You have wanted to build a place where children are treated as capable. Not someday. Now.
Founding Guide · Vancouver, BC · Full-time · mid-August 2026 start
You have wanted to build a culture where children are treated as capable — not someday, but now. A culture where adults ask better questions instead of giving quick answers. Where support does not become rescue. Where mistakes are not emergencies, but material for growth. Where agency, honesty, responsibility, focus, courage, and repair are practiced daily, not printed on a wall.
Maybe you have believed this for years.
Maybe you have seen what children can become when adults stop doing the work for them.
But you have not found the right place to build it.
Trellis may be that place.
What Trellis is
Trellis: An Acton Academy is opening in Vancouver in September 2026 as a small learner-driven community for up to nine founding learners, ages five to eight. We are part of the Acton Academy network — more than 300 learner-driven communities worldwide.
We are looking for our Founding Guide — not a conventional teacher, not a classroom manager, and not the adult at the centre of the room.
This is a founding role. The first Guide will shape the culture of Trellis for years to come. And you will not do it buried in logistics: one of our founders is in the studio every day with a single job — removing every friction, carrying everything that is not guiding, so that your whole attention belongs to the children.
At Trellis, children are not passive recipients of instruction. They are learners who build independence, take responsibility, work toward mastery, practice self-governance, reflect honestly, and grow through meaningful challenge.
Our first-year studio will be intentionally small, mixed-age, and tech-free — and outdoors every day, rain or shine.
The work
The Guide's work is to prepare the environment, launch meaningful challenges, ask strong questions, observe carefully, hold calm boundaries, protect the culture, and help learners do the work that belongs to them.
In this role, you will need to be:
- Present without taking over.
- Supportive without rescuing.
- Warm but firm.
- Firm without becoming controlling.
- Comfortable with failure, repair, and honest reflection.
- Serious about building culture through daily practice, not slogans.
Who we're looking for
Montessori training or experience is a strong plus. So is time with children ages five to eight in any learner-driven setting — forest school, Reggio, homeschool co-ops, camps, outdoor programs. This can be your first lead role: we care about instincts, judgment, humility, and who you are in a room with children. Acton's guide training and a worldwide network of guides come with the job.
A teaching certificate is not required.
Where this goes
Where this goes
The growth is real. Trellis is built to expand: in 2027 we grow toward 15–20 learners — your studio grows, and your role and compensation grow with it.
The offer
The offer
- Role: Founding Guide, mixed-age studio
- $29.00 / hour · full-time
- Seven-hour days on a school-year rhythm, mid-August through June
- Starts mid-August 2026, before learners begin in September
- Permanent, with a founder at your side and a growth path in writing
- Eligible to work in Canada, with a vulnerable-sector criminal record check and first aid certification before your start date — we'll help you arrange both
A note from the founders
We built Trellis because we were searching for this place for our own daughters and couldn't find it. Everything here — the studio, the families, the Guide we hire — is us giving children something that is becoming increasingly scarce: the space to be seen, taken seriously, and trusted to forge their own path.
Mosi & Saba, founders
How to apply
Don't start with a resume. Start with how you think.
Email hello@trellised.ca with three things:
One.
A short note — who you are and why this caught your attention. A few paragraphs, not a cover letter.
Two.
Your answer to this question, in about 200 words: Tell us about a time you watched a child struggle with something hard and chose not to take over. What did you notice? What did you do instead? What happened?
Three.
A two-minute video of you telling a story. Any story you love telling. A phone camera is perfect. We are not looking for production quality.
Send your application
Attach a resume if you have one — we'll read the three things above first.
We review applications as they arrive and want our Founding Guide in place by mid-August. Finalists will spend a morning with children from our founding families, running a real session — because the only way to know if this fits is to see you in the room.
Send the three items to hello@trellised.ca — we’re looking forward to hearing your story.