Strategy Director, Public Funding & Accredited Programs

The Company

Outschool’s mission is to inspire kids to love learning. In our fast-changing world, the traditional educational system struggles to meet the diverse and evolving needs of young learners. Outschool reimagines this system, offering flexible and engaging learning experiences as a supplement and alternative to traditional education. By connecting learners with a global community of teachers and peers through our online platform, we make learning personal, dynamic, and deeply human.

We've made significant strides since launching our marketplace of live online classes in 2017. Finding initial success with secular homeschoolers, we then expanded to enrichment learning to meet the needs of a wider audience, growing our business 16x since 2019. Post-pandemic, we have evolved our platform to power academic learning, incorporated AI, and have begun to grow our international community. We're proud to have served over 1.5M passionate learners with more than $100M in annual bookings.

Driving disruptive, positive change in education is rewarding and hard. Outschool team members are encouraged to challenge themselves, take risks, and grow in their careers. We look for talented people whose sense of urgency, innate curiosity, and determination to drive impact will help Outschool achieve outsized results in pursuit of our mission. We invite you to be part of an ambitious team dedicated to ensuring every learner can navigate the future with curiosity, resilience, and a love of learning.

The Role

Outschool is expanding how families access and pay for education, creating new opportunities through public funding, accredited schools, tuition-based programs, and flexible learning pathways. We're looking for a Strategy Director, Public Funding & Accredited Programs to identify and develop these opportunities and turn them into meaningful revenue growth.

In this role, you'll analyze markets, competitors, and customer needs to identify attractive growth opportunities, develop new educational program concepts and business models, and establish the strategy and roadmap for bringing them to market. Your work will span Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit, state education funding programs, accredited schools, and tuition-based educational offerings.

You'll work closely with Product, Business Development, Marketing, School Leadership, Finance, Legal, Compliance, and Operations to translate opportunities into differentiated programs and successful launches. You'll also partner with the team responsible for Outschool's core marketplace strategy to identify opportunities to combine existing offerings with new funding and accredited education models.

This is a strategic, commercially focused, and execution-oriented role. You'll help drive initiatives from market assessment and business case development through program design, launch, and growth, establishing clear revenue objectives and working across teams to deliver measurable results.

Core Responsibilities

• Identify and evaluate growth opportunities: Analyze market demand, customer segments, competitive offerings, education funding trends, and emerging educational models. Assess total addressable markets (TAM), pricing, unit economics, and revenue potential to prioritize opportunities.
• Develop business cases and growth strategies: Build financial models, investment recommendations, and actionable business plans for new programs, partnerships, and market expansion. Evaluate build, buy, and partner opportunities.
• Design new educational programs: Develop strategies and concepts for accredited schools, full-time and part-time tuition programs, homeschool solutions, bundled learning experiences, and other educational pathways. Define target audiences, positioning, packaging, pricing, enrollment models, and financial objectives.
• Expand public funding opportunities: Develop strategies to expand Outschool's participation in ESAs, the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit, state funding programs, and other emerging education funding opportunities. Identify priority markets and opportunities to make Outschool's offerings accessible to more families.
• Support public funding partnerships: Work with Business Development to establish, maintain, and expand relationships with state funding programs, ESA wallet providers, scholarship organizations, program administrators, and other strategic partners. Collaborate with Legal, Compliance, Product, and Operations to support ongoing program eligibility and successful participation.
• Develop accreditation and tuition-based program strategies: Partner with Outschool's Head of Schools and private school leadership to evaluate academic models, accreditation pathways, program requirements, and expansion opportunities. Work with school leadership and organizations such as WASC, Cognia, and NCAA to support accreditation, recognition, and program eligibility.
• Lead cross-functional program development and launches: Coordinate closely with Product, Business Development, Marketing, School Leadership, Finance, Legal, Compliance, and Operations to translate opportunities into business requirements, development plans, and successful program launches.
• Drive revenue growth: Establish revenue forecasts, enrollment targets, launch milestones, and performance measures for new programs and growth initiatives. Monitor results and work across teams to improve program design, pricing, packaging, customer adoption, and commercial performance.
• Establish strategic priorities and roadmaps: Develop and maintain an integrated roadmap for public funding expansion, accredited programs, and new educational offerings. Present business cases, strategic recommendations, and progress updates to executive leadership.

Desired Experience & Skills

• 8+ years of experience in business strategy, growth, new program development, product strategy, or related roles within K–12 education, edtech, educational services, or adjacent industries.
• Demonstrated success identifying market opportunities, developing business models, and bringing new products, programs, or services to market.
• Strong analytical and financial skills, including market sizing, TAM analysis, competitive research, pricing strategy, unit economics, and business case development.
• Understanding of ESAs, public education funding, accreditation, tuition-based education, and alternative K–12 learning models.
• Experience developing, designing, launching, or scaling educational offerings, programs, or new business initiatives.
• Ability to develop strategic partnerships and work effectively with external organizations, education agencies, and program administrators.
• Strong cross-functional leadership skills, with the ability to influence priorities, coordinate teams, and drive initiatives from concept through launch without direct reporting authority.
• Entrepreneurial mindset, strong commercial judgment, and a demonstrated ability to turn strategic opportunities into measurable revenue growth.

Other Considerations

• Experience with accredited online schools, private school networks, homeschool programs, microschools, or hybrid education models.
• Direct experience with ESA programs, scholarship-granting organizations, state education agencies, or publicly funded education programs.
• Familiarity with accreditation organizations such as WASC, Cognia, or NEASC, and NCAA academic eligibility requirements.
• Experience designing program bundles, pricing models, and tuition-based educational offerings.
• Experience evaluating strategic partnerships, acquisitions, and build-buy-partner opportunities.
• Previous experience in startups, high-growth education organizations, or consumer marketplaces.

Compensation

Outschool recruits across the US and Canada, and sets employee salaries to reflect local compensation and cost of living. In addition to base compensation, this role is eligible for equity and benefits. Additional details are provided during the interview process.

This role is available in the following US Pay Zones:

US Tiers

US Tier 1: San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, and Seattle Metro

US Tier 2: All California excluding San Francisco Bay Area, Boston Metro, Chicago Metro, Denver Metro, Austin Metro, Portland Metro

US Tier 3: All other cities and states

US Pay Zones

US Tier 1: This position is not available in this pay zone

US Tier 2: $183,600 - $207,000

US Tier 3: $162,000 - $182,250

Benefits & Culture

At Outschool, we believe that taking care of one another enables us to do our best work. To us that means:

• Shared Financial Success: Competitive salaries, stock options, and retirement plans.
• Health: Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance.
• Wellness: Annual wellness stipend, access to coaching & therapy, and pet wellness plans.
• PTO & Family Benefits: Generous PTO and family leave policies.
• Hybrid & Remote-Friendly: Outschool has a distributed team across the U.S. and Canada and an office in San Francisco. Bay Area-based employees work in the office part of the week and receive commute-related benefits. Team members outside the Bay Area remain fully remote, with support for expensable home office setup and internet to stay connected no matter where you are.
• Lifelong Learners: Annual budgets for professional development and DEI learning; budgets for children to take Outschool classes.
• Community Impact: Outschool matches employee donations to eligible charities and supports Outschool.org’s nonprofit programs.

Outschool is an equal opportunity employer. We view diversity as a moral imperative and competitive advantage. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We plan and structure our interviews to directly assess skills and experience.

If you require a reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, please contact recruiting@outschool.com.

Once you submit your application, Outschool will process your personal data to evaluate your candidacy for employment. Unless specifically indicated otherwise, we hire employees only in the U.S. and Canada. Applicants else where should be aware that we may discard your application upon submission or we may ask if you would like us to retain it later should there be consideration (this is not typical at all). If you are selected for interviewing, your data will be shared with interviewers and personnel involved in that process. If not hired, your application will be retained for one year in case there is another suitable role. You may opt out of this at any time. Please see our Employee/Applicant Privacy Notice for more detailed information. If applicable, as you progress through the process, we will be clear about what information is being asked for and what happens with that information.