Director of Inclusive Learning & Accessibility (Volunteer)

Director of Inclusive Learning & Accessibility (Volunteer)

PromiseLearning | Inclusive Education, Accessible Learning & Universal Design

Organization: Mentor A Promise (MAP)

Division: PromiseLearning

Location: Fully Remote — United States

Type: Volunteer Education Leadership Role

Commitment: Approximately 5–10 hours per week

Minimum Commitment: 6-month commitment required

Reports To: Chief of Education / PromiseLearning Leadership

Works Closely With: PromisePrograms, PromiseRise, PromisePublic, curriculum and instructional teams, educators, mentors, program leaders, accessibility professionals, and Executive Leadership

About Mentor A Promise

Mentor A Promise (MAP) is a New York City–based nonprofit supporting children and youth ages 5–18 experiencing housing instability through mentorship, education, literacy, social-emotional learning, creative expression, career development, advocacy, and community-centered opportunity.

MAP believes meaningful educational opportunity requires more than opening the door to a program. Young people must be able to participate, learn, contribute, develop their strengths, and experience genuine belonging once they enter.

About PromiseLearning

PromiseLearning is MAP's education division, responsible for strengthening learning quality, curriculum, instructional practices, educational innovation, and academic experiences across the organization.

PromiseLearning helps ensure that MAP's educational experiences are thoughtful, developmentally appropriate, evidence-informed, engaging, accessible, and responsive to the young people we serve.

Role Overview

MAP is seeking a Director of Inclusive Learning & Accessibility to lead the development of inclusive and accessible learning practices across PromiseLearning and support their adoption throughout MAP's educational programs.

The Director will help MAP design learning environments for the reality of human difference.

Students may differ in how they process information, communicate, read, write, focus, move, hear, see, regulate sensory experiences, interact socially, demonstrate knowledge, or participate in groups.

Our responsibility is not to create one model of the "ideal learner" and then determine how everyone else can fit into it.

Our responsibility is to design learning with variability in mind from the beginning.

The Director will help MAP move from:

Access → Participation → Belonging → Growth → Leadership

Key Responsibilities

Inclusive Learning Strategy

• Develop MAP's framework for inclusive and accessible learning.
• Establish practical standards that educators and program teams can implement.
• Identify systemic barriers within learning experiences.
• Help teams design for learner variability from the beginning.
• Develop strategies supporting students with different strengths and learning needs.
• Integrate accessibility into educational planning rather than treating it solely as a response to accommodation requests.
• Help establish measurable organizational goals for inclusive learning.

Universal Design for Learning

Help integrate Universal Design for Learning principles into MAP educational experiences.

Support educators in providing multiple approaches to:

• Engagement
• Representation of information
• Participation
• Communication
• Practice
• Demonstration of learning
• Assessment and feedback

The Director should help teams ask not only whether content is accessible, but whether students have meaningful ways to engage with and demonstrate what they know.

Curriculum Accessibility

Review and strengthen curricula, lesson plans, workshops, activities, and educational resources.

Consider:

• Reading level
• Language clarity
• Cognitive load
• Visual organization
• Instructions
• Alternative formats
• Captions
• Transcripts
• Accessible documents
• Multimedia accessibility
• Sensory demands
• Time expectations
• Participation requirements
• Assessment methods

Develop practical tools educators can use before materials reach students.

Neurodiversity & Learner Variability

Help MAP strengthen educational practices for neurodivergent learners and students who may experience differences involving attention, executive functioning, communication, sensory processing, literacy, learning, or social interaction.

The Director should promote strengths-based approaches while recognizing that individual students may still require specific supports.

A diagnosis should never become a prediction of a young person's potential.

Digital Learning Accessibility

Partner with appropriate technology and accessibility teams to strengthen accessibility across digital learning experiences.

Areas may include:

• Learning platforms
• Digital documents
• Videos
• Presentations
• Online workshops
• Forms
• Educational websites
• Interactive content
• Virtual programming

Help teams understand accessibility considerations involving keyboard navigation, screen readers, captions, transcripts, contrast, structure, alternative text, and other relevant practices.

Instructional Practice

Help educators, mentors, facilitators, and volunteers create inclusive learning environments.

Develop guidance around:

• Flexible instruction
• Clear directions
• Scaffolding
• Visual supports
• Differentiated learning
• Student choice
• Predictable routines
• Sensory considerations
• Participation alternatives
• Strengths-based feedback
• Accessible assessment
• Appropriate pacing

Accessibility should strengthen teaching for everyone rather than creating an entirely separate educational system for particular students.

Educator Training & Development

Develop training and professional-learning opportunities for MAP educators, mentors, facilitators, curriculum designers, and program leaders.

Topics may include:

• Inclusive teaching
• Universal Design for Learning
• Disability awareness
• Neurodiversity
• Accessible educational materials
• Digital accessibility
• Inclusive communication
• Recognizing learning barriers
• Appropriate accommodations
• Strengths-based educational practices

Training should translate principles into things educators can actually do differently.

Student & Family Voice

Develop respectful mechanisms for students and families to communicate:

• Learning preferences
• Accessibility barriers
• Support needs
• Program experiences
• Feedback
• Recommendations

Students and families should not have to repeatedly prove that a barrier exists before MAP takes it seriously.

At the same time, MAP should protect privacy and avoid unnecessary collection of medical or diagnostic information.

Cross-Division Collaboration

Partner with PromisePrograms to strengthen accessibility within direct youth programming.

Partner with PromiseRise to make career-readiness and experiential-learning opportunities accessible.

Partner with PromisePublic's disability justice and accessibility leadership on broader organizational accessibility, disability inclusion, public engagement, and disability justice.

Partner with appropriate technology teams on digital accessibility.

Partner with PromiseMeasure to understand participation and educational outcomes.

The Director of Inclusive Learning & Accessibility owns the educational and instructional dimension of accessibility.

Accessibility itself remains an organization-wide responsibility.

Inclusive Learning for New Programs

Serve as an educational accessibility partner as MAP develops new initiatives, including academies, workshops, curricula, digital learning experiences, and youth-development programs.

The Director should be involved early enough to influence design rather than being asked to repair preventable barriers after launch.

Accessibility is most powerful when it begins before the barrier does.

Accommodation & Support Frameworks

Help establish clear processes for responding when individual learners require additional support.

• Clarify appropriate educational responses.
• Coordinate with families and authorized MAP leaders where necessary.
• Identify when specialized expertise is required.
• Protect student confidentiality.
• Document supports appropriately.
• Avoid requiring unnecessary disclosure.
• Help distinguish general inclusive design from individualized accommodation.

The Director should not independently diagnose students or provide clinical services outside their professional qualifications.

Research & Evidence-Informed Practice

• Monitor developments in inclusive education and accessibility.
• Review relevant educational research.
• Evaluate emerging instructional approaches.
• Translate research into practical MAP guidance.
• Distinguish evidence-informed practices from trends or unsupported claims.
• Help MAP continuously improve its educational model.

Leadership Boundaries

This role complements, rather than replaces, MAP's broader disability justice and accessibility leadership.

PromiseLearning owns inclusive educational design, curriculum accessibility, and instructional accessibility.

PromisePublic may lead broader disability justice, public engagement, organizational accessibility strategy, and disability inclusion.

Technology teams remain responsible for implementing accessibility within the systems and products they own.

Program leaders remain responsible for accessibility within their programs.

The Director provides expertise, standards, guidance, training, review, and leadership—but individual divisions remain accountable for implementing accessibility within their work.

The principle is simple:

The Director leads the work. The organization owns the responsibility.

Ideal Candidate

Strong candidates may have backgrounds in:

• Inclusive education
• Special education
• Accessibility
• Universal Design for Learning
• Instructional design
• Curriculum development
• Disability studies
• Educational technology
• Neurodiversity
• Learning sciences
• Teacher development
• Youth development

Candidates should demonstrate experience or strong knowledge in several of the following:

• Universal Design for Learning
• Inclusive instructional practices
• Curriculum accessibility
• Differentiated instruction
• Accessible educational materials
• Disability inclusion
• Neurodiversity
• Digital accessibility
• Educator professional development
• Student-centered learning
• Program or curriculum evaluation

Experience working with children and youth is strongly preferred.

Relevant graduate education, professional certifications, accessibility credentials, special-education experience, or comparable professional expertise is valuable but should not substitute for demonstrated ability to build respectful, practical, student-centered systems.

What Success Looks Like

Accessibility becomes part of how MAP designs education—not a checklist completed afterward.

Curriculum teams think about learner variability before materials are finalized.

Educators have practical tools for responding to different learning needs.

Digital educational resources become more accessible.

Students have multiple ways to participate and demonstrate learning.

Families know how to communicate barriers.

Program leaders know where to seek guidance.

MAP becomes better at recognizing when the environment—not the student—is creating the obstacle.

Most importantly, young people experience an organization where difference does not determine whether they belong.

Why This Role Matters

A student can be physically present in a classroom and still be excluded from learning.

A young person can receive the same assignment as everyone else and still not have an equitable opportunity to demonstrate what they know.

Accessibility is not about lowering expectations.

It is about removing unnecessary barriers so high expectations become genuinely reachable.

MAP wants to build educational environments where young people do not have to spend their energy overcoming the design of the program before they can begin learning from it.

What You'll Gain

• Leadership experience shaping inclusive education across a growing nonprofit
• Opportunity to develop an organization-wide inclusive-learning framework
• Experience working across curriculum, instruction, technology, youth development, and accessibility
• Opportunity to train and support educators and program leaders
• Ability to influence new educational programs from their earliest stages
• Cross-functional nonprofit leadership experience
• Professional references and recommendations based on demonstrated contribution
• Meaningful opportunity to help create learning environments where more young people can participate and thrive

Commitment

• Approximately 5–10 hours per week
• 6-month commitment required
• Fully remote
• Participate consistently in applicable PromiseLearning meetings
• Meet regularly with PromiseLearning leadership
• Collaborate with educators and cross-functional teams
• Support training and resource development
• Own agreed priorities through completion
• Maintain MAP's safeguarding, privacy, accessibility, and organizational standards

How to Apply

Interested candidates should apply directly through Idealist and submit:

• Resume or CV
• Cover Letter

Applicants should highlight relevant experience in inclusive education, accessibility, Universal Design for Learning, special education, instructional design, curriculum development, neurodiversity, educational technology, or related fields.

This is an unpaid, fully remote volunteer leadership position.

At this time, MAP volunteer opportunities are limited to individuals based in the United States due to legal, safeguarding, data-privacy, compliance, and programmatic requirements.

Do not ask whether the student can fit the way we teach. Help us build learning so every student has a meaningful opportunity to participate, grow, lead, and belong.