The role I applied for. The posting says the job is a repeatable weekly rhythm by 6 months and a playbook another RA can run by 12, so I wrote both first — a proposal, not a finished policy: the students and the Founding Families are supposed to shape it.
The operating plan for the house. A Safety floor no vote can change, and above it every norm written and voted on by the students at a weekly Town Hall. Every consequence fixes the problem and ends when it is fixed; walks and exercise are never taken away.
Working demo · phone + RA boardThe handbook's Safety floor starts with signing out, so I built it. Scan the QR, tap who you are, tap your buddy, say where and why — the buddy accepts, and the RA board shows both of them moving on a map with a return time and an overdue flag, a headcount of who is in the house, and an inbox for student requests. Recurring practices are one tap and carry how you get there — house shuttle, rideshare, subway, parent pickup — so the board can group a whole shuttle run at once. Demo data, nothing saved. RA board passcode: demo.
Sample week · 10 pages · PDFOne week run end to end on the handbook's template — the 5 to 6:30pm practice block, dinner every night, and Five Boroughs, One Day: a 5K in Brooklyn, the bridge into Manhattan, the ferry to Staten Island, lunch in the Bronx, dinner at the Queens Night Market. It costs about what the food costs.
Built for the Guide side of the school — the pitch, and what I kept building after it.
Drawn from roughly 20,000 conversations with strangers — years of sales, plus the 100 interviews with people I had never met for the Sonder Series. A proven way to get better at sales.
AssessmentIf we're building the future of schools, we should have the future of assessments.
Reference sheetThe 19 techniques of motivating young people, applied to each situation where there is an opportunity to use them. Times like giving feedback, a kid who says they can't, or a belonging worry.
Founders School is powered by Alpha School, so this is not a different pitch — it is the same one, one floor up. I made all of this before anyone asked me to. It lives at jamesfloyds.world/alpha, with the video that goes with it.
Written, illustrated and made print-ready — forty pages, now at the printer. A kid takes on a mountain, and a guide believes he can.
Trainer1,000 questions, adaptive practice, spaced repetition, and a worked line on every answer. Built because Alpha screens with the CCAT.
WorkshopA life skills workshop written for Alpha. Two years of hair, cut by the kids and mailed to a kid who lost theirs.
The pitchAll of it in one page, with the video, exactly as Alpha received it.
Every story about a genius has the same scene in it. Nobody tests for it.
60 million kids, a trillion dollars a year, and what the numbers actually say.
Eight science-backed techniques, one bundle, and one theory — with the evidence, and what each looked like in my own life.
Fifty years of watching children, and what she concluded from it.
One of the first Italian women to be a doctor, education pioneer, defied Mussolini.
A summary of ways to motivate kids.
From play and imitation to Prussian classrooms — how schooling came to be.
Because you understand how the current education model fails — you, a college dropout — and because of your innate and earned talent and intelligence, I can think of nobody better to work on something as transformative as Alpha School.
James surprised me from the first time I met him. He was volunteering at one of Andrew’s events at SXSW and he truly stood out from the crowd with his hard work. A couple weeks ago we took a walk in Central Park and we spent most of it talking about education. James told me how much he loves being with kids and how educating them can change the world. I was again mindblown. You can’t fake that kind of passion.
This is so so sick. Public pitch FTW!! And side note: can vouch. James is as high agency and intelligent as it gets.
Nat Eliason worth meeting James!
Holy moly dude this is incredible. This is a work of art regardless of outcome. Amazing pitch, and what a perfect merging of worlds this would be.
Couldn’t imagine a better fit. James you have the vision!
Public comments on that Alpha pitch — read the thread. Forty-three more at jamesfloyds.world/references.