences.

Qualifications and Skills:

Bachelor's Degree required; Master's in Education, Early Literacy, Bilingual Literacy, or related field preferred
5+ years of experience in early childhood education, literacy instruction, or family engagement, with prior supervisory experience
Strong grounding in Science of Reading, adult learning principles, and culturally/linguistically responsive facilitation
Demonstrated ability to coach and develop staff, including providing observation-based feedback
Experience managing partnerships with schools, early childhood programs, or community-based organizations
Comfort with regular field presence and hands-on program support across multiple sites/boroughs
Strong organizational skills to oversee data, quality, and performance across a portfolio
Bilingual/multilingual (Spanish or another relevant language) strongly preferred

Core Competencies:

Coaching and staff development
Relationship management with school/site leaders
Facilitation and adult learning delivery
Quality assurance and fidelity monitoring
Problem-solving and field-based troubleshooting
Cross-team collaboration (Community Programs, Evaluation & Learning)
Cultural responsiveness and equity mindset
Reliability and follow-through on commitments
Working knowledge of Google Suites, Office 365, Salesforce, airtable and general adaptability to changing platforms.

Working at LINC

At LINC, we believe our people are essential to our impact. We are committed to fostering a collaborative, equitable, inclusive, and joyful workplace where relationships matter, curiosity is encouraged, and every team member contributes to our shared mission.

While this job description outlines the primary responsibilities of the role, LINC is a dynamic organization, and our work continues to evolve alongside the families and communities we serve. Team members are expected to bring flexibility, cultural humility, curiosity, and a collaborative spirit to their work and may contribute to additional programs, initiatives, events, or organizational priorities as needed to advance LINC's mission and success.

Commitment to Diversity and Equal Employment Opportunities
LINC - Literacy in Community provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.

LINC values diversity and actively seeks to build an inclusive applicant pool and pursue a thoughtful hiring process, including a diverse hiring committee, carefully designed interview questions, and mindfulness about unconscious biases.