Director of School and Teacher Programs

About the Museum:

Founded in 1988, the Tenement Museum welcomes visitors into the homes of immigrant, migrant, and refugee families to inspire connections between past and present and promote a more inclusive and expansive American society. Through educator-led tours of recreated tenement family apartments, we share the stories of 12 families who im/migrated to the Lower East Side from the 1860s until the 1980s. Their work helped build the city and nation, and their stories help us understand the richness and complexity of our nation’s past and present.

Each year, the Museum welcomes 30,000+ K-12 students from NYC public and private schools, including many from Title I schools, through specially designed, age-appropriate programs that help students build learning and connect the past to their own family histories and experiences. These include in-person building and neighborhood tours and Virtual Field Trips (VFTs) that share the NYC im/migrant story with students both locally and from across the country. We also develop and offer free curricular resources and provide professional development opportunities to help educators enhance students’ trips to the Museum with learning in the classroom. Last, but not least, our Your Story, Our Story digital exhibit invites students to add their own family stories of im/migration and cultural identity to our growing collection of nearly 17,000 stories collected from visitors across the country, including many K-12 students.

Expanding services to K-12 students, teachers, and new arrivals is a central goal of our new strategic plan. This summer, we will launch a new Teacher Institute that will welcome teachers from across the country to take our tours and be introduced to our wide-ranging training and resources with a goal to highlight our Virtual Field Trips (VFTs), professional learning, and curricular resources to bring our tenement family stories to more classrooms across the country. Also in the coming year, we will launch a new pilot civics program called “Flags of Hope” which uses primary sources to ask students to consider their hopes and dreams for our country and a new K-12 version of our signature Shared Journeys English Language Learning (ELL) program.

Position Description:  

The Tenement Museum seeks a Director of Student and Teacher Programs to serve a key leadership role in the Education Department. The role reports to the Chief Officer of Education and works in close collaboration with Education Leadership including the VP of Programs and Interpretation, Director of Training, VP of Education Operations, and the President of the Museum. The Director leads the planning, execution, and assessment of the Museum’s educational programs for school groups—both in person and online. This includes supervising and managing three staff members who are part of the department’s Student and Teacher Programs team. The Director works with the Training team to oversee the development and implementation of K-12 training for our part-time educators to ensure accessible, immersive and relevant programs that ensure the best learning experiences for student participants of all backgrounds.

In collaboration with the VP of Programs and Interpretation, the Director also develops and provides professional learning experiences for teachers and develops new curriculum resources. The director will be a key spokesperson for the department’s programs with the goal of increasing the public’s awareness of our student offerings and cultivating new partners. This includes maintaining close partnerships with the NYC Department of Education as well as regularly meeting with local and national Teacher Advisory Committees. It also includes identifying and building new partnerships to help us expand our reach to new student, teacher, and new arrival audiences. The Director is a primary contributor and manager of K-12 focused grants at the museum and strategic K-12 initiatives like the Summer Teacher Institute, Shared Journeys, Your Story Our Story (YSOS), Union of Hope Flags Project, and Meet Victoria in Spanish.

Ultimately, we seek a Director who can both understand our unique tenement family stories and resources but also bring knowledge from the education field to help develop new approaches to both improve the quality of our programs and extend their reach. This includes building deeper engagement with teachers and schools to help them leverage the full scope of our resources as well as extending reach to new visitors, especially new teachers and classes.  

Ideal candidates will bring strong project management skills, creativity, effective communication abilities, and a collaborative leadership style. Comfort working with diverse communities and engaging with the public is a must. TM is looking for individuals who are dedicated to building a workplace culture that is respectful, cooperative, mission-focused, and uplifting.

Responsibilities:

K-12 Programs

• Direct all school group-related programs both on-site and virtual
• Collaborate with the training team to supervise, train, and evaluate P/T educators
• Collaborate with Education Operations/Visitor Services to allocate staff resources and maintain operational effectiveness across all K-12 programs
• Direct the development, revision, implementation of school group policies and procedures, including meeting all student Access needs
• Develop, monitor, and meet all K-12 program goals and budget targets
• Performs operational and programming roles such as, but not limited to, tour educator (in-person and virtual)

Teacher Professional Learning & Curriculum Resources

• Collaborate with VP of Programs and Interpretation to develop and direct teacher professional learning events on-site, off-site, and virtually and create new curriculum resources
• Facilitate staff professional development and meetings related to working with teachers and students
• Provide training and support to teachers to help them integrate our tours, activities, and resources such as YSOS into their classrooms

Program Development

• Collaborates with President and VP of Programming and Interpretation to develop and implement TM program-aligned school and teacher content (eg. piloting tour content, professional learning, curricular resources)
• Implement and expand new K-12 version of Shared Journeys ELL program (2025-2026 school year)
• Implement and scale new “Flags of Hope” activity that uses primary sources to invite students to share their hopes and dreams for our nation today (2025-2026 school year)
• Collaborate with fundraising team to identify and secure new funding to support new K-12 educational initiatives and manage project grants related to K-12 education, teacher professional learning, Shared Journeys, educator training, and curriculum development
• Collaborate with marketing department around teacher outreach, including monthly education newsletters
• Manages K-12 grants including budgeting, implementation, evaluation, site visits, and reporting

Outreach and Evaluation

• Collaborate with marketing department around teacher outreach, including monthly education newsletters
• Direct student and teacher evaluation procedures and processes
• Generates and presents evaluation reports
• Direct student and teacher data tracking and reporting

Qualifications:

• Familiarity with the NYC DOE and learning standards
• Experience working with teachers and school administrators
• Minimum of 3-5 years’ experience teaching and developing curriculum, preferably in a classroom and working with multilingual learners
• Demonstrated commitment to accessible and inclusive teaching practices
• BA or MA in Education, Museum Education, or a related field; transferable skills in another area of study is welcomed
• Must be available to work occasional evenings, weekends, and some holidays
• Clear communicator, consensus builder, and organizer of people and systems
• Flexible in unexpected situations
• Experience delivering training and public programs, especially to teachers, a plus
• Experience successfully working with development to identify, secure and manage grant funding a plus

How to Apply:

Please submit a cover letter and resume via our career portal.  

Please submit a cover letter and resume via our career portal.  Resumes without cover letters will not be considered.

08/22/2025