Job Information
City and County of San Francisco 9772 (TPV) - Workforce Initiatives Program Specialist, Dept. of Early Childhood in San Francisco, California
Application Opening: June 27, 2024
Application Deadline: July 14, 2024
Compensation Range: $95,602-$116,272
Appointment: Full-Time, TPV- Temporary Provisional
Appointment Type: Temporary Provisional (TPV), limited to no more than 3 years in duration. This temporary position is excluded by the Charter from the competitive Civil Service examination process. Provisional employees must successfully compete in a civil service examination process and be reachable on an eligible list to be considered for permanent civil service appointment: a) successfully completed the examination process; b) is on the eligible list; c) is reachable on the eligible list; and d) is performing competently and effectively in the department.
About the San Francisco Department of Early Childhood
The Department of Early Childhood (DEC) is a City and County of San Francisco Department dedicated to our young children's healthy development. As the City’s largest funder of early childhood, DEC is committed to creating a system that ensures every child can thrive and learn. We provide public investment, expertise, and leadership to put resources into the hands of those who care for our City’s youngest children.
DEC results from merging two existing city departments, First 5 and the Office of Early Care and Education. Both First 5 and OECE have long histories of supporting young children and families in San Francisco through early care and education innovations, family support services, and programs to support children’s healthy development. They merged to expand their capacity and funding and to integrate the City’s early childhood services better.
Racial Equity Commitment
The Department of Early Childhood condemns all forms of racism, sexism, homo/biphobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, and other forms of discrimination. It affirms that all people– including Black, Indigenous, and People of Color – have a right to be in our City and have a right to safe and affordable housing, neighborhoods free from pollution and violence, opportunities for educational advancement and wealth creation, healthy births, early childhoods with abundant opportunities to thrive free from the toxic effects of racism, and access to essential services such as parks, transportation, health care, and child care. The Department of Early Childhood is committed to the principles of racial equity and continues to implement new strategies to ensure that every child can learn and thrive.
Workforce Initiatives Description
The Early Learning Division administers core department strategies that advance opportunities in support of teacher preparation and compensation, enhance program quality, and improve early care and education affordability and access; and collaborates closely with the other DEC divisions to form a cross-sector approach that ensures universal developmental screening that promotes access to health and mental health services for children and their families; and that families have opportunities for social and professional connections, linkage to resources, and information on parenting and child development.
The Early Learning Division is building a high-quality early care and education system that improves equitable access to high-quality, affordable early care and education for all children from birth to five years of age to provide the best start in life and enter kindergarten ready to succeed and focuses on:
Developing and supporting opportunities that achieve continuous eligibility for families and continuity of care for children ages birth to five.
Using a racial equity framework that creates the conditions that will ensure school readiness experiences.
Ensures that quality and assessment systems are responsive to the diverse needs of ECE programs and the children they serve.
Embracing culturally responsive and linguistically appropriate environments across a mixed delivery system.
Support policies and strategies that enhance coherence and alignment for Universal PreK (UPK).
The DEC Early Educator Workforce Initiatives aims to improve outcomes for San Francisco’s children and families by providing additional compensation to support a well-educated, well-compensated, and stable workforce.
DEC is committed to providing resources to programs and individuals that reward early care and education (ECE) staff for increased educational attainment, experience, and additional qualifications/skills.
Position Description
The Program Specialist for the Workforce Development Initiative is part of a diverse team dedicated to the advancement, retention and working conditions of early educators. This position reports to the Workforce Initiatives Manager under the Early Learning Division and supports early educator compensation and professional development supports.
The Program Specialist will work closely with the Workforce Compensation and Professional Development Pathways Program Officers, and members of the Quality Early Learning and Data & Evaluation Teams to support the implementation of an array of grant making, capacity building, grants management, technical assistance, evaluation, communication, and funder and stakeholder organizing efforts while supporting and fostering key relationships within the department and with community-based partners.
The Program Specialist performs a variety of activities related to supporting the funding of various local early educator workforce projects and programs; may provide direct coordination support of program implementation and technical programming; will participate in program planning, development, program implementation, and evaluation; conducts program analyses, makes recommendations on operational corrections in collaboration with Program Officers to comply with contractual requirements and support departmental goals and mission; prepares reports and records and performs related duties as required.
Examples of important and essential functions of this position include:
Systems and Partnership Level
Work with the Policy & Impact Division for internal/external research in coordination with Program Officers to analyze and synthesize trends and opportunities in workforce support programming.
Engage in professional development and continuous learning, including participating in conferences and meetings, regional networks, and other field-building/professional development opportunities that will enhance leadership development.
Provide support to the design and implementation of early learning grant programming.
Integrate and align other Early Learning Division initiatives and efforts as needed; participate in department-wide planning, resource allocation, and organizational development.
Grantmaking and Support
Provide administrative and technical support for Program Officers in tracking and coordinating budget utilization, activities, and the compliance performance of grantees.
Support program design and implementation of crucial early educator professional development pathways and compensation programs, supporting the coordination of stakeholder engagement planning and implementation.
Effectively center equity in program solutions and system design approaches, including development of training, coursework and professional development requirements of programming that acknowledges the experiences of the diverse workforce and the need for supports and strategies to increase access to institutions of higher education.
Read, analyze, and interpret common professional publications, research, legislative or policy documents, financial reports and related agency documents and information.
Collaborate on preparation of concise analytical written proposal summaries that include funding recommendations, payment schedules, and grant analysis.
Provide support in the establishment and execution of evaluation efforts for on-going assessment of programs and grantees.
Works with identified data system to establish and collect training and professional development reporting, to develop integrated data system tracking that will link quality supports, child outcomes, teacher supports, and other evaluation data while helping to design additional strategic investments in professional development pathways.
Collect data and information and prepare a wide variety of reports, memoranda, and correspondences on initiative progress and status; recommend project or program modifications to assure initiative goal attainment, high quality implementation of services, and contract adherence.
Provide troubleshooting, guidance, and technical support to grantees and participating programs/agencies as needed.
As needed: collaborate in the oversight of the work of external consultants; report to senior level and executive management.
Other duties as assigned.
This position will require some evening and weekend meetings, including travel regionally and nationally.
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
Possession of a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university AND two (2) years of administrative/professional experience in community development, housing and/or development, workforce development, finance, education, social work, children/youth work, criminal justice or elections related work; OR
Possession of a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university with a major in one of the following fields: public or business administration, urban planning, government, social work, education, finance or criminal justice AND one (1) year of administrative/professional experience in community development, housing and/or development, workforce development, finance, education, social work, children/youth work, criminal justice or elections related work; OR
Possession of a Master's degree from an accredited college or university in public policy, planning, social work, public administration, finance, education, criminal justice, or business administration; OR
Possession of a Ph.D. or Juris Doctor degree from an accredited college or university.
SUBSTITUTION: Verifiable administrative/professional experience involving community development, housing and/or housing development, workforce development, finance, education, social work, children/youth work, criminal justice and/or elections-related work may substitute for the educational requirement in Minimum Qualification #1 on a year-for-year basis.
One year of full-time employment is equivalent to 2000 hours. (2000 hours of qualifying work experience is based on a 40-hour work week.) Any overtime hours that you work above forty (40) hours per week are not included in the calculation to determine full-time employment. Thirty (30) semester units or forty-five (45) quarter units equal one year.
SPECIAL CONDITION
Bilingual proficiency in Spanish
Candidates will be required to pass the oral and written bilingual proficiency test to be considered for this position.
DESIRABLE QUALIFICATIONS
The Program Specialist will be a project coordinator, consultant, analyst and problem solver with exacting standards and an eye towards creativity and innovation. This role requires an individual who can balance strong attention to detail and analytical skills with an engaging, consultative, relationship-focused approach working with people.
Three (3) years of full-time progressively responsible experience in a public or private organization of which one (1) year was in early care and education field.
Experience in providing technical and/or administrative experience across multiple teams.
Strong skills in project and time management.
Excellent writing and verbal skills.
Experience with wide ranging cloud-based data systems welcomed.
Knowledge and understanding of the diverse licensed and informal care ECE workforce, their strengths, needs, and challenges including, but not limited to, pay and compensation.
Knowledge of the principles of and best practices of early care and education workforce research and teacher qualifications.
Resumes will not be accepted in lieu of a completed City and County of San Francisco application. Applications completed improperly may be cause for ineligibility or disqualification.
Verification: Applicants may be required to submit verification of qualifying education and experience at any point during the recruitment and selection process. If education verification is required, information on how to verify education requirements, including verifying foreign education credits or degree equivalency, can be found at https://sfdhr.org/how-verify-education-requirements or How to Verify Education Requirements (https://c.smartrecruiters.com/sr-company-attachments-prod-aws-dc11/604edaa8115f4c74c61de124/82a0fb28-6832-4013-961d-596390e5ed55?r=s3-us-east-2)
Note: Falsifying one’s education, training, or work experience or attempted deception on the application may result in disqualification for this and future job opportunities with the City and County of San Francisco.
All work experience, education, training, and other information substantiating how you meet the minimum qualifications must be included on your application by the filing deadline. Information submitted after the filing deadline will not be considered in determining whether you meet the minimum qualifications.
Additional Information Regarding Employment with the City and County of San Francisco:
Information About the Hiring Process (https://sfdhr.org/information-about-hiring-process)
Conviction History
Employee Benefits Overview (https://sfdhr.org/benefits-overview)
Equal Employment Opportunity
Disaster Service Worker (https://sfdhr.org/disaster-service-workers)
ADA Accommodation
Veterans Preference (http://sfdhr.org/information-about-hiring-process#veteranspreference)
Right to Work
Copies of Application Documents (https://sfdhr.org/information-about-hiring-process#copies)
Diversity Statement
How to Apply
Applications for City and County of San Francisco jobs are only accepted through an online process.
Visit Careers with Purpose | City and County of San Francisco (sf.gov) (https://careers.sf.gov/)
Type "9772" into the "Search by class or keyword" field.
Click the link to open the Job Announcement.
Select the “Apply Now” button and follow instructions on the screen.
Applicants may be contacted by email about this recruitment and, therefore, it is their responsibility to ensure that their registered email address is accurate and kept up-to-date. Also, applicants must ensure that email from CCSF is not blocked on their computer by a spam filter. To prevent blocking, applicants should set up their email to accept CCSF mail from the following addresses (@sfgov.org, @sfdpw.org, @sfport.com, @flysfo.com, @sfwater.org, @sfdph.org, @asianart.org, @sfmta.com, @sfpl.org, @dcyf.org, @first5sf.org, @famsf.org, @ccsf.edu, @smartalerts.info, and @smartrecruiters.com).
Applicants will receive a confirmation email that their online application has been received in response to every announcement for which they file. Applicants should retain this confirmation email for their records. Failure to receive this email means that the online application was not submitted or received.
Analyst Information: If you have any questions regarding the recruitment process, please contact lynn.tran@sfgov.org
The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.