Partner, School Design - Career Connected Learning & Rural Team
Role Type: Full-time
Title: Partner, School Design Services
Location/Travel: ~30-35% time. Willingness to travel approximately 2x per month for 2-3 days, depending on the location and duration of trips.

Who We Are

Transcend’s mission is to support communities to create and spread extraordinary learning environments for all. Founded in 2015, Transcend has partnered with over 390 schools/partners, which collectively serve thousands of students in over 30 states across the country. As a research & development hub for the education field, Transcend provides schools and systems with research-backed, community-driven models and capacity so they can make significant leaps to reimagine the future of education. Transcend is a nonprofit that operates with a fully remote, nationwide team; currently with 120+ teammates and growing. For more information, follow us on LinkedIn, check out this podcast featuring our two co-founders on Class Disrupted, or read this recent article that illuminates the need for this work.

The Opportunity

Across the country, more and more communities are recognizing that the 100+ year-old, one-size-fits-all school model no longer serves every learner’s potential. The challenges of recent years have made it clear that there’s an opportunity to create something better—learning environments that inspire, support, and empower all young people to thrive. In response, Transcend is partnering with communities to reimagine and redesign schools for a brighter future for all learners—and we’re excited to expand this work through career‑connected learning (CCL).

We’re hiring a Partner, School Design to join our Rural CCL Team. Your primary responsibility will be serving as a Design Partner for the Rural Career‑Connected Collaborative, a 15‑month cohort program where rural school communities work with Transcend to design CCL models tailored to their unique strengths, needs, and aspirations. You’ll help these communities blaze a trail, developing life‑changing pathways for students and spreading innovative school designs.

What You’ll Do

As a Partner, School Design on the CCL Rural Team, you will be an integral member of a fun, joyful, and wildly driven project team, all deeply committed to collective learning. You will be responsible for supporting communities through a community-driven design journey in the exciting and promising world of CCL! Specifically, you will help communities to identify high-impact student pathways, develop transformative school and work-based learning experiences, and support the teams as they pilot and iterate on ideas. As a project team, we get to explore and shape what community-driven CCL work can look like—we believe there is so much potential here! If you’re interested in CCL, then join us in discovering how Transcend can bring the promise of extraordinary learning experiences of CCL to rural communities, and later, communities everywhere. In this role, you will get to:

• Imagine and create new school models grounded in each community’s context and aspirations (with an initial focus on CCL).
• Build conditions for innovation, including developing the capacity for ongoing research and design in their schools.
• Forge networks and partnerships that help innovation efforts take root and flourish.

Specifically, your role will include:

• Coach: Advance the school team’s conditions for change, and build capacity in school teams to bring new school designs to life.
• Create Content: Build the capacity of external design teams to develop strong career-connected learning designs by leveraging research and best practices.
• Facilitate rigorous research and development (R&D): Help teams pilot their innovations throughout the year–supporting them in setting up effective pilot structures, implementing pilots, and capturing key summarizing their learnings to inform their overall design and next steps.
• Lead Strategic Implementation of New School Designs (CCL specific for this first project): Use project management to guide and support schools in building and adapting key school elements (e.g., schedules, adult learning, teacher-facing guides, etc) needed to bring their designs to life.
• Design & Facilitate: Design, build, and facilitate learning experiences and sessions for partner teams, including post-secondary & industry partners, young people, families, and community members.

You’ll be instrumental in shaping community‑driven CCL work—helping rural communities today and paving the way for similar efforts nationwide!

To all of this, you bring the following skills and orientations:

Key Mindsets

• Commitment to Transcend’s mission of transforming education, with a passion for creating innovative school models that generate unprecedented results for all students.
• Eagerness to live into Transcend’s core values and support others to do the same.
• A deep conviction in the transformative power of career-connected learning (CCL) to spark excitement, curiosity, and passion.
• Enthusiasm for expanding CCL opportunities in rural communities—whether through prior experience or a genuine commitment to understanding their unique strengths and needs.
• A commitment to authentic, community-driven design that brings students, parents, and community members to the decision-making table.

Design Leadership, Facilitation & Project Management

• Expertise in Career Connected Learning Models at both the school and system level.
• Excitement to guide a community through a full design journey from early ideas to late-stage implementation– using Transcend’s org frameworks, tools, and resources.
• Strong facilitation skills and the ability to lead inclusive, engaging design experiences that build shared vision, ownership, and tangible progress.
• A strong R&D mindset—comfortable learning, iterating, and improving approaches over time with humility and curiosity, both within the project team and in partnership with communities.
• Outstanding project management and organizational skills that allow you to gather and organize multiple work streams and logistics efficiently.

Execution, Relationship Building & Navigating Complexity

• Strong self-management skills, including the ability to balance multiple priorities and responsibilities, structure time effectively, adapt to evolving plans, and navigate amidst ambiguity.
• Resourcefulness and a solutions-oriented mindset—the ability to build creative partnerships and find pathways forward, especially when resources are limited.
• Skill at building relationships across diverse stakeholders—students, parents, employers, educators, and policymakers alike. A sense of political acumen and the ability to navigate local dynamics with discernment, care/sensitivity, and trust-building. The ability to create strong buy-in within a community and foster a solid sense of trust and empowerment across local groups.

Application & Hiring Process
We review applications on a rolling basis and are committed to a thoughtful and people-centered hiring experience that helps candidates feel what it’s like to work at Transcend. Here’s what you can expect if you are selected to move forward:

• Initial interview with the team via Zoom to learn more about your background. A note on compensation: during your initial interview with the team, we will share the salary range for your particular location. *More on how we determine this is below.
• Try-on activity to engage in a role-aligned exercise. This helps us get a sense of how you approach the work and gives you a feel for what the role might be like.
• Try-on task debrief with the team.
• Compensation & benefits convo where we’ll share information around where we anticipate you’ll share within the range, share more about our employment policies and benefits for the role, and answer any questions you may have.
• <Potentially> 1:1 with the hiring manager to debrief the role, talk more about working styles, and create the space to explore the role more deeply.
• Reference checks to learn more about your superpowers and working style.
• Final interview with our Chief Portfolios Officer.
• Coffee chats with the team to learn more about our team and culture.

A Few Nuts & Bolts
We are an experienced team focused on extraordinary learning for all. We welcome candidates who are passionate about ensuring that all students thrive. We are also committed to providing our colleagues with a competitive benefits package and offer medical, dental, and vision coverage options, org-wide holidays, paid time off, paid parental leave, professional development opportunities, and fully remote work. We take pride in our collaborative environment, exceptional team, and shared commitment to principled, impactful work.

*As a national team, we apply a cost-of-labor adjustment by adjusting salaries into 3 geographical bands (geo-band) in order to offer competitive compensation for all employees across the US. These geo-bands help us tailor compensation appropriately based on the specific location of each teammate.

We look forward to learning more about you!