Program Associate, Statewide Implementation and Change Leadership

WestEd Career • San Francisco, CA

21h • $92,000 - $115,000 • Remote

About The Position

WestEd seeks a Program Associate of Statewide Implementation & Change Leadership to lead large-scale state education modernization engagements — including stakeholder engagement, change strategy, communications, training rollout, and adoption support — from plan to sustained adoption in the field. As a Program Associate, you'll help state education agencies turn policy and ideas into real results for districts and the students they serve. You'll support modernization projects like improving how districts are monitored for special education compliance, or making state education funding easier to track and understand: moving an agency from good intentions to programs that actually work on the ground. You'll independently define and execute the work on assigned project components — and, as your experience grows, on small projects — working from objectives and direction set with a project director, who also provides checks for quality. Day to day, that means engaging stakeholders, building out plans for how new programs will roll out, drafting clear communications to keep everyone informed, developing training and technical assistance materials in partnership with subject-matter experts and clients, and contributing to the proposals and reusable resources that sustain this line of work. This position will join a team of staff working on WestEd's growing collection of statewide modernization partnerships in which WestEd plays a broad implementation-support role for state education agencies — frequently coordinating alongside the state's technology vendors and IT departments as systems and processes change together. Working in collaboratively with content/subject-matter leads and represent WestEd alongside other project staff interacting with SEA and district-level clients. This role is responsible for ensuring that state-level initiatives translate into adoption at the school, district, and/or county level. Working collaboratively with content/subject-matter leads, the Program Associate has regular, direct interaction with SEA and district-level clients in partnership with the project or task lead — including internal quality review before client meetings and debriefs afterward. This role leads assigned adoption workstreams that translate state-level initiatives into adoption at the school, district, and/or county level, and designs and delivers new professional learning and technical assistance for clients on small projects and assigned components. Because WestEd's modernization work spans multiple content areas (e.g., fiscal software systems, IDEA/IFSP processes, professional learning platforms) this role is expected to apply a consistent adoption methodology across engagements that differ in subject matter, rather than developing a novel approach for each one. There will be support provided to ensure the methodology carries from one context to another. Over time, the Program Associate is expected to gain internal recognition as a go-to resource on this methodology and to support the development of reusable tools and resources for WestEd's established modernization service offerings. However, there is an anticipated concentration in special education, and candidates with familiarity with special education content are encouraged to apply.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience
• Some experience with statewide or large-scale implementation — SEA, regional, district wide or large-scale technical assistance context.
• Experience leading a defined workstream or project component through a change in policy or practice, including exercising judgment under ambiguity — not just exposure to change initiatives.
• Developing subject matter expertise in change management or implementation practice, with the ability to advise clients on assigned components in partnership with project leadership.
• Strong planning and sequencing ability with implementation and training plans.
• Ability to support the authorship of communications frameworks and stakeholder/systems maps that inform client implementation of initiatives.
• Facilitation of listening sessions and advisory groups.
• Ability to facilitate drafting a process map or flowchart.
• Working knowledge of change management or implementation methodology (e.g., Lean Six Sigma, ADKAR, Prosci, improvement science, implementation science or equivalent) as applied to public-sector or education contexts.
• Ability to develop and deliver professional learning and technical assistance materials for clients, in partnership with content leads.
• Ability to draft assigned sections of proposals and scopes of work, drawing on prior project work and/or materials.
• Ability to track deliverables, level of effort, and spending for assigned workstreams and small projects against the contract schedule and budget.
• Comfort presenting to clients and at regional or national convenings, with advance quality review of material.
• Sound judgment and composure in ambiguous, high-stakes situations.
• Strong stakeholder management and political discretion.
• Systems-level thinking, with the ability to see how people, process, technology, and policy interact within an agency, and to surface those interactions and their implications for project leadership.
• Comfort holding multiple concurrent initiatives without loss of quality or attention.
• Ability to build relational trust with key stakeholders.
• Willingness to give and receive documented feedback, and to informally mentor colleagues on assigned project tasks.
• Candidates should be prepared to discuss a specific instance in which an original plan did not hold and describe how they responded.
• Candidates should be able to speak to systems thinking with concrete examples from their own experience.
• Candidates should be able to speak to relationship-based leadership with concrete examples from their own experience.
• Must be authorized to work in the United States.
• Successful candidates must be authorized to work in the United States.

Nice To Haves

• Advanced degree preferred.
• Preferred Prior work in state agencies, regional service agencies, large school districts or national TA centers.
• Familiarity with compliance-heavy or federally monitored environments (fiscal, IDEA, ESEA, or comparable accountability systems).
• Survey design and qualitative synthesis experience for readiness assessment and adoption measurement.
• Experience contributing to proposals, scopes of work, or other business development materials.
• Experience presenting at regional or national conferences, or contributing to blogs, briefs, or other Publications.
• Familiarity with special education content is encouraged.
• Geographic Preference West Coast, Pacific Northwest, or Mountain West preferred

Responsibilities

• Serve as project lead for assigned components of statewide engagements and, as experience grows, as entry-level project director for small projects (typically under $100K in annualized revenue), working from objectives and direction set with project leadership and with checks for quality.
• Support the development of stakeholder mapping, segmentation, and engagement strategy for each assigned project.
• Co-design and co-facilitate listening sessions and advisory groups; synthesize findings into reporting the client acts on support the authorship of Organizational Change Management or implementation plan and communications architecture: change impact assessment, governance/RACI alignment, risk register, adoption indicators, key messages, channel/cadence planning — drafting assigned sections under the direction of the project director.
• Design and deliver professional learning and technical assistance materials for assigned components and small projects in partnership with content leads; contribute to training and rollout frameworks for larger engagements.
• Design training and rollout frameworks for successful implementation.
• Design and support measurement and post-launch evaluation activities in coordination with content leads.
• Partner with the project team to keep adoption work aligned to contract schedule and budget, tracking deliverables, level of effort, and spending for assigned workstreams and small projects and flagging variances to project leadership.
• Coordinate adoption and communications planning with technology vendors and state IT departments where a system change is part of the engagement.
• Escalate adoption risk and sponsorship gaps to project leadership, with recommended options grounded in precedent with support, maintain consistent application of WestEd's adoption methodology and deliverable templates across concurrent engagements in different content areas.
• Contribute to proposal development under supervision — drafting sections that leverage prior project work — and support the development of reusable resources for WestEd's established modernization service offerings.
• Contribute to WestEd's eminence and visibility in the field: co-present with project leadership at regional or national convenings, identify conference opportunities, and contribute to blogs, briefs, or other publications, with advance quality review of materials.
• Provide documented feedback and informal mentoring to project team members on assigned projects and tasks; onboard new team members to project tools, templates, and protocols.
• Maintain mastery of WestEd's systems, tools, and procedures for project tracking, contracting, invoicing, and reporting so that assigned work stays compliant and audit-ready.

Benefits

• 15% contribution toward retirement effective day 1 of employment and immediately 100% vested
• Pre-tax Flexible Spending Accounts and Health Savings Account option
• All health/welfare benefits are effective the first of the month following the hire date
• PTO: 19 days (increases to 21 days beginning the third year of employment)
• 12 paid holidays
• Life Insurance: value of 3x gross salary, max of 500k
• Opportunities for annual merit-based performance increases + annual incentives
• Professional development opportunities & mentorship program

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level