Special Education Instructional Manager

The posting

Company Summary

Learning Network is a growing, innovative, and customer-centric educational services company. We seek creative and tenacious individuals to help us drive success through service.

Service is very important to us. At Learning Network, you will be among people who care about their customers and colleagues. We prioritize service by ensuring the details are done and done well - every time. We make promises, and we keep those promises. We recognize that our customers and employees don’t have to choose us. As such, service is embedded deep within our culture - and providing white-glove service is an expectation of every employee.

At Learning Network, you’ll be a part of something special. You’ll sleep better knowing you make a difference by bringing the most innovative education to thousands of students. You’ll do this amongst a supportive community of people who care. In return, you’ll care. You’ll show you care by being teachable, doing your job well, and valuing the relationships with your colleagues. You’ll achieve your goals and play nicely in the sandbox with others while doing it. We don’t do drama, and neither should you.

Working at Learning Network isn’t for everyone. But for those who choose to commit to hard work, service, students, and colleagues, it’s an incredibly rewarding experience.

Impact & Why This Matters

In a world where too many students with unique learning needs are misunderstood, underserved, or defined by limitations rather than possibility, exceptional leadership can change everything. When Special Education teams are deeply supported, highly developed, and relentlessly focused on each learner, students gain more than services—they gain confidence, belonging, meaningful progress, and a clearer path toward the future they deserve.

As a Special Education Instructional Manager, you will multiply impact through people. You will coach, develop, and elevate a team of Special Education teachers whose daily work helps students build confidence, make meaningful progress, and realize what is possible for their futures.

Your leadership will ensure students are not only supported compliantly—but served compassionately, challenged thoughtfully, and championed relentlessly. This is legacy-building leadership in the digital age: creating systems, coaching people, and building cultures that help extraordinary educators unlock extraordinary student outcomes.

Purpose

You will be the force that builds strong Special Education teachers into exceptional ones. Through coaching, accountability, encouragement, and unwavering standards, you will cultivate a team that delivers white-glove, heart-centered support to students and families—while maintaining the rigor, compliance, responsiveness, and instructional excellence students deserve.

You will build clarity where there is complexity, momentum where there is hesitance, and confidence where there is uncertainty—ensuring all teachers feel supported, students feel seen, and opportunity for growth is amplified.

Role Overview

This is a deeply people-centered leadership role where your impact is measured through the growth, consistency, and excellence of the educators you lead—and ultimately through improved student engagement, retention, progress, and confidence.

You will lead Special Education teachers and paraprofessionals serving students in an online K–12 environment, ensuring they consistently deliver exceptional instruction, proactive outreach, compliant services, and meaningful family partnership.

Your success requires extreme ownership, strong judgment, joyful persistence, and relentless follow-through. You must be equally comfortable coaching performance, navigating escalations, improving systems, and holding high standards—always with empathy, clarity, and conviction.

When you lead well, teachers grow stronger, families feel supported, and students thrive.

Core Responsibilities

• Coach and develop Special Education educators into confident, highly effective professionals who embody our standards of service, responsiveness, and instructional excellence.
• Monitor team-level student engagement, progress, retention, and intervention data—identifying trends early and mobilizing effective support before students fall behind.
• Observe instruction, assess teacher effectiveness, and provide clear, actionable coaching that sharpens delivery, strengthens relationships, and improves student outcomes.
• Lead with precision in IEP development, implementation, progress monitoring, and meeting execution—ensuring legal compliance while never losing sight of the human being behind every plan.
• Set high expectations, coach candidly, celebrate wins enthusiastically, and foster a team culture rooted in ownership, humility, collaboration, and service.

Essential Duties

1. Serve students, families, and colleagues with genuine professionalism, integrity, humility, and a white-glove mindset that makes every interaction feel personal and uplifting.
2. Lead and inspire a team of Special Education teachers and paraprofessionals with warmth, clarity, and high expectations.
3. Conduct frequent 1:1 coaching sessions focused on teacher growth, student outcomes, and accountability to standards.
4. Observe live instruction, review outreach practices, and coach toward stronger student engagement and relationship-building.
5. Monitor IEP quality, implementation, progress reporting, and meeting execution for excellence and compliance.
6. Ensure teachers uphold service-level expectations for responsiveness, grading turnaround, communication quality, and documentation rigor.
7. Partner directly with students and families during escalations, helping rebuild trust, resolve concerns, and drive positive outcomes.
8. Develop performance improvement plans when standards are not met, coaching with candor, support, and accountability.
9. Facilitate team meetings, training sessions, and professional development that continually raise the standard of practice.
10. Build and refine systems, playbooks, checklists, and operational tools that improve instructional consistency and efficiency.
11. Support hiring and selection of exceptional educators who align with our mission, standards, and culture.
12. Support proctoring during testing windows, including occasional travel, to ensure fair and secure assessments.
13. Embrace other duties as needed to advance our mission.

Work Schedule and Availability

1. Work a fixed schedule: 8:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m. Mountain Time (Denver), year-round, auto-adjusting for daylight saving time.
2. Work full time in this exempt role, requiring at least 40 hours per week with uninterrupted focus during scheduled hours.
3. Remain actively available and immediately responsive throughout the workday via phone, chat, Zoom, email, and internal systems so students, parents, and colleagues can reach you in real time.
4. Avoid all concurrent work during scheduled hours and maintain full professional focus; ensure any outside employment does not interfere with performance and is approved in writing in advance.
5. Maintain a private, professional, distraction-free remote workspace with reliable high-speed internet that supports video and required tools.
6. Maintain consistent daily availability; absences exceeding two consecutive instructional days materially disrupt student support, engagement, and progress monitoring and generally cannot be accommodated during the instructional term.

This Role Is Your Calling If:

• You find deep fulfillment in helping other educators become their very best.
• You lead with both heart and standards—balancing compassion with accountability.
• You embrace coaching difficult conversations—not avoiding them.
• You thrive on forging real relationships that spark "aha" moments, rebuild confidence, and drive lasting growth.
• You embrace clear structure, metrics, and accountability because they fuel your ability to deliver extraordinary results.

This Role May Not Align If:

• You seek high flexibility in your schedule or a self-paced workday.
• You prefer hands-off leadership or infrequent coaching conversations.
• You struggle holding others accountable to clear standards.
• You dislike proactive outreach such as phone calls or frequent messaging.
• You struggle with tight responsiveness, follow-through, or time management under metrics.
• You want to balance this position with another job.
• You resist oversight, performance tracking, or structured expectations.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

1. Exceptional interpersonal communication skills, including the ability to navigate difficult conversations with empathy, professionalism, and conviction.
2. Strong instructional leadership and coaching capability, with the ability to develop educators through clear feedback, accountability, and encouragement.
3. Strong judgment in student, family, compliance, and personnel escalations.
4. Extreme ownership of outcomes with high self-motivation, discipline, and accountability to exceed expectations.
5. Proven ability to lead multiple priorities, deadlines, and direct reports in a fast-paced environment.
6. Strong organizational skills, time management, attention to detail, and the ability to handle competing priorities.
7. Independent work capability paired with effective remote team collaboration.
8. Proficiency with Mac OS, Google Workspace, learning management systems, and task tools (e.g., Asana); quick adaptation to new technologies.
9. Willingness and ability to travel to assigned testing locations for proctoring.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Special Education or related field (required).
• Teacher certification and an approved teacher preparation program (required).
• Ability to obtain certifications in Arizona, Colorado, Washington, and other states as may be assigned (required).
• 5+ years of successful work experience in educational technology or related industry (required).
• 5+ years of successful experience serving students, families, customers, or other stakeholders in a service-oriented environment (required).
• 3+ years of experience managing people (required).
• Ability to pass required background checks (required).

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision employee coverage for as little as $1 each per month;
• Personal paid time off in addition to major holidays;
• Short-term disability insurance, long-term disability insurance, life insurance, and AD&D insurance are all 100% paid by the employer; and
• 401(k) with employer contributing a dollar-for-dollar match of employee contributions up to 6% of employee earnings.

Base Pay Range

$55,000—$65,000 USD