Senior Content Specialist

Senior Content Specialist

Role Responsibilities and Management Plan

Purpose of the Role

The Senior Content Specialist is the instructional leader of a Content Specialist team within a borough portfolio. The role exists to make the Content Specialist model work at scale: Senior Content Specialists develop, coach, and manage a team of Content Specialists so that every Activity Specialist across the portfolio receives consistent, high-quality instructional support, across all content areas.

The role operates on a train-the-trainer model. Senior Content Specialists are not primarily site-facing coaches; they build the capacity of the Content Specialists who coach in the field. Both roles support instruction across all content areas rather than specializing in one. They translate CIT curriculum, standards, and instructional targets into the professional development, coaching practices, and quality expectations their team carries to sites.

Core Responsibility Areas

The role has five core areas of responsibility. Together they define what a Senior Content Specialist owns.

1. Team Leadership and Supervision

Direct supervision and professional growth of a team of 5 to 8 Content Specialists.

• Set clear, measurable expectations for Content Specialist performance and hold the team accountable to them

• Conduct weekly check-ins and maintain a consistent accountability structure for a field-based team

• Apply appropriate supervision models (directive, collaborative, consultative) to each team member's needs

• Identify early signs of performance concern and respond promptly and supportively

• Build a positive, collaborative team culture across a dispersed group

2. Professional Development Design and Implementation

Ownership of the PD implementation plan for the Content Specialists in the portfolio.

• Design and deliver professional development grounded in adult learning principles

• Manage the PD implementation plan, so every Content Specialist progresses through required training

• Translate CIT curriculum and instructional targets into practical, teachable coaching moves

• Use observation and coaching data to decide what PD the team needs next

• Track completion and growth, and adjust the plan as gaps emerge

3. Coaching the Coaches

Building the coaching capability of each Content Specialist through modeling and feedback.

• Conduct joint learning walks and co-observations to calibrate the team's observation quality

• Review Content Specialists' observation reports and coaching logs, and give written coaching feedback

• Model strong coaching conversations and instructional feedback

• Support Content Specialists in reading lesson plans, pacing, and differentiating for diverse learners

• Ensure consistency in how the team documents and reports coaching and observation notes

4. Instructional Quality Across Content Areas

Uphold instructional quality across all content areas the team supports.

• Maintain working knowledge of the NYE curriculum and expected student outcomes across all content areas

• Set and uphold instructional quality standards across all assigned sites in the portfolio

• Review seasonal quality data and identify portfolio-wide patterns to inform training decisions

• Flag curriculum gaps and recommend improvements to the relevant CIT Directors

• Champion faithful integration of approved activity offerings across the team's sites

5. Hiring and Talent Support

Helping the department manage the volume of instructor recruitment.

• Assist with interviewing and selecting new instructors across content areas

• Support onboarding of new Content Specialists into the team and the CIT model

• Contribute to the pipeline of instructional talent within the portfolio

The Management Plan

This section describes how a Senior Content Specialist manages and develops their team throughout the year: the rhythm of supervision, the flow of information, and how performance is developed.

Rhythm of Supervision

The management relationship runs on a predictable cadence so nothing depends on chance encounters. The Senior Content Specialist holds a standing weekly touchpoint with each Content Specialist, layered with monthly and seasonal checkpoints.

How Performance Is Grown

Supervision is developmental first. The Senior Content Specialist differentiates support based on what the coaching logs and observation reports reveal, giving newer Content Specialists closer modeling and stronger practitioners more autonomy and stretch. Performance concerns are named early, documented clearly, and addressed with a concrete improvement plan rather than left to accumulate.

Information Flow

The Senior Content Specialist is the hub between the field and leadership. Coaching notes and observation data logged by Content Specialists in the NYE Edge platform roll up into the Senior Content Specialist's monthly quality summary, which informs both the team's next PD and the network-wide decisions made with the Program Director and CIT Director. In the other direction, curriculum updates, standards, and training priorities flow from CIT leadership through the Senior Content Specialist to the team.

Decision Rights

Within their portfolio, the Senior Content Specialist decides the team's PD sequence, coaching priorities, and quality expectations, and manages day-to-day performance. Decisions that change the curriculum, staffing structure, or network-wide policy are made in consultation with CIT leadership.

What Success Looks Like

A Senior Content Specialist is succeeding when:

• Every Content Specialist on the team is progressing through their PD plan and improving in observed coaching quality

• Observation and coaching documentation across the team is consistent, specific, and timely

• Activity Specialists across the team's sites show measurable instructional growth

• Quality data flows reliably up to CIT leadership and shapes real training decisions

• The team operates as a coherent, supported group rather than a set of isolated field staff