Manager of Learning and Innovation

ABOUT US

The Primary School is creating a new school model that brings together all of the adults in a child’s life, including parents, educators, and medical and mental health providers, starting from a very early age. We recognize the entrenched racism that exists within our public systems and the unjust impact this has had on families of color. Our aim is that children and families most impacted by systemic poverty and racism receive the multidisciplinary support they deserve to be well, learn, and thrive.

Long-term, we hope to create a game-changing school model that can be replicated across the country. As we continue to learn and grow, we plan to share what we’ve learned and pursue policy and systems change on a local, state, and national level. We are supported by a growing coalition of philanthropic partners, building on the generous support of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

Our approach has three defining characteristics:

• We start early. We start working with children as young as 18 months and provide full-time school starting at age three to reach them at a critical stage in development.
• We partner with parents. We believe that when parents thrive, children thrive, so we support the wellness and growth of parents alongside the growth of their children.
• We integrate services. Our unique model unites health care and education, building a multi-disciplinary team and holistic system of care around a child’s full needs.

In 2016, we opened our flagship school in East Palo Alto, California, with our first class of four year olds. We have grown to serve over 300 children and their families through a birth to three program, parent wellness program, full-day preschool, and elementary school, which will grow through eighth grade. In 2021, we opened our second site in the East Bay.

ABOUT OUR EAST PALO ALTO SITE

We are continuing to grow our East Palo Alto site and are excited to launch 5th grade for our 2022-2023 school year. In our school program, we currently serve over 300 students across two preschool grades (3 and 4 year olds) and kindergarten through fifth grade. Integrated into our program are the other core components of our model including our parent program - partnering closely with parents throughout their child’s development and providing wellness programming for caregivers; our birth to 3 program - coordinating early developmental screenings and intervention services; and our medical home partnerships - working with existing health care providers in the community to coordinate care for children.

ABOUT OUR EAST BAY SITE

We opened our second site with a founding class of four-year-old children and families who started preschool in August 2021. Drawing on key learnings from our first site, core components of the model include our parent program - partnering closely with parents throughout their child’s development and providing wellness programming for caregivers; our birth to 3 program - coordinating early developmental screenings and intervention services; and our medical home partnerships - working with existing health care providers in the community, including Kaiser Permanente in the East Bay, to coordinate care for children.

ABOUT THE ROLE

The Manager of Learning and Innovation will work with the Vice President of Learning and Innovation to support the implementation of learning systems that help us understand how our programs are impacting child and family outcomes and develop insights that will help us improve our day-to-day work. This role will focus on learning and data related to our Parent and Birth-3 Programs, at each of our sites and with external partners piloting our strategies.

This position will support a rich ecosystem in which our team actively uses data to understand, develop, and refine the various elements of our new model to deliver the best possible outcomes to our children and families. This role is action-based - we seek to learn information that can help us modify the way we serve children and families, immediately.

Over the long term, The Primary School seeks to contribute to national change in policy and practice, across multiple sectors that affect children and families, by understanding and disseminating what works. We have a dual mission of 1) directly achieving the best possible outcomes for the children and families we serve and 2) broadly impacting the space through policy and practice change. This position will play a key role in understanding and documenting what works and what can be replicated in other environments. The Parent Program and parts of the Birth-3 program are two of our “Big Bets”, which are components of our model we have identified as being most innovative and are focusing on for dissemination.

The Manager of Learning and Innovation reports to the Vice President of Learning and Innovation and will be part of the Central Office Team.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Support children and families to learn, grow, and be healthy

Support sites to learn from their implementation of our model and gather evidence to demonstrate that our model significantly impacts child academic, social-emotional, and health outcomes, with a focus on the Parent and Birth-3 Programs at each site

• Support efforts to build a learning culture, help us learn quickly and precisely what works, and drive insights that will impact program design and delivery
• Lead program teams through the learning cycle - supporting development of logic models, measurement strategies, learning questions and regular reflection
• Identify and develop tools, instruments, and metrics to evaluate elements of the model
• Work with program leads at each site to coordinate data collection and ensure we have high-quality, complete data
• Perform measurement activities including: collecting and analyzing data on child and family outcomes, conducting focus groups
• Analyze, synthesize, and share data with relevant internal and external stakeholders
• Create clear and useful reports for staff, board, and other stakeholders
• Provide strategic input, expertise, thought partnership, and leadership across program areas

Develop, codify, and share unique program components with partners

Lead learning related to partner implementation of TPS model components grounded in our “big bets” (Start early, partner with parents, and Integrated Health/Education Approach)

• Develop shared and organization-specific learning questions and measurement plans with our implementation partners
• Ensure data is collected accurately and in a timely manner by partners to answer learning questions, including training and supporting partners with data collection tools and processes.
• Analyze, synthesize, and share data with relevant internal and external stakeholders
• Ensure learnings from current partnerships inform scalable solutions and future partnerships
• Create clear and useful reports for staff, board, and other stakeholders
• Facilitate regular reflection cycles and harvest shared learning with partners
• Stay abreast of emerging science and practice in the field that may have relevance for our work
• Collaborate with other members of the internal dissemination team (program design, partnerships, codification) to document our practices, program elements, and lessons learned both to guide internal efforts and to share externally
• Work with Communications Team to share our learning externally
• Support early efforts to disseminate what we are learning to practitioners and policymakers

Other

• Contribute to our team’s ability to deliver on its annual goals
• Demonstrate commitment to equity and inclusion when interacting and/or managing others
• Work collaboratively and cross functionally to achieve shared goals

QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor's degree; advanced degree in a relevant subject area (e.g., public health, child development, social work) preferred
• Experience with evaluation methods, including quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis methods; experience with the design and evaluation of social services programs (e.g., education, early childhood supports, family supports, healthcare) is preferred.
• Experience supporting learning and improvement cycles
• Believes in the mission of The Primary School and that all children and families are capable of extraordinary things.
• Experience working alongside program developers and implementers; recognition of the symbiotic, mutually reinforcing relationship among those different roles and responsibilities.
• Is able to balance the rigor of academic research with the speed of program innovation
• Works in alignment with our core values of "Community, Excellence, Courage, Growth, Soul"
• Brings a systems building mindset.
• Strong project management, planning and communication competencies.
• Has an appetite for new approaches and the patience and skill to implement change.
• Is highly collaborative and excited to work with an interdisciplinary team; has a track record as an exceptional communicator, particularly in cross-cultural situations
• Experience preparing and making effective presentations to diverse groups large and small with different interests, priorities, and experience with data
• Excels in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial, and innovative organization.

A Plus If

• You have ties or experience working in East Palo Alto, Belle Haven, or southern Alameda communities
• You speak Spanish

PHYSICAL DEMANDS

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the functions. While performing the duties of this position, the employee is regularly required to talk, hear, and communicate with both adults and children. The employee frequently is required to use hands or fingers, handle or feel objects, tools, or controls. The employee is frequently required to stand, walk, sit, and reach with hands and arms. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 50 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this position include close vision, distance vision, and the ability to adjust focus. The noise level in the work environment is moderate to high.

COMPENSATION

Annual salary range begins at $75,900-$93,400; compensation is commensurate with qualifications and experience, plus excellent health benefits (medical, dental, and vision), 401k retirement plan, flexible spending account (FSA), dependent care FSA, and generous paid time off, including a competitive paid parental leave benefit. TPS will cover 93% of the total premium cost for individual team members in our HMO and PPO plans, and 95% for individual team members in our HDHP plan. TPS also covers 50% of enrolled partners and/or dependents' costs on all three of our medical plans (HMO,PPO, HDHP).

To ensure fair and equitable compensation for all of our employees, The Primary School has a no-negotiation policy on all offers extended. Final offers are determined using role descriptions, job market data, internal parity, and semi-annual benchmarking. We hope that this policy, paired with ongoing transparency in our compensation process, will make TPS a more fair, inclusive, and diverse workplace.