Join the Founding Team

Change the Future With Us

This is bigger than a job. We are opening a tuition-free public school in Cleveland on one stubborn belief: a young person's zip code should never set the ceiling on their future. A place where every graduate walks out with a college acceptance in one hand and a job offer in the other. The founding team gets to build it from the ground up. We cannot do it without you.

Status
Founding team forming
Location
Cleveland, Ohio
Doors Open
Fall 2027
Plenty of people get to work at a school. Almost no one gets to build one from the ground up. That is what we are offering you.
An invitation to the founding team
What you'd be saying yes to

This is not a job.
It is a founding.

A founding team member is not someone who shows up to a finished school. You are one of the hands that builds it. Here is what that actually means.

01
Create History
Rooted School Cleveland opens once, and only once. The people here at the start write the first chapter: the culture, the first traditions, the standard every class that follows will inherit. Years from now, students will move through a school you helped imagine into being.
02
Be Part of a Cause
This is bigger than a paycheck. We believe a young person's zip code should not decide the size of their future, and we are putting an entire school behind that belief. You would not just be taking a position. You would be joining a cause worth giving your work to.
03
Build Something Together
No one founds a school alone. It rises only when teachers, families, operators, and partners pull in the same direction at the same time. You would be one essential part of a team accomplishing something no single person ever could on their own.
04
We Need You
We mean that plainly. A founding team has no spare seats and no passengers. Every person carries real weight, and the school becomes whatever the people who show up make it. If you are reading this and feeling the pull, that is exactly the instinct we are looking for.
Who we're looking for

Builders, Not Bystanders.

Founding teams are not assembled from a checklist. We are looking for people who see an unfinished school as an invitation, not a risk. If one of these sounds like you, we should talk.

01
The Founding Teacher
You teach because you refuse to accept the outcomes our students are handed. You want a room you can design, a curriculum you can shape, and colleagues who push you. A blank slate excites you instead of scaring you.
02
The Student Champion
Counselors, advisors, and support staff who know that academics only land when a young person feels seen, safe, and believed in. You build the relationships that make rigor possible.
03
The Systems Builder
Operations, finance, and logistics leaders who understand that a great school runs on a thousand invisible details done right. You make the machine work so teachers can teach.
04
The Community Weaver
Family liaisons and partnership leads who can knock on doors, sit at kitchen tables, and bring Cleveland into the building. You know this school belongs to the community, not the other way around.
More ways to build with us

You don't have to be on payroll to be a founder.

A school takes a whole community to open. There is a place here for your time, your expertise, or your network, whatever you have to give.

Be first in line

We're not hiring yet.
But we will be.

Because we open in Fall 2027, most roles post in the lead-up to launch. Founding teams, though, are built from the people who raise their hand early. Add your name and you will be among the first we contact when roles open.

Takes 30 seconds. This is not an application, and there is no commitment. We will never share your information.

✓

You are on the list.

We received your information and will be in touch when founding roles open. Welcome to the beginning of something worth building.