Operations / Administration Operations Manager
Job Description
About College Track
College Track is a national college completion program that empowers students from underserved communities to graduate from college. From the summer before 9th grade through college graduation, our 10-year program removes the barriers that prevent students from earning their college degree by providing them with comprehensive academic support, leadership training, financial and college advising, and scholarships. We teach them the skills necessary to succeed in college and beyond. In four years, a College Track student receives support equivalent to one extra year of high school.
College Track started in 1997 with a cohort of 25 students in East Palo Alto. Today, we serve over 2,400 high school and college students in East Palo Alto, Oakland, San Francisco, New Orleans, Colorado, Los Angeles and Sacramento. By 2020, we will double the number of students we serve and produce nearly 1,000 college graduates. Last year, 96% of our high school seniors were accepted to four-year colleges and our college graduation rate is 2.5 times the national average for low-income students.
Our Impact
College Track students graduate from college at a rate that is more than double the national average for low-income and first-generation students. Five years out of college, our graduates are employed full-time, and over 85% report earnings greater than their parents. By helping our students maximize the value of their four-year college degree, which includes minimizing student loan debt, securing internships, and limiting the need to work while in college–we prepare them to succeed in the 21st century economy.
Our Values
At College Track, our values drive the way we do our work, and we look for individuals who share our passion. We blend an entrepreneurial spirit with our nonprofit roots, cultivating a dynamic culture where everyone’s contributions are valued and encouraged.
· COMMITMENT: We have an unwavering belief in our students.
· PASSION: We are dedicated to changing our nation’s college completion story.
· JOY: We create environments rich with smiles and laughter.
· AUTHENTICITY: We believe relationships matter.
· EXCELLENCE: Our students deserve nothing but the best.
Position Overview
Operations Managers are highly disciplined, efficient and organized. They develop and implement systems, structures and plans for site operations in a way that brings order and a sense of stability to the team and program participants. The Operations Manager role is to be nimble, able to remain focused and composed in the face of shifting and competing demands and ambiguity, while balancing student/family support and monitoring, with traditional administrative, operations and facilities management. Working in concert with the Site Director, Operations Managers exercise judgement and confidence to identify and elevate potential barriers to site success, while leveraging influence and organizing capacity in order to mobilize collaborative action, achieve goals, foster cooperation and promote compliance.
Primary Responsibilities Include:
- Lead and Manage Site Operations: Successfully manage the day-to-day site operations, including office management, technology, facilities, event coordination, site safety, and vehicles. Direct and manage part-time and volunteer operations staff. Coordinate with full-time staff, part-time staff and volunteers across program departments. Manage front desk administration and facility projects including oversee the inventory of supplies. Serve as the central point of contact for technology inventory and work with the IT consultant to address technology needs. Also manage the use of College Track vehicles for transporting students home and to field trip destinations.
- Manage the Administration of Finance, Human Resources and Payroll: Support the Site Director with finance and accounting by gathering, analyzing, and reporting necessary data. This includes tracking and processing invoices and reimbursements for staff and vendors. Support site supervisors with employee onboarding, orienting them to sitewide policies and act as an HR and payroll liaison for all employees and volunteer staff.
- Oversee Data Monitoring and Reporting: Manage the tracking and reporting of student recruitment and enrollment. Update student contact and attendance records on an ongoing basis using student databases. Synthesize data to elevate insights and trends.
- Manage Student Scheduling and Attendance: Coordinate across departments to conduct planning meetings and complete workshop and enrollment templates. Implement and maintain schedules within Salesforce by partnering with site leadership and students. Train staff and students on attendance policy and procedures, holding them accountable to org-wide expectations and providing individualized/site-wide interventions, when necessary.
- Support Student Recruitment: Partner with Site Director in the annual student recruitment process through delivering presentations aimed at identifying and recruiting prospective students and overseeing the record keeping process.
- Student and Family Engagement: Foster productive relationships with students and families. Support enrollment and student success by ensuring that attendance policy is enacted sitewide, executing intervention and incentive processes, and analyzing sitewide attendance trends to identify potential need for program change.
- New/Special Projects: Additional projects, including event planning logistics, as assigned by the Site Director.
Highest Priority Competencies
- Resolve: Focuses on delivering outcomes despite obstacles, takes setbacks in stride, and sees challenges as opportunities to grow. Can galvanize oneself and others towards goals and impact.
- Manage Self: Reliably prioritizes the highest impact work amongst competing demands, delegates effectively, holds self accountable for their team’s outcomes and produces quality work consistently.
- Set Goals, Plan and Achieve Results: Clearly sets high expectations, motivates others to action and holds others accountable across varying levels of positional authority. Identifies a manageable set of goals and progress indicators. Creates, monitors, and adjusts plans based on data. Proactively flags and mitigates risk, identifies root causes for challenges and effectively problem solves. Focuses effort and resources on meeting those goals.
- Emotional Intelligence: Demonstrates self-awareness, understands the perspectives of others and approaches interpersonal relationships with empathy.
- Collaboration: Builds and maintains positive working relationships with others, fosters cooperation and teamwork across their sphere of to expand organizational impact.
Skills & Experience Required
- Ideally 5 years of experience managing the operations of an organization, program (ideally youth serving) or school;
- Demonstrated ability to create, implement and evaluate systems that support efficient operations and program delivery
- Demonstrable success using influence, vertically and across an organization, to manage to outcomes
- Interpersonal and communication skills that engender trust and facilitate relationship building with students, families and other community stakeholders, and the desire to connect and engage
- Basic aptitude and strong appetite to learn data and technology systems. Experience with Microsoft Office Suite, and Excel in particular, required. Experience with Salesforce or other databases, Google Suite, and budget software such as Adaptive preferred
- Four-year college degree (preferred); high school diploma or equivalent required
- Spanish language fluency (preferred)
- Valid driver’s license and clean driving record required and ability to pass College Track’s drivers clearance process
Reporting Relationships
Operations managers report to Site Directors. The number of direct reports varies by site type and location.
Compensation & Benefits
College Track offers a competitive salary based on the organization’s compensation philosophy, which is grounded in market data. We also offer comprehensive health & welfare benefits and top of the market paid time off.
We will only contact candidates chosen for further consideration. No phone inquiries please.
College Track works to remove barriers for first generation college students on their journey to college completion. Our commitment to removing barriers for first generation college students doesn’t stop when college ends. While we hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds, we especially encourage applicants who identify as first-generation college graduates to apply for open opportunities on staff.
College Track is an equal opportunity employer fully committed to achieving a diverse workforce. College Track does not discriminate on the basis of race, age, color, religion, national origin or ancestry, sex, gender, disability, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression.
