Higher Achievement, a nationally acclaimed nonprofit organization partnering with middle school scholars as they pursue their ambitions by providing academic and social-emotional tools and encouragement, seeks a Manager of Program Operations reporting to the Executive Director DC Metro. This position works closely with: Executive Directors of DC Metro and Baltimore, three Directors of Program Operations across the two regions, development staff, and HR/Ops staff.
This is a high energy role, for a motivated individual interested in hands on management at our office sites, keen eye to detail with managing program logistics! Seeking a personable individual, with collaborative skills to recruit creative partners for our progamming and establish engaging trips and events for our middle school scholars!
This role directly contributes to the development and success of our program across our centers (currently 11) in the DC Metro and Baltimore area, leading components of:
1) The scholar experience (trip/event planning, elective partner recruitment/onboarding/observations)
2) Programming operational logistics (I.e. scholar transportation, scholar meals and curriculum supplies management).
3) General operations across the 2 main offices, managing: office facilities management, office supply management, technology and serving as human resources liaison to the central HR/Ops team.
Our Mission:
By leveraging the power of communities, Higher Achievement’s proven academic model provides a rigorous year-round learning environment, caring role models, and a culture of high expectations, resulting in college-bound scholars with the character, confidence, and skills to succeed. Higher Achievement’s model delivers academic enrichment grounded in social justice principles. Our afterschool program for 5th-8th grade scholars combines small-group tutoring with social-emotional skill building, culminating in placement in college preparatory high schools.
The Organization
Higher Achievement, founded in 1975, closes the opportunity gap during the pivotal middle school years. By leveraging the power of communities, Higher Achievement’s proven model provides a rigorous year-round learning environment, caring role models, and a culture of high expectations, resulting in college-bound scholars with the character, confidence, and skills to succeed. Higher Achievement’s model delivers academic enrichment grounded in social justice principles. Our afterschool program for 5th-8th grade scholars in Washington, DC, Alexandria, VA, Baltimore, MD, Richmond, VA, and Prince George’s County, MD combines small-group, high-impact tutoring with social-emotional skill building, culminating in placement in college preparatory high schools. More information about Higher Achievement may be found at: http://www.higherachievement.org
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Higher Achievement aims to be an anti-racist and inclusive organization where we aggressively work to improve equity and inclusion in all aspects of our organizational culture and operations. These efforts are facilitated by our DEI Director, and involve all staff and board members to implement the inclusively developed DEI plan.
Key Duties and Responsibilities
Scholar Experience:
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Scholar Trips/Events: Plans scholar experience activities including but not limited to: field trips, career exposure trips and workshops with corporate partners, summer college trips, Green Apple graduation, and other program events across multiple Centers.
- Elective Program: Manages the elective programming section of Afterschool Academy (AFSA) at each of the achievement centers. One elective partner per site minimum, to include recruiting, contracting, training and observation/evaluation of elective program partners and ensuring timely payment for services rendered and off boarding for elective program partners. Monthly center visits required across Baltimore and DC Centers.
Program Operations/ Center Logistics:
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Curriculum and Center Supplies: Manages vendors for all necessary supplies, services, and materials for the center use; researches and negotiates with vendors and suppliers to ensure prudent use of resources. Understands and implements finance policies surrounding spending and expense reporting.
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Scholar Meals: Supports center staff as needed facilitating communication with school personnel for initial set up of meal program at all local centers and/or manages external vendors for all scholar meals orders across various centers, understands and implements compliance measures, manages inventory tracking and distribution of meals
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Scholar/Mentor Transportation: Manages transportation vendor relationship, arranging contracts, schedules and leads communication for changes/ cancellations.
Office Building Facilities: Ensures all aspects of Higher Achievement’s space in the shared DC Metro and Baltimore office buildings are functioning, clean, organized, inviting, and secure by serving as the liaison to office’s property management team to facilitate all office building needs for Higher Achievement including on utility needs, repairs, etc; directly coordinates with external vendors for all janitorial needs, with security company for any new staff keys and access set up and for closeout, and with postal services for receiving mail/packages.
Office Supply Management: Manages vendors for all necessary supplies, services, and materials for office use; researches and negotiates with vendors and suppliers to ensure prudent use of resources. Understands and implements finance policies surrounding spending and expense reporting.
Human Resources: Serves as the local HR liaison to the Human Resources Team for human resources matters, communicating with managers and staff as needed, to ensure all HR related efforts are facilitated with integrity at the local office. This will include seasonal hiring and onboarding support, facilitating all paperwork relating to hiring, change of status, and separations, including technology accounts, director approvals, and inventory (maintaining confidentiality regarding all details); manages the local clearance process required by school districts for all program staff.
Technology: Coordinates with the org-wide operations team and works directly with Higher Achievement’s external IT vendor to support local staff and center IT needs, including billing/accounts, purchasing, inventory, distribution and facilitating technical support
Finance: Manages all related reconciliation for expenses incurred over the course of work, and communication with finance on the related.
The duties listed above are intended only as illustrations of the various types of work that may be performed. The omission of specific statements of duties does not exclude them if the work is similar, related, or a logical assignment to the position.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
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Minimum of 3-5 + years of related work experience directly supporting a high-performing team.
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Demonstrated proficiency in office management/operational experience required, with a strong preference to managing educational program operations and general office operations management
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Degree in a related field (bachelor’s) preferred
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Experience in the out-of-school time field; background and interest in youth development or education, particularly for under-resourced minority communities
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Deep understanding of the local youth support landscape. Existing relationships with partner organizations preferred.
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Experience recruiting, training, and partnering with a team, partners or contract workers in consistent programming and support roles.
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Experience building relationships and participating in feedback conversations across a diverse set of external stakeholders and partners, and internal team members and leaders, demonstrating strong project management across different locations and teams, with a focus on implementation.
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Multi-dimensional experience in program development and support. Ideally, proven experience in at least two out these three aspects: office operations management, youth program management, and human resources generalist support.
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Fluent in English/Spanish - Reading. Writing, Verbal- preferred
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High-level of comfort with online technology (Office365, Salesforce, Dropbox, Virtual Meeting Platforms – Zoom preferred)
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Strong communication skills, including written and oral (one-on-one and group settings)
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Strong organizational skills, with an ability to manage competing timelines and many details at one time.
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Ability to adapt to change and maintain a flexible mindset
- Ability to take initiative and to be able to work independently once given general instructions
Higher Achievement Core Competencies and Core Values: Higher Achievement believes that the following core competencies and core values enable our employees and organization to be successful, and as such, we expect that competitive applications will be able to demonstrate strengths in these areas:
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Proactively builds relationships to advance Higher Achievement's mission.
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Uses candid communication to express ideas and to listen to the thoughts and feedback of others.
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Persistently pursues excellence by holding oneself to high expectations and seeking the best.
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Possesses a growth mindset for learning new things and stepping out of one’s comfort zone.
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Maintains a solutions-oriented mindset during planning periods and when challenges arise.
Our Core Values are:
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Scholar-Centricity: The organization’s work is focused on empowering the scholars we serve. We make every decision with them in mind. We foster authentic relationships with scholars and their families, where we create opportunities with them, not for them.
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Striving for Excellence: We set high expectations for ourselves and our scholars. This begins by recognizing the talents that people bring to the organization and utilizing them. We continually learn and improve through the use of a range of qualitative and quantitative data sources and thoughtful reflection in order to help our scholars, staff, and organization achieve their goals.
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Power of Community: We collaborate with our communities to develop and cultivate mutually beneficial and authentic relationships. We embrace learning, celebrate the uniqueness of each community, and infuse joy within each of the communities we serve.
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Voice and Inclusion: We recognize the power of voice in an inclusive environment. We create spaces where everyone feels respected, valued, and has a sense of belonging. We acknowledge the power that is held in the voices of all of our stakeholders: staff, board, supporters, volunteers, partners, scholars and their families and elevate those that have been marginalized. We invite all voices into the conversation, authentically incorporate them into the decision-making process, and foster spaces for mutual listening and learning within our communities.
- Racial Equity: We address and acknowledge the systems of oppression that impact our scholars and families, and we work to provide them with tools to advocate for themselves to combat racial inequities. As an organization, we constantly confront our own biases and work to eliminate practices, policies, and messages that perpetuate inequalities. With an ongoing commitment to closing the opportunity gap, we seek justice and commit to taking action at the individual, interpersonal, organizational, and systemic levels.
Compensation and Benefits: The salary for this regular, exempt position is $64,050. Higher Achievement offers competitive benefits, including: company-paid insurance (medical, dental, vision, life, and long and short-term disability insurance); twelve paid holidays; five weeks paid time off; retirement plan with company match; tuition reimbursement.
Physical Requirements: Work is regularly performed in an office environment, across two cities – Washington DC (2 office days per week) and Baltimore MD (1 office day per week) and a school setting (multiple monthly center visits required across Baltimore and DC Centers), with occasional trips off-site to community partners and field trip sites. Employee may spend long periods of time sitting, standing, and walking. Must be able to walk from one part of the worksite to another and climb stairs. Employee regularly lifts, carries, and positions objects weighting up to 20 pounds. Position involves regular use of a computer and keyboard, telephone, and face-to-face communication in small and large group settings with youth and adults; employee must be able to communicate clearly and professionally in all of these situations. Employee must have visual, auditory, and physical ability to respond quickly to critical incidents involving students and act in an emergency situation.
Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
Additional Information:
Office Environment: Higher Achievement is a hybrid work environment organization; All staff are able to work within a hybrid arrangement with in-person time focused on mission critical activities and relationship building rather than an expected amount of time in the office. This position can be within commuting distance of the DC/Baltimore Area. At that time, this position will be expected to spend scheduled in-person time at the Higher Achievement DC Metro and Baltimore offices for in-person based needs, with more time expected during the onboarding period.
Travel/Schedule: Regular travel between the Higher Achievement local offices (DC Metro /Baltimore Metro) and eleven (11) Achievement Centers across various DC Wards, Alexandria, VA, Prince Georges County, and Baltimore City, with multiple monthly Achievement Center visits required.
Your primary location is the DC Office, with the expectation that you would travel to the Baltimore office location. The weekly expectation is two (2) days in the DC Office and one (1) day in the Baltimore office.
Must reside within a commutable distance to Baltimore and DC Metro area program operations. Accessibility to a car for travel across various locations is required for this position. Public transportation is not considered reliable nor suitable to meet the travel criteria across all locations.
Covid-19 Update: Higher Achievement requires proof of FULL Covid-19 vaccination for all Higher Achievement employees. Effective 1/1/22, FULL Vaccination will mean that staff who are eligible to receive a booster shot as per current CDC guidelines link here will need to provide proof of receiving a Covid-19 booster shot, in addition to proof of having received the primary vaccination series. Unless an accommodation has been granted by HA, proof of vaccination is required before employment may begin.
Background Check & Clearance Requirements: This position requires a criminal background check prior to hire, and candidate must be able to pass all additional clearance requirements as mandated by school districts and state/local municipalities. Higher Achievement pays for all clearance steps for its employees.
To Apply: Visit Higher Achievement’s website, www.higherachievement.org/careers Interested applicants must upload a resume and cover letter. Priority consideration will be given to applicants who address the listed qualifications and their interest in the mission and work of Higher Achievement. Interested applicants are encouraged to apply immediately; the position will remain open until all spots are filled. Please, no phone calls, emails or recruiters.
Higher Achievement provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, ethnicity, religion, national origin, ancestry, gender, sex, gender identity or expression, age, medical condition, sexual orientation, marital status, citizenship, pregnancy, physical or mental disability, genetic information, veteran status, military status, caregiver or family status, political affiliation, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.
Updated 1/25/23
