Staff whose work requires or potentially could require any in-person interaction with Save the Children colleagues, partners, or beneficiaries must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 unless otherwise required by law. Save the Children complies with federal, state, and local laws with regard to accommodations related to this policy.

Summary

Save the Children’s U.S. Programs (USP) division is committed to ensuring that all children in rural America have a healthy, strong foundation to thrive as learners and in life. Our contribution to a full cradle-to-career continuum is focused on the early years, birth through elementary school; and our goals are to increase kindergarten readiness and grade-level literacy and math proficiency for children in under-resourced rural communities. Save the Children does whatever it takes to be there for children in times of crisis. Always at the ready, we are among the first to respond and the last to leave, staying as long as it takes to help children and families recover from their losses, restore their lives and build resilience for years to come.

Save the Children is seeking an Advisor, Kindergarten Readiness. In this role, you will be supporting the design of high quality educational programs and strategies to accelerate learning outcomes for children across rural America. You will work closely with state based program implementation staff to ensure program quality standards are met, and you will collaborate with fundraising colleagues to drive program growth and development. The ideal person for this position will have extensive content expertise in early education, experience working in rural communities, and deep knowledge of effective practices for advancing age-appropriate development and school readiness outcomes for children.

What You’ll Be Doing (Essential Duties)

Design and Refine Program Models (30%)

• Develop new, and refine existing, models, strategies, and resources to broaden impact and fill programmatic gaps
• Ensure programs are culturally relevant, backed by research and best practice, and aligned to community needs and insights
• Establish standards for high quality implementation and determine options for customization
• Work with local educational agencies (LEAs), state educational agencies (SEAs), and state teams to innovate and adapt approaches to align strategies and meet common goals
• Utilize lessons learned to inform program design, refinements, and to enhance results

Build Capacity to Implement Programs (40%)

• Develop and deliver engaging high impact trainings, technical assistance, and other resources to state implementation teams
• Lead onboarding processes for early childhood program Lead Associates and other staff supporting early childhood programming; support recruitment and onboarding on an ongoing basis.
• Provide technical guidance to support project implementation and to identify and resolve implementation challenges
• Build programmatic competencies of implementation staff, promoting best practices and ongoing professional development and learning through community of practices and standing TA meetings
• Manage collaborative projects; develop effective plans for meeting goals, establish timelines and measurable checkpoints, estimate required resources, and anticipate obstacles.

Collect and Analyze Data (20%)

• Monitor quality of program implementation, ensuring programs are on track to meet key metrics, program indicators, reach expectations, other grant deliverables
• Oversee routine collection of data, analysis and reporting on programming results, reach numbers, metrics for quarterly Rural Ed. reports
• Analyze and summarize program implementation data
• Inform annual goals, targets and reach
• Partner with the Monitoring and Evaluation team to work with state departments of education, local school systems and research partners to gain access to and analyze our programs’ impact on Kindergarten Readiness and other key metrics.

Support Program Growth (10%)

• Collaborate with the Program Partnerships team and state teams to support the cultivation of partnerships and/or relationships with external organizations, donors and other key stakeholders
• Contribute to the development of funding proposals, marketing content, donor meetings, proposal reviews, presentations and other external relations that require technical expertise

Required Qualifications

• Minimum of a Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent experience, plus at least 5 years relevant experience working in the Early Childhood field
• Professional proficiency in MS Office suite
• Professional proficiency in spoken and written English
• Demonstrated ability to communicate and collaborate effectively with individuals and teams at all levels, both internally and externally
• Demonstrated experience working with special populations or children in different learning environments, such as children with disabilities, children who are dual language learners, children in family childcare settings, and/or children who are homeless.
• Demonstrated commitment to fostering and maintaining and environment of diversity, inclusion, and belonging
• Willingness to travel regionally up to 30%

Preferred Qualifications

• Graduate Degree in Early Childhood Education or related field.
• Experience with curriculum development for expectant families, and children birth to five years old
• Experience in project management and facilitation of strategies for complex, multi-partner community initiatives.
• Experience developing and leading trainings for early childhood workforce
• Experience coaching and supporting adults in early childhood workforce or related area

Compensation

Save the Children is offering the following salary ranges for this position, dependent on candidate location:

• Geo 1- NY Metro, DC, and other locations with labor costs significantly above national average: Target Salary for this position is $84,200 – $94,000 base salary.

• Geo 2-Locations around the US National Labor Cost Average: Target Salary for this position is $76,500 – $85,500 base salary.

• Geo 3-Locations significantly below the US National Labor Cost Average: Target Salary for this position is $68,800 – $77,000 base salary.

Actual base salary may vary based upon, but not limited to, relevant experience, base salary of internal peers, business sector, and geographic location. Save the Children also offers paid vacation, accrued at least 12 days a year, depending on paygrade and length of service, paid safety and wellness leave of at least 1 day per month worked for a full time employee which is pro rata reduced for employees working less than a full time schedule, and at least 10 paid holidays a year. Employees may be eligible for additional bonus compensation. Save the Children US also offers outstanding benefits that include health, dental, vision and life insurances, short-term and long-term disability coverage, an Employee Assistance Program, a retirement savings plan with employer contribution, family leave, paid parental/adoption leave of 60 days, commuter benefits, paid caregiver leave days, 1 paid volunteer day a year, paid critical child illness leave days, dress for your day, and much more.

Why you should join the Save the Children Team…

Save the Children US offers outstanding benefits that include health, dental, vision and life insurances, short-term and long-term disability coverage, an Employee Assistance Program, 403(b), generous vacation, personal sick leave, family leave, parental/adoption leave, commuter benefits, dress for your day, and much more.

Click here to learn more about how Save the Children US will invest in YOU!

About Save the Children

No matter your role when you join Save the Children, each and every day you will challenge yourself to devote your skills, talent and expertise to changing the world for kids. It’s an ambitious goal, and a meaningful one no matter how you see yourself professionally: an accountant, a writer, a data analyst, a teacher, a driver, a designer, or any one of the hundreds of dozens of roles we’re looking to fill every day.

You see, Save the Children believes every child deserves a future. In the United States and around the world, we give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. We do whatever it takes for children – every day and in times of crisis – transforming their lives and the future we share.

Our work for children and their families requires that we commit—at every opportunity—to work together to identify and dismantle persistent systemic and structural racism, inequality, and any other forms of discrimination in this country and beyond. As an anti-racist organization, Save the Children will not tolerate discrimination in any form—in our employment practices, amongst our staff, in our leadership or toward the people we serve. We stand in solidarity with all people to fight for equal rights, justice, inclusion, and belonging.

We provide equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, ancestry, sexual orientation, national origin, age, handicap, disability, marital status, or status as a veteran. Save the Children complies with all applicable laws.

Save the Children is committed to conducting its programs and operations in a manner that is safe for the children it serves and helping protect the children with whom we are in contact. All Save the Children representatives are explicitly prohibited from engaging in any activity that may result in any kind of child abuse. In addition, it is Save the Children’s policy to create and proactively maintain an environment that aims to prevent and deter any actions and omissions, whether deliberate or inadvertent, that place children at the risk of any kind of child abuse. All our representatives are expected to conduct themselves in a manner consistent with this commitment and obligation.

Save the Children is committed to minimizing safety and security risks for our valued employees, ensuring all are given training, support and information to reduce their risk exposure while maximizing the impact of our programs for children and families. Our shared duty, both agency and individual, is to seek and maintain safe working conditions for all.