Position Title: Project Manager/Assessment Coordinator
Reports to: Director of Operations
Program: Assessment & Standards Development Services
Salary: Level G - $67,118 - $83,897
Location: San Francisco, CA
Time Base: 100%
Position No: 3312
WestEd, a nonprofit research, development, and service agency, works with education and other communities to promote excellence, achieve equity, and improve learning for children, youth, and adults. While WestEd serves the states of Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah as one of the nation's Regional Educational Laboratories, our agency's work extends throughout the United States and abroad. WestEd has 17 offices nationwide, from Washington and Boston to Arizona, Southern California, and its headquarters in San Francisco.
Assessment and Standards Development Services (ASDS) is involved extensively at the local, state, and national levels in planning, developing, implementing, and evaluating standards and assessment tools, methods, and systems. Some of ASDS work is aimed at revealing how well students or workers are learning or performing; other parts of our work address broader concerns of accountability and program or school success. ASDS serves as the test-development contractor for high-stakes assessment programs in several states. Its projects also examine the technical aspects of assessment, as well as focus on a range of assessment and accountability-related issues for various student populations (e.g., English language learners, students with disabilities) and for traditional academic areas and developing fields (e.g., alternative school accountability).
Position Description
Brief Position Description:
The Project Manager/Assessment Coordinator will support the program managers and directors of the Assessment and Standards Development Services (ASDS) program by helping to manage the flow of work on various ASDS assessment development and research projects. The Project Manager/Assessment Coordinator will also be expected to perform a leadership role within the coordinator team, for an area of specialty: Proactive project planning; Assessment project management; or Systems and process innovations.
The position will be based in WestEd's San Francisco office.
Responsibilities
CORE RESPONSIBILITES:
* Provide professional-level project coordination for a variety of assessment projects under the direction of Program Directors and Managers.
* Interface on a regular basis with internal staff at all levels in the organization, clients, and partners, building effective relationships.
* Keep track of progress, issues, and risks informing leadership on an ongoing basis and escalating issues and risk in a timely manner.
* Provide effective team leadership to the project support teams, assigning, supervising, and providing feedback on work, to ensure quality and efficiency from the support functions.
* Supervise one or more staff members, providing training, mentoring, coaching and on-going performance management.
* Ensure consistency of approach across the program by following established processes and protocols while engaging in process improvement when appropriate.
PLUS ONE ADDITIONAL SET OF RESPONSIBILITIES:
1. Proactive project planning – Provides leadership to a team that implements and monitors project plans, issues logs, risk assessments, and other project management tools, to ensure the delivery of high-quality products and services.
2. Assessment project management – Provides leadership for an assessment project, under the guidance of a Program Director.
3. Systems and process innovations – Provide leadership to a team that develops and implements new systems and procedures that improve quality and increase efficiency within and across projects, and act as liaison within and outside of ASDS when determining appropriate processes to meet project needs.
Qualifications
CORE QUALIFICATIONS
* Bachelor’s degree, advanced degree preferred.
* Proven ability to work in a fast-paced environment dealing successfully with short- and long-term priorities simultaneously.
* Significant independent decision-making experience.
* Excellent interpersonal communications skills.
* High-quality customer service skills, dependability, reliability and professionalism.
* Experience managing staff preferred.
* Experience with Microsoft Word and Excel.
* Demonstrated working knowledge of database use.
* Ability to quickly adapt to new computer programs/software.
* Resourcefulness and careful attention to detail while also keeping the “big picture” and program context in mind.
PLUS ONE ADDITIONAL SET OF QUALIFICATIONS:
1. Proactive project planning – Track record as an effective and efficient project manager, with at least 3 years experience independently developing and implementing plans and procedures, evaluating and assessing problem areas, providing recommendations for solutions, and using Project Management software, tools, and processes.
2. Assessment project management – Some project leadership experience and some industry experience. Examples of industry experience include working with state education agency, and federal or state funded programs, and/or with the process of creating student assessment tests: from item entry to complete forms, scoring activities, and associated release documents.
3. Systems and process innovations –Very experienced with the system development life-cycle, with the proven ability to design programs and processes, and to supervisor, mentor, and train staff to follow the system development life cycle from requirements gathering through sign-off. Requires sophisticated knowledge of Microsoft Access, Excel, SQL scripts, FTP site technology/file sharing, and Word, including the ability to create sophisticated diagrams, charts, graphs, tables, and simple statistical calculations. Additionally, the following are desired: Adobe Acrobat; In Design; Adobe Illustrator (.gif, .tif, .ai, .eps file types); Mail server technologies; and SPSS.
To apply, please confirm that you meet our core qualifications and specify which additional set of responsibilities you are qualified to perform.
Application Process
We invite you to Apply for this Position.
Human Resources
WestEd
730 Harrison Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
http://www.WestEd.org
WestEd is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. Positions are open until filled.
