9772 (TEX)- Workforce Initiative Program Specialist (multiple), Dept. of Early Childhood

Application Opening: December 11, 2024
Application Deadline: December 24, 2024
Compensation Range: $95,602 - $116,272 Annually (Compensation database)
Recruitment ID: TEX-9772-152942

Appointment Type: Temporary-Exempt (TEX), Category 18. This position is excluded by the Charter from the competitive Civil Service examination process and shall serve at the discretion of the Appointing Officer and not exceed 36 months.

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 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
In service of the Department of Early Childhood's Initiative to grow and support a thriving early childhood education workforce in San Francisco, the Program Specialist will be working on a 3-year project within the Early Learning Division that would include supporting the program design and implementation of crucial early educator professional development pathways and compensations programs.

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.

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.

Others

• This position will require some evening and weekend meetings, including travel regionally and nationally.
• Other duties as assigned.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

1. 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 housing development, workforce development, finance, education, social work, children/youth work, criminal justice or election related work a related field; OR 
 
2. 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 housing development, workforce development, finance, education, social work, children/youth work, criminal justice or election related work related field; OR 
 
3. 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 
 
4. 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.    

Note: 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 exceeding forty (40) hours per week are not included in the calculation to determine full-time employment.

DESIRABLE QUALIFICATIONS

The Program Associate 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.

• Fluency in Spanish and/or Cantonese/Mandarin preferred, but not required.
• Experience with Microsoft Excel. Some examples of Excel experience include:
  • Create complex formulas and functions to analyze data.
  • Develop and maintain complex spreadsheets and databases.
  • Design and implement automated processes for data entry, analysis, and reporting.
  • Create pivot tables and charts to visualize data.
• 3 years of full-time progressively responsible experience in a public or private organization of which 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. 

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. 

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 is required, information on how to verify education requirements, including verifying foreign education credits or degree equivalency, can be found at How to Verify Education Requirements.

SELECTION PROCEDURES
The selection process will include evaluation of applications in relation to minimum requirements.  Applicants meeting the minimum qualifications are not guaranteed advancement to the interview. Depending on the number of applicants, the Department may establish and implement additional screening mechanisms to comparatively evaluate the qualifications of candidates.  If this becomes necessary, only those applicants whose qualifications most closely meet the needs of the Department will be invited for an interview. 
Supplemental Questionnaire: Candidates may be required to complete a supplemental questionnaire (SQ) as part of the employment application. This SQ is designed to obtain specific information regarding an applicant's education and experience in for this position. 

Notes:  Applicants who meet the minimum qualifications are not guaranteed advancement through all of the steps in the selection procedure. 

What else should I know?

• Information About the Hiring Process
• Conviction History
• Employee Benefits Overview  
• Equal Employment Opportunity 
• Disaster Service Worker
• ADA Accommodation
• Veterans Preference
• Seniority Credit in Promotional Exams [required for Combined, Promotive, Entrance (CPE) Exams only]
• Right to Work
• Copies of Application Documents
• Diversity Statement

HOW TO APPLY
Applications for City and County of San Francisco jobs are only accepted through an online process.

1. Visit Careers with Purpose | City and County of San Francisco (sf.gov)
2. Type "9772" into the "Search by class or keyword" field.
3. Click the link to open the Job Announcement.
4. 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, @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 this recruitment or application process, please contact the analyst Lynn Tran at [email protected].

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.