*Job Description:

Save Our Youth (SOY) would like to fill an immediate opening for its High School College Counselor & Academic Coordinator Position who will lead SOY’s academic programs in our after-school youth development center for teens in the West-side of Costa Mesa. The High School College Counselor & Academic Coordinator will provide guidance to Newport Mesa Unified School District students as they pursue their goal to attend college, most of them being the first in their family to do so, and coordinate with volunteer consultants and tutors who provide valuable mentoring and expertise. The primary focus of this position is to oversee all academic programs at SOY, including college counseling for college-bound high school students, after school tutoring, college guidance and preparedness for underclassmen, college prep courses and other offerings (including college essay writing), helping students prepare college applications and FAFSAs, and oversee the career speaker and mentor programs. The counselor/coordinator will also oversee the SOY college scholarship program and work with the SOY scholarship committee members (providing up to $200,000 per year in scholarships) as well as organize and lead college tours in both Southern and Northern California. S/he will lead the SOY Scholars, the SOY Ambassadors, and recruit and coordinate with tutors from local colleges, universities and community based organizations. The academic coordinator will also communicate with teachers, counselors and administrators from the local schools, as well as from colleges and universities, in order to provide seamless assistance to students from high school to college, in order to help them achieve their greatest potential. S/he will also help monitor the success of SOY graduates once they enter college with SOY scholarships and follow-up on their needs and accomplishments.

Essential Job Functions:

• Provide day-to-day leadership in the academic center; keep track of the progress of all of the students that have signed an academic contract and on their way towards entering college; make sure that all seniors apply to college and complete their FAFSA
• Oversee the tutors and all activities involving junior high and high school students studying and preparing to graduate and go on to college
• Encourage all students to do their best, finish their course work, enroll in extra courses that SOY offers to help them prepare for college
• Organize and recruit tutors from SOY Alumni, from the local colleges and universities and from the community to provide after-school tutoring in math, English, History, science, AP course and ESL
• Recruit and coordinate special tutors for AP Calculus, AP Chemistry, and other demanding courses
• Make important connections with the AVID teachers, AP teachers, counselors, and administrators at the local intermediate and high schools in the Newport Mesa Unified School District and visit with the schools each quarter providing presentations on the academic services SOY provides
• Run the SOY scholars and the SOY scholarship program, including signing students up for the program, providing applications for the scholarships, working with the scholarship committee, keeping track of the scholarships awarded and hand them out to the students
• Hold monthly meetings, including planning the topics of discussion, with all of the students from each grade level from 7th to 12th grade,
• Hold weekly meetings for seniors in the fall, helping them apply for college, helping them write their essays, decide what colleges they should and would like to apply to, submit FAFSA and financial aid applications, write and apply for scholarships and help them decide which college to go to once they receive their college acceptance letters.
• Oversee the SOY Student Ambassadors Program or Youth Council; train and provide leadership for the student ambassadors and leaders.
• Organize and lead the annual Northern California College tour trip during spring break, including selecting juniors and seniors for the week-long trip, setting up housing, transportation, admission meetings at the campuses and coordinating tours by current SOY alumni at the various universities and colleges.
• Make connections with local university professors, university programs, student run organizations and volunteer church and business groups to provide mentors, tutors and interns for our SOY students