Lead Garden Educator
(Paid Opportunities) Return to Paid Opportunities
Start Date: 3/5/2025 Compensation: $19/hour
City Green is hiring full-time Lead Garden Educators for the 2025 programmatic season, March through November. The Lead Garden Educator position is an opportunity to lead and teach hands-on, garden-based lessons for preschool and elementary-aged children, while planting and maintaining youth gardens in an urban setting. Lead Educators host programs at City Green’s educational gardens in Clifton and Paterson, as well as off-site at partner schools and organizations across Northern NJ with the support of interns and seasonal assistant educators. We are looking for enthusiastic, responsible educators who have experience leading programming for young children and some experience growing gardens.
Programs that Lead Garden Educators facilitate include:
- Story Time in the Garden: Preschool storytime program for children and their families
- Open Saturdays: Free, open to the public nature exploration for families
- Field Trips: Field trips for local school groups aged Prek - 12
- School Garden installations and garden clean-ups: Leading school groups in filling their gardens with soils, and cleaning-up their gardens for planting.
- City Sprouts: Weekly after-school and summer camp garden programs hosted at local community organizations
Responsibilities/Duties
- Prepare for lessons by gathering and preparing supplies, reviewing the curriculum, setting up the outdoor classroom space, cleaning up, and returning all materials to their proper location
- Oversee support staff of interns and seasonal garden educators
- Implement City Green’s seasonal curriculum during garden-based lessons
- Foster a positive learning environment and exhibit outdoor classroom management skills
- Implement weekly maintenance of educational and public gardens. Tasks include: planting, watering, weeding, spreading compost, harvesting or mulching.
- Adapt lessons when necessary to different sites, weather conditions, and student needs
- Communicate respectfully with parents, teachers, and school/program staff and share any partner feedback or concerns with City Green staff
- Travel between garden sites using City Green vehicles
- Perform daily program data collection
- Follow organizational policies and standards for safety and liability
Qualifications/Requirements
Garden Educators must:
- Have some direct experience working with children
- Have a basic knowledge of garden concepts and vegetable plant identification.
- Be comfortable working outside in all weather and capable of lifting 40 pounds
- Be flexible, patient, and comfortable adapting lessons to fit student and partner needs
- Must have a valid driver's license of the state you reside in, at least 2 years driving experience, and be at least 19 years old. Employee’s driver history for the past 4 years must meet City Green’s insurance policy safe driving requirements.
- Undergo a background check
Additional Information
To apply,
- Visit www.citygreenonline.org/careers to apply
- Fill out the online application and upload resume
- Please contact us at 973-869-4086 or opportunities@city-green.org with any questions.
City Green is a non-profit Youth Serving Organization. As such we require all employees to receive a recommendation of approval for employment from the New Jersey State Police through State and Federal Fingerprint-Based Criminal History Record Check. Once a candidate has been offered employment by City Green, we will provide instructions to obtain the required documentation.
Contact Information
City Green
Contact Name: Erin Baniaga
Email: opportunities@city-green.org
Phone: 9738694086
Website: Apply Online