Special Assistant to the Executive Director, City Year

Posted by on August 13, 2012

Special Assistant to the Executive Director, City Year

Posted on: July 25, 2012

POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT
Special Assistant to the Executive Director

Organization’s Mission and Goals

City Year is an education-focused, nonprofit organization that partners with public schools to help keep students in school and on track to graduate. In communities across the United States and through two international affiliates, City Year’s innovative public-private partnership brings together diverse teams of young AmeriCorps members who commit to a year of full-time service in schools. Corps members support students by focusing on attendance, behavior and course performance through in-class tutoring, mentoring and after school programs. This year, 2,500 City Year corps members are serving in schools and communities nationwide.

City Year Service

As one of the fastest growing nonprofit organizations in the country, City Year is focused on building the urban graduation pipeline. Corps members provide a continuum of care working in third through ninth grades in America’s highest-need schools. City Year has set a long-term impact goal to have a significant measurable contribution in addressing the nation’s urban graduation challenge. Over the next 10 years, City Year seeks to ensure that at least 80% of students are on-track to 10th grade in the schools where we serve, reaching 50% of the off-track students in our existing markets. Additionally, City Year will work with local champions to expand to cities that account for 2/3 of the nation’s urban dropouts.

City Year corps members serve full-time in low performing schools implementing the Whole School Whole Child model to advance school-wide reform practices and provide individualized academic and social-emotional supports to students exhibiting one of the early warning indicators of poor attendance, disruptive behavior and course failure in math and English – the factors that are the strongest predictors of a student’s risk of dropping out of school. Whole School Whole Child strengthens tiered student supports, improves coordination of teaching and learning, increases teacher effectiveness by allowing more time for differentiated instruction, and expands and optimizes learning time with before- and after-school tutoring. City Year leverages the talent and energy of young people who are eager to serve, in order to provide high poverty schools with the additional human capital required to ensure that all students can achieve their full potential in school and beyond.

City Year Greater Philadelphia is one of the largest sites in the City Year network with 255 AmeriCorps members serving in over 20 schools.

Position Overview

The Special Assistant to the Executive Director (SPA) is responsible for supporting the Executive Director in their role of leading the organization. This role requires the SPA to collaborate and communicate with staff members across all departments at the site and at City Year’s Headquarters office; to be flexible and possess a multitude of skills as the SPA’s assignments can vary depending on the initiatives taken by the Executive Director.

Responsibilities

Supporting the Executive Director: Provide excellent administrative support to the Executive Director. This includes, but is not limited to, maintaining calendars and scheduling meetings, writing meeting minutes, drafting letters of correspondence to various stakeholders, potential champions and internal staff, sorting mail, faxing, filing, and serving as a liaison between City Year Greater Philadelphia staff and the Executive Director.

Administrative Functions: Work with the Executive Office to maintain smooth day to day operations; serves as the primary contact for individuals and organizations seeking information from the Executive Director, prioritizing these requests, and ensuring outgoing communication is timely and accurate. The SPA must also anticipate the logistical and information needs of the Executive Director to ensure she is well prepared for meetings, presentations, and events.

Executive Projects: Supports the initiatives and responsibilities of the Executive Office by leveraging the Executive Director to manage relationships and operational activities. This includes organizing logistics for quarterly board meetings, civic engagement activities involving corps members, and working to coordinate interactions between City Year Greater Philadelphia and City Year Inc. The SPA will also assist the Senior Leadership Team with special meetings, retreats, and projects as requested by the ED.

Supporting the City Year Greater Philadelphia Advisory Board: The SPA will assist with the planning and implementation of quarterly Advisory Board and committee meetings.

Site Communication: Works to maintain clear internal communication, done through organizing and maintaining the site wide calendar. The SPA will also assist the Senior Leadership Team with special projects and events as needed.

External Relations and Site Support

All staff members are expected to think of ways outside of their own job to help further the National Service Movement, such as engaging new supporters through events & roundtables, communicating clearly to other staff members and departments about what activities are happening, and directing corps members to think beyond their daily service in their school.
Assist with or lead on the planning and implementation of special events throughout the year, including MLK Day, Comcast Cares and CYServes Service Days, Annual Tribute Dinner, and more.
Attend overnight conferences including Academy, a week-long training conference for all City Year Staff held in Boston in July, and additional engagement and training activities.

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