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Job Description For: Venture Curriculum Guide

Mission Statement: Venture Upward empowers families to cultivate a love of learning through high-quality curriculum, mentorship, and community support. Our mission is to make home education accessible, clear, and engaging for every family we serve.

Role Summary: The Venture Curriculum Guide is the human connection that makes the Guided Portfolio Path possible. This role is designed for a seasoned homeschooling parent who understands both the joy and complexity of educating children at home. You will serve as a trusted educational partner, helping families confidently use the curriculum they know and love while Venture provides the academic alignment, structure, and support they need.

We don’t want to tell families how to homeschool or require them to abandon what is working. Instead, you will sit across from parents and say: “Show me how you homeschool. Let’s figure out how Venture can meet you there.” Working alongside our Curriculum Team, you will turn those conversations into a clear, personalized path for each student.

For someone who loves homeschooling, curriculum, education, and people, this is an opportunity to help families experience educational freedom with knowledgeable support.

Professional Judgment & Family Philosophy

• Venture Curriculum Guides are expected to respect the educational choices of the families they serve.
• Guides may bring extensive personal experience, strong curriculum knowledge, and well-developed educational opinions to the role; however, those perspectives should be used to help families make informed decisions—not to pressure families toward a particular curriculum, methodology, or homeschooling philosophy.
• A successful Guide can distinguish between:
  • Personal preference — “This is what I would choose.”
  • Professional recommendation — “Based on what you’ve told me about your student, here are some options worth considering.”
• Program requirement – “This is something we need to address within your Guided Portfolio Path.”
• The ability to understand and communicate that distinction is essential to this role.

Key Duties and Responsibilities

Family Consultation & Relationship Building

• Conduct multiple virtual Guided Portfolio Path meetings with families throughout the workday.
• Create a welcoming, knowledgeable, and encouraging experience that helps families feel understood and supported.
• Learn about each student’s current curriculum, learning needs, strengths, challenges, interests, educational goals, and family priorities.
• Understand how the family currently homeschools rather than approaching the conversation with a predetermined educational model.
• Ask thoughtful questions to uncover what is working, where families may need additional support, and what they hope to accomplish.
• Help families understand the Guided Portfolio Path and what to expect throughout the process.
• Communicate educational requirements in clear, family-friendly language.
• Build strong relationships while maintaining appropriate professional boundaries and expectations.
• Serve as a knowledgeable point of contact for families throughout the Guided Portfolio Path process.

Guided Portfolio Path Development

• Gather detailed information regarding the curriculum, resources, materials, and educational experiences each family intends to use.
• Accurately identify curriculum titles, publishers, editions, grade levels, subjects, scope and sequence, and supplemental materials when applicable.
• Research unfamiliar curricula and resources as needed.
• Work closely with Venture Upward’s Curriculum Team to have family-selected curriculum mapped to applicable academic standards.
• Provide the Curriculum Team with the information and context necessary to complete accurate and efficient curriculum mapping.
• Review the resulting curriculum alignment and help translate it into a clear, usable Guided Portfolio Path for the family.
• Help identify areas where the family’s chosen curriculum provides strong standards coverage and areas where additional instruction, resources, or evidence may be necessary.
• Connect families with appropriate Venture resources or supplemental learning opportunities when gaps are identified.
• Ensure families understand what is expected without creating unnecessary duplication of work.
  Follow each Guided Portfolio Path through completion rather than simply handing information off between teams.

Communication & Meeting Management

• Be comfortable spending a significant portion of the workday in virtual meetings with families.
• Lead meetings confidently while still allowing families to feel heard.
• Keep conversations focused and productive without making families feel rushed.
• Explain complex curriculum and standards concepts in accessible, conversational language.
• Navigate difficult or confusing conversations calmly and professionally.
• Set appropriate expectations when additional research or Curriculum Team review is required rather than feeling pressure to provide an immediate answer.
• Communicate effectively through video meetings, email, messaging, and internal collaboration platforms.
• Follow up promptly on commitments made during family meetings.

Documentation & Follow-Through

• Maintain accurate and timely documentation of family meetings, curriculum selections, questions, decisions, and next steps.
• Ensure information passed to the Curriculum Team is complete and accurate.
• Track Guided Portfolio Paths through each stage of the process.
• Manage multiple families and curriculum plans simultaneously without losing important details or follow-up items.
• Meet established turnaround times and service expectations.
• Maintain organized records that allow other Venture team members to understand the status of a family’s Guided Portfolio Path when necessary.

Collaboration & Continuous Improvement

• Work closely with Venture Upward’s Curriculum, Product Development, Academic, Teaching, and Family Support teams.
• Bring recurring family questions, curriculum trends, and identified challenges back to the appropriate internal teams.
• Help identify curricula that should be prioritized for future mapping based on family demand.
• Identify recurring curriculum gaps that may create opportunities for Venture resources or supplemental content.
• Participate in training, calibration meetings, and professional development.
• Share homeschool knowledge and curriculum expertise with other team members.
• Help develop and improve processes, templates, family resources, internal documentation, and training materials related to the Guided Portfolio Path.
• Embrace feedback and participate actively in improving a program that will continue to evolve.

Skills & Competencies:

Homeschool Curriculum Expertise

• Maintain broad knowledge of commonly used homeschool curricula, publishers, educational resources, and instructional approaches.
• Understand the differences among traditional, classical, Charlotte Mason, literature-based, unit study, online, eclectic, project-based, mastery-based, and other common homeschool approaches.
• Recognize that successful homeschooling can look very different from one family to another.
• Evaluate curriculum based on the needs of the student and program requirements rather than personal curriculum preferences.
• Remain curious and willing to research new curricula, resources, and emerging approaches to home education.
• Help Venture Upward continually expand its institutional knowledge of homeschool curriculum.

Standards & Educational Knowledge

• Develop and maintain a strong working knowledge of Academic Standards and other standards applicable to Venture Upward programs.
• Understand how curriculum, projects, assignments, discussions, assessments, and authentic learning experiences can demonstrate academic learning.
• Be able to read and interpret standards even when they are written in technical educational language.
• Translate academic requirements into practical language that makes sense to homeschooling families.
• Recognize potential curriculum or standards gaps and collaborate with the Curriculum Team rather than making unsupported assumptions.
• Maintain an understanding of age-appropriate instruction, assessment, differentiation, and student development.

AI & Technology Proficiency

• Use AI tools confidently and regularly to support curriculum research, information organization, standards analysis, meeting preparation, documentation, and other Guided Portfolio Path responsibilities.
• Write effective prompts and know how to refine AI output to produce useful results.
• Understand that AI is a tool—not a substitute for educational expertise or professional judgment.
• Verify AI-generated information before using it to make recommendations or communicate information to families.
• Recognize hallucinations, inconsistencies, missing context, or questionable AI-generated conclusions.
• Protect confidential student and family information when using AI and technology tools and follow all Venture Upward data-privacy requirements.
• Learn new AI tools and Venture technology systems as they are introduced.
• Provide feedback that helps Venture improve its AI-assisted Guided Portfolio Path processes.

Position Details & Compensation:
Department: Product Development
Reports To: Director of Product Development
Employment Type: Part-Time/Seasonal
Hours: 5-20 per week
Compensation: $27.50/hour

Qualifications (Licenses/Degrees):
Required

• Significant firsthand experience homeschooling children.
• Broad familiarity with homeschool curriculum, resources, publishers, and educational approaches.
• Strong understanding of curriculum, instruction, and student learning.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively with parents and families.
• Strong technology skills and ability to quickly learn new platforms and systems.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability and desire to conduct multiple virtual family meetings throughout the workday.
• Ability to independently research unfamiliar curriculum and educational resources.
• Ability to manage multiple families, projects, and follow-up responsibilities simultaneously.

Strongly Preferred

• Bachelor’s degree in Education, Teaching, Curriculum and Instruction, or a related field.
• Previous experience as a classroom teacher in a public, charter, private, or other formal school setting.
• Current or previous teaching license.
• Experience working with Minnesota Academic Standards.
• Experience with standards alignment, curriculum mapping, curriculum development, assessment, or instructional design.
• Multiple years of successful homeschooling experience.
• Experience homeschooling across multiple grade levels or subject areas.
• Familiarity with a wide variety of homeschool philosophies and curriculum providers.
• Experience supporting or mentoring other homeschooling families.

Core Competencies:

• Deep understanding of homeschooling and homeschool families
• Extensive homeschool curriculum knowledge
• Strong educational judgment
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Standards literacy
• Curriculum research and analysis
• Exceptional listening skills
• Relationship building
• Warm, confident virtual communication
• Critical thinking and problem solving
• Technology adaptability
• Organization and documentation
• Time and meeting management
• Attention to detail
• Follow-through and personal accountability
• Collaborative decision-making
• Curiosity and continuous learning
• Ability to work independently in a remote environment
• Ability to support educational approaches different from one’s own

Other Preferred Requirements:

• A successful Venture Curriculum Guide is both knowledgeable and deeply approachable.
• They have strong opinions informed by years of educational experience, but they also know when to set those opinions aside and listen.
• They understand that their favorite curriculum may not be the best curriculum for every family. Their job is not to recreate their own homeschool in someone else’s home. Their job is to understand what a family is trying to accomplish and help build a successful path around that family’s needs.
• They are comfortable saying, “I don’t know yet, but I know how to find out.”
• They enjoy talking with people and can move naturally from a conversation with a family using a highly structured traditional curriculum to one using an eclectic collection of books, online resources, projects, and real-world learning experiences.
• They are curious. They research. They ask good questions. They notice details.
• And they can combine the human judgment of an experienced educator and homeschooling parent with the speed and capabilities of modern AI tools.

Technical / Equipment Requirements:

• Reliable high-speed internet connection.
• Reliable computer capable of supporting video conferencing and Venture Upward technology platforms.
• Professional environment appropriate for frequent virtual family meetings.
• Proficiency with Google Workspace or comparable productivity tools.
• Ability to use video conferencing, internal messaging, curriculum platforms, and AI-powered tools throughout the workday.
• Ability to learn new technology quickly as Venture’s Guided Portfolio Path systems evolve.

Why This Role Matters

Families choose homeschooling to retain autonomy over their children’s education. As a Venture Curriculum Guide, you bridge the gap between that independence and the structure needed to thrive within the Venture Upward program. Working alongside our Curriculum Team, you will help turn that conversation into a clear, personalized Guided Portfolio Path that works for the student, the family, and the program’s academic requirements.

You are the dedicated partner who empowers families by honoring their unique approach while providing essential academic alignment. For someone who loves homeschooling, curriculum, education, technology, and people, this is an opportunity to help families experience something rare: educational freedom with knowledgeable support behind it.

Equal Opportunity Statement – Venture Upward is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity in our workforce. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.

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