Director of Education Programs
Posted by: Peace Community Center
Description
POSITION SPECIFICATIONS
Position Director of Education Programs
Location Tacoma, Washington
Reports To Executive Director
Website www.peacetacoma.org
ORGANIZATION HISTORY & BACKGROUND
Peace Lutheran Church, a small congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) located in Tacoma’s beautiful Hilltop community, in 1991 was confronted with declining membership, and neighborhood drug and gang challenges, decided that the church needed to make an even greater effort to serve young people in the neighborhood. They envisioned the Peace Community Center, a self-governed non-profit, which would allow the church in partnership with the community, other congregations and individuals of all backgrounds to work together to better serve the many community needs affecting the Hilltop every day. After three years and raising roughly $50,000, the church engaged a local Lutheran capital campaign consultant. During the subsequent six years of capital campaigns, the small Peace Lutheran Church community donated $400,000 while congregation partners, individuals, and foundations provided an astounding $1.1 million.
Ten years later, in 2001, the Peace Community Center opened its doors, and the $300,000 vision turned into a $1.5 million reality. Over 200 individuals gave financial gifts towards the campaign, over 100 individuals volunteered on the construction of the facility. A Community Center built and paid for by the grassroots community was ready to welcome our neighbors.
Today Peace Community Center serves Hilltop children, youth and their families through in-school, after-school, and summer support focusing on instruction, academic coaching, tutoring services, community building, leadership development, and holistic support. These services work together to reach our organization’s mission, vision, and end outcomes through implementing the Center’s Theory of Change. Over a decade of service to the Hilltop, Peace is moving from an organization of good-intentions, to one of purposeful decision making driven by data, evaluation, and best practice, while continuing to be grounded in relationships with students, families, our community and partners.
Peace Community Center serves 300 students per year with in-depth services through our programs, and countless others through one time supports within the schools. Within the Center’s recently approved strategic plan, it is the Center’s goal to grow these programs to more than double the number of students served over five years, moving the Center form impacting individual students, to impacting the outcomes academic outcomes for the entire Hilltop community.
ORGANIZATION MISSION, VISION, END OUTCOMES, STRATEGIC PRIORITIES
Our Mission
Peace Community Center is a place of community committed to the empowerment of children and young adults. The Center provides the skills and support needed for each to reach their God-given potential.
Our Vision
The children and young adults we serve are confident in their ability to learn, love, and be powerful agents for positive change in our world.
End Goal Outcomes
- All students graduate high school college-ready.
- All students graduate from a post-secondary program—with an emphasis on four-year college completion.
- Program graduates demonstrate a commitment to serve and invest in their community.
- Align and strengthen current program components around Center “End Goals,” building capacity to serve 40 students at each grade level (K through College);
- Create a strong foundation for students through redesigning and increasing investment in elementary programming;
- Optimize the effectiveness of the Board of Directors;
- Strengthen developme0nt program to ensure sustainability;
- Address facility needs for current and future needs.
Purpose
The Director of Education Programs is accountable to the Executive Director and provides end-point leadership for reaching the Peace Community Center’s programmatic end outcomes in accordance the Center’s core values.
Leadership
Provides leadership to ensure that Center programming reaches its mission and end outcomes through building a strong team of staff members, keeping students and families at the forefront of the organization, and developing and implementing program strategies. The position will continue the development of a culture that supports the mission, builds community, relies on best practice, learns and improves through evaluation, and encourages cooperation and effectiveness.
- Participate in the development of organization-wide strategic plans in partnership with the Executive Director and Board of Directors and lead implementation of programmatic strategic priorities.
- Create, update and implement the Center’s Theory of Change and/or other program focused philosophical and planning documentations.
- Develop and nurture a culture within Center programs (students, staff members, and Center community as a whole) that lives out values, builds community, encourages hard work and excellence, celebrates resiliency and success, and stresses purposefulness and improvement.
- Provide the public face for the Community Center programming as a whole to parents, community members, donors, foundation partners, Tacoma Public Schools, Peace Lutheran Church, Coalitions and other constituents.
- Support the mission of the Community Center by providing supportive leadership to the Board of Directors, as well as administrative and fund development areas of the organization. Lead program staff and volunteers to do the same.
- Partner with Executive Director to steward and invest financial and human resources to ensure focus on highest leverage outcomes for students that will best meet organization’s end goal outcomes through determining program budgets, fund raising priorities, etc.
Develop the talents, work ethic and teamwork of individual program staff members and program staff as whole. Lead through exemplifying hard work, partnership, high expectations and joy.
- Attract, develop and retain an effective program team.
- Support staff to see their part in reaching the organization’s program end outcomes and strategic priorities, while staff members implement their individual roles within the team.
- Lead the implementation of training for program staff. Ensure consistent levels of training and support for staff members, AmeriCorps Members and volunteers.
- Supervise all (currently four) on-going fulltime program staff members. Build a strong team through clear job descriptions, hiring, support the development of works plans and professional development plans, evaluate staff members by providing effective feedback, and take corrective action with staff members as necessary.
- Encourage and demonstrate shared leadership with staff through interdependence and group decision making.
Ensure effective program implementation by providing leadership, developing talent and teamwork, clearly articulating program vision and expected outcomes and leading evaluation to ensure on-going program improvement.
- Provide end-point leadership for Hilltop Scholars (serving Hilltop youth and families from middle school through college graduation). Continue to develop Hilltop Scholars program model in line with the Center’s Theory of Change. Partner with and provide accountability for on-going staff members on outcome deliverables, program implementation, student selection criteria and strategies.
- Provide end-point leadership for the elementary programming of Peace Community Center by supporting existing elementary staff members (currently three AmeriCorps Members) to implement current programming and by leading the development and implementation of a redesigned elementary program model.
- Lead the implementation of specific program interventions as required to execute program objectives successfully and to support on-going program staff workloads.
- Partner with the Director of Curriculum & Instruction to select program curriculum and support implementation for all Center programming.
- Provide end-point leadership for the evaluation of programs both for internal learning and program improvement, as well as managing reports to funders and the community at-large. This includes, but is not limited to, the development of evaluation platforms, data collection, data storage and reporting and program reviews.
- Develop appropriate program budgets and oversee their implementation. Ensure strong stewardship of resources, staying within budgets and the financial policies of the organization.
- Partner with Executive Director to determine the organization’s advocacy priorities.
- Successful program leadership transition by developing positive relationships and building upon current community, teamwork and culture.
- Complete the organization’s Theory of Change.
- Create clear work plans for the strategic priorities, focusing on program development within the Center’s current strategic plan and begin successful implementation of those plans.
- Complete Center programming logic models and evaluation tools, ensuring effective and on-going evaluation of programs.
Successful candidates must be committed to the mission of Peace Community Center and to effective leadership in a faith-based, Lutheran affiliated (Social Ministry of the Evangelical Church in America) organization. Successfully candidates should possess the following:
- A deep passion for and commitment to the Hilltop community and the education of Hilltop children and youth.
- An ethos that all children and youth can learn and be successful contributors to and leaders of their community and society as a whole.
- Proven commitment to diversity, inclusion and cultural competence.
- Demonstrated record of effective leadership through team building, empowerment and sharing leadership; project management; discerning best practice and future trends; and strong communication.
- Strong critical thinking and problem solving skills that sustain and facilitate sound decision making.
- The capacity to maintain an agile program that can sustain through shifting external forces.
- Proven leadership of children and youth programming that lead to education and/or holistic focused end outcomes.
- A Bachelor’s Degree.
- 3 + years of education or non-profit leadership experience, and 5 + years of work in the field of education or youth development.
- 3 + years of experience as an effective supervisor of multiple direct reports.
- A Master’s Degree.
A competitive compensation package will be provided based on local salary survey data of similar non-profits in size, scope, and focus.
Benefits include health and dental coverage (100% employee and 50% dependants), short and long-term disability, life insurance, and retirement.
APPLICATION, CONTACTS & TIMELINE
Application
All applicants should send a resume and cover letter to jobs@peacetacoma.org.
Contacts
Please submit your resume and cover letter and/or questions to Jobs@PeaceTacoma.org. Or call Kerri Greenaway, Peace Community Center Administrative Manager, at 253.383.0702 ext. 105 with questions.
Timeline
- Position Open for Applications – Tuesday, June 26
- Priority Deadline for Candidates – Tuesday, July 24
- Tentative First Interviews – Week of Monday, July 30 (afternoons and/or evenings)
- Tentative Second Interviews – Week of Monday, August 6 (afternoons and/or early evenings)
How to apply
All applicants should send a resume and cover letter to jobs@peacetacoma.org.