Career Opportunity

9772 (TEX)- Access & Enrollment Program Specialist, Dept. of Early Childhood

Recruitment: RTF0152921-01157456

Published: December 09, 2024

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About:

Application Opening: December 9, 2024
Application Deadline: December 22, 2024
Compensation Range: $95,602 - $116,272 Annually (Compensation database)
Recruitment ID: TEX-9772-152923

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.

Role description

The Program Specialist will provide support towards the growth of the Early Learning For All initiative that has expanded its reach to include families from 0-150% Average Median Income level to receive either free or reduced childcare tuition.  The Specialist will work in partnership with the ECE Program Officer, to oversee a variety of child-funded enrollment agreements and monitor assigned grants for programmatic quality and compliance with funding terms and requirements.  During the course of their 3-year term, they will act as the primary point of contact to DEC to develop childcare enrollment models for funding, invoicing, and contracting processes.

Under the supervision of the Access and Enrollment Manager in the Early Learning Division, the Program Specialist, in partnership with the A&E Program Officer, will:

• Assist in arranging site visits and all logistics involved, including pulling missing enrollment data, follow up with providers, and managing the schedule for administrative site visits for providers with higher degree of need/non-compliance.  
• Act as a point of contact for grantees in the assigned portfolio, assisting them with work the Access and Enrollment plan development, invoicing, contracting, and compliance. 
• Coordinate monitoring activities with A&E Program Officer and other ELD staff. 
• Responsible for developing site visit plans and monitoring reports. 
• Responsible for tracking and generating the appropriate child enrollment reports and sharing with the A&E Manager and Deputy Director. 
• Conduct site visits to verify child enrollment and provide technical assistance and troubleshooting to participating programs in portfolio as needed.  
• Coordinate with other Program Specialists, Data/Evaluation team members, and Grants/Contracts Specialists to develop necessary technical assistance plans aimed to ensure participating program’s success in their Early Learning For All participation. 
• Participate in intra-department strategy planning and development processes by providing relevant information gathered from grantees in the assigned portfolio, the community, and other touch points in order to develop new and refine existing funding strategies and Request for Proposals (RFP). 
• Participate in the RFP decision-making process by reading and scoring proposals, discussing potential funding decisions, and providing critical information about program and agency capacity, performance, and experience. 
• Manage special projects as assigned by the Access and Enrollment Manager, including developing a scope of work, setting timelines, conducting RFPs, managing grants, contracts, and reporting, convening meetings, coordinating multiple stakeholders, and making recommendations for improvements. 
• Provide input at meetings with CBOs, other City departments, and private agencies to support the implementation of programs and projects, represent the department at assigned community events, and develop strong working relationships with contracting agencies. 
• In close collaboration with the appropriate CBO’s develop troubleshooting strategies to support families access and enrollment in Early Learning San Francisco participating programs.  
• May requires working evening and weekends, and travel regionally and nationally.
• May perform other duties as assigned.

How to qualify

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

• Knowledge and experience in client eligibility and enrollment in education, health and social services, public benefits, and child welfare.
• Strong Familiarity with early care and education and child development systems
• Experience supporting programs, budgeting processes, and staff in a complex environment.
• Degree in social work, child development, education, public health, and/or public administration preferred.
• Bilingual Chinese, Spanish, or African American Vernacular English (AAVE) preferred, but not required.

What else should I know?

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 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.