Career Opportunity

DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF EARLY LEARNING DIVISION - Department of Early Childhood (0952)

Recruitment: RTF0137066-01088559

Published: September 29, 2023

Accepting applications until: October 29, 2023

Apply using SmartRecruiters, the City and County of San Francisco's application portal.

About:

The recruitment for the 0952 Deput Director of Early Learning with the Department of Early Childhood is reopened to accept additional applications. If you have already applied to this recruitment, you do not have to reapply.

Application Opening: September 29, 2023

Application Deadline: October 29, 2023

Compensation Range: $145,028 - $185,146

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 is the result of a merger of 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 innovations in early care and education, family support services, and programs to support children’s healthy development. They merged to expand their capacity and funding and to better integrate the City’s early childhood services.

Racial Equity Commitment  
The Department of Early Childhood condemns all forms of racism, sexism, homo/biphobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, and other forms of discrimination; and 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.  

Role description

Reporting to the Executive Director, the Deputy Director of the Early Learning Division (ELD) executes the vision of the Department of Early Childhood (DEC) through a coordinated approach to program development and implementation. The ELD Deputy Director oversees the early learning division by creating meaningful connections, and sustainable outcomes in early childhood by improving children’s and family’s experience with our systems of care.

This position is an integral senior management team member, participates in the overall strategic leadership of DEC, and is a thought partner to the Executive Director. With guidance from the Executive Director and working closely with senior management colleagues, the ELD Deputy Director will foster cohesion, consistency, and collaboration to increase the impact and the quality of services to children, families, and early learning educators.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

The ELD Deputy Director is responsible for supporting the planning, coordination, and implementation of DEC’s early learning-funded programs and services. This position oversees a variety of early childhood education grants and initiatives, including but not limited to birth-to-three services, Universal Preschool and Transitional Kindergarten, Workforce, and Quality Improvement systems building. The ELD Deputy Director supervises assigned staff while managing related budgets to unify these impact areas.

Leadership and Strategy

• In collaboration with executive management staff, plans and executes a unified approach to DEC’s programs and initiatives; eliminates work silos wherever possible and identifies efficiencies through leveraging of resources, personnel, and/or messaging.
• Participates in the analysis, planning, execution of organizational development and strategy, and direction with a focus on program development.
• Pursues future mission-focused opportunities for DEC by monitoring all funding sources and potential funding opportunities, while developing programs that respond to community needs with strong relationships with community partners.
• Coordinate, review, and make recommendations regarding personnel matters and actions for ELD in conjunction with Human Resources.
• Develops and manages program budget(s) for each initiative, in conjunction with ELD leadership, including monitoring of funding activities with specific emphasis on ELD; and approves expenditures and implements adjustments in conjunction with Admin/Finance.

Program Development and Implementation

• Oversees the Early Learning and Workforce Development and related programmatic areas aligned to the Department’s Strategic Plan and Theory of Change.
• Plan, direct, and review the work plan for ELD that includes evaluation of work products, methods, and procedures to ensure programming and grant-making are effective, fiscally, and administratively sound.
• Provides guidance and expertise to create program policies and procedures to ensure compliance with all applicable laws, regulations, and requirements of uses/sources of public funds; and works with ELD leadership to ensure the effective implementation of program policies and procedures and resolve policy implementation issues.
• Maintains knowledge of and follows applicable county, state, and federal regulations including Head Start and CDE Title 5 and CDSS Community Care Licensing 22 regulations, funding terms and conditions, and other relevant pronouncements.

Community Engagement

• Represents DEC initiatives through multi-stakeholder engagement activities; maintains positive partnerships with city/private funders, and state, and federal government representatives.
• Negotiates and resolves sensitive, complex, and controversial issues and citizen inquiries and/or complaints.
• Attends as requested, the Board of Supervisors, Children and Families First Commission, EC Community Oversight Advisory Committee, Child Care Planning and Advisory Committee, and other community meetings; prepare and make reports and presentations as needed.
• Acts in the Executive Director’s absence as needed.
• Other duties as assigned by the Executive Director deemed necessary to elevate DEC’s mission.

How to qualify

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

Education: A bachelor’s degree in early childhood or related field from an accredited college or university.

Experience: Six years of managerial experience in collaborative early learning program implementation and management, including budget, data analysis, and evaluation. All the qualifying experience must include supervisory experience.

Substitution: Additional experience as described above may be substituted for the required degree on a year-for-year basis up to a maximum of two (2) years. One (1) year is equivalent to thirty (30) semester units / forty-five (45) quarter units.

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

• Master’s degree in Early Childhood or related field.
• Demonstrated ability to work as part of a team to achieve discrete outcomes.
• Demonstrated ability to learn quickly, navigate ambiguous stakeholder situations, think critically, take initiative to identify and solve problems, adapt, and change course in response to changing dynamics, and project manage multiple interrelated workstreams.
• Familiarity with core evaluation and data analysis concepts, particularly in situations with collective impact goals.
• Extensive knowledge of the policies, systems, and issues relating to young children's mental and physical health, development, and education.
• Knowledge and expertise of the landscape of early learning systems in San Francisco including early care and education, school districts, and other stakeholders.
• Strategic communication skills, including demonstrated proficiency in writing, editing, and group facilitation.

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

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.

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.

What else should I know?

Additional Information Regarding Employment with the City and County of San Francisco:

• Information About the Hiring Process
• Conviction History
• Employee Benefits Overview
• Equal Employment Opportunity
• Disaster Service Worker
• ADA Accommodation
• Veterans Preference
• 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. Visit careers.sf.gov and begin the application process.
• Select the “I’m Interested” 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.

HR Analyst Information: If you have any questions regarding this recruitment or application process, please contact the hr analyst Nathaiel Cleveland by email at nathaniel.cleveland@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.