CORE Districts

Program Manager

• Location: California
• Type: Full-time (Hybrid)

Position

CORE Districts is a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising student achievement through collaboration among eight California school districts. Our work focuses on strengthening the collective efficacy in school systems and improving outcomes for students, especially those students that have been traditionally underserved. CORE is in an exciting phase of program growth and development, and we are seeking a Program Manager to support cross-departmental needs.

The Program Manager will work closely with CORE’s program leads and participating school teams to support cross-departmental needs. We are seeking a proactive learner who is passionate about CORE’s mission, has event and program management experience, and who will thrive in our dynamic startup environment. The Program Manager must effectively manage numerous responsibilities at a given time and be available for travel. 

 This is a remote position with approximately 1-2 days of travel per month within CA.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

The Program Manager will: 

Event Management

• Strategically manage complex event planning processes
• Lead event logistics planning team meetings, manage progress, and intervene as needed 
• Manage facilities contracts, equipment, and relationships with venue staff to ensure adequate meeting room set-up, lodging, and catering for participants
• Manage and maintain event participant mailing and contact lists
• Prepare, maintain, and send event communications, including uploading content to CORE’s Learning Management System.
• Manage registration of event participants and serve as the primary point of contact for event inquiries
• Host virtual meetings, manage break-out rooms, monitor participant communication, and facilitate access to event documentation
• Analyze and code participant meeting survey data
• Monitor and track expenses against event budgets
• Verify, coordinate, and organize event participant expense reimbursements

Organizational Support

• Facilitate and participate in internal team meetings
• Create and maintain project deliverable tracking lists
• Build, monitor, and update courses in CORE’s Learning Management System
• Design and build program collateral (flyers, web-based materials, etc.) in various platforms
• Create, review, and maintain program documents
• Support aspects of the annual program budget process
• Support program leads with receipt management and expense coding

Other projects or duties as assigned

Key Skills and Dispositions

• Strong interpersonal and written communication skills
• Ability to plan and coordinate events, with a commitment to the participant experience
• Experience managing and supporting programs with strong attention to detail
• Ability to both self-manage toward goals and work collaboratively
• Ability to think strategically and innovate to drive process improvements
• Ability to set, meet, and enforce deadlines to complete project deliverables
• Comfortable taking initiative and acting proactively to anticipate program needs  
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment and willingness to cope with and embrace uncertainty and change
• Working knowledge of Google Workspace

• Willingness to continue to learn every day at work and to admit mistakes
• Willingness to travel

Qualifications 

• Bachelor’s Degree preferred
• 2-3 years in a role related to program management
• Experience managing events

CORE is committed to maximizing the diversity of the organization, we are working to recruit a team that reflects the diverse student populations it serves. 

Equal Opportunity Employment

As an equal opportunity employer, CORE recruits and hires with a commitment to understand systemic oppression and the lived reality of people with marginalized identities. We strongly encourage and seek applications from people of color, including bilingual and multicultural individuals, as well as members of the LGBTQ+ communities. We also recruit and hire without regard to race, national origin, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, marital status, veteran status or age.

Application Process

Interested applicants should submit their resume. 

Interview Process

Applicants selected from a first round review of resumes will be invited to participate in a virtual interview where they will respond to a set of questions recorded through the Sparkhire virtual platform. Finalists from this round will be invited to participate in a live virtual interview with CORE Districts staff members. The interview committee will make a hiring recommendation to CORE’s CEO.

Compensation

CORE Districts is a non-profit organization. We will offer a firm and highly competitive starting salary of $60,000 for this position. This position is subject to an annual Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA), an opportunity for a year-end bonus, and career progression opportunities. CORE is committed to equity, and we do not engage in starting salary negotiations. We have found that salary negotiations have the potential to create equity gaps between equally qualified and experienced employees based solely on negotiation skills. We are committed to ensuring that all of our employees start off with fair and highly competitive salaries. 

Employees at CORE enjoy a generous total compensation package. This includes health benefits with an employer contribution, a quarterly health reimbursement program for out-of-pocket medical expenses, a 401k retirement plan with an employer match, paid family medical leave, a flexible PTO policy, a monthly cell-phone reimbursement program, and a professional development allowance. Please note that benefits are subject to change each year. We strive to make improvements to our benefits offerings on a regular basis.

The organization provides all employees with a company laptop and other accessories upon hire.

Organization

CORE Districts is a 501c3 nonprofit collaborative serving as a hub to school districts working together to improve student achievement through highly productive, meaningful partnership and shared learning at the superintendent, central office, school and educator levels.  Currently, eight school districts serving more than 1 million students participate in the collaborative: Fresno, Garden Grove, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Santa Ana Unified.  Together, our districts share a fundamental belief that all students can achieve at high levels.  Powered by data, innovation, research, and continuous learning, the eight CORE districts are collaborating to solve inequities in our education systems to ensure that every student has what they need to thrive. As an organization, CORE exists to operationalize the multidistrict collaboration and seeks to be a catalyst for change, powered by continuous improvement.

CORE believes that if it can support the improvement of specific outcomes by developing continuous improvement structures, mindsets and routines that foster learning at both the district and site levels, then districts and schools will make progress toward producing more reliable, equitable outcomes for their students.

For more information, please visit coredistricts.org.