A little about us… Kidango (kidango.org) is an early learning nonprofit committed to setting every child on a path to thrive in kindergarten and in life. We believe that all children can reach their full potential if they and their families have access to the right opportunities and resources. As the largest child care provider in the San Francisco Bay Area, we provide thousands of children, especially those from low-income families, with safe, healthy, nurturing environments and relationships. Through our policy work, we aim to take our expertise beyond the children and families that we serve, and drive change in early childhood education at the local, state and federal levels. Our goal is to make sure all children have the social, emotional, and academic skills they need to learn, grow and realize their potential.   

About The Role

Leads the Early Learning, Mental Health, Early Intervention and Inclusion Services, Family Child Care Network, and Head Start teams, creating an excellent whole-child, whole-family fabric of services that empowers the potential of every child, their families and the staff who serve them. Works collaboratively across all departments to ensure hiring,  onboarding, training, coaching, quality improvement, budget and fiscal management, support services,  nutrition, and enrollment all work well together to provide an excellent experience for children, families and  staff. Ensures compliance with relevant regulations. As part of the executive team, Chief Early Childhood Services Officer is responsible for embodying Kidango values and plays a key role in a culture that promotes equity and centers children and families.

What You’ll Be Doing 

• Serve as a member of the executive leadership team and contribute to the execution of the organization’s overall vision, mission, values, and strategic goals. 
• Collaborates with the chief team and others on the executive leadership team in the ongoing visioning, planning, decision-making and implementation of our agency strategic plan. 
• Leads Kidango’s center-based and family child care programs, behavioral health, early intervention and mental health consultation services to provide excellent, equitable, and empowering whole-child, whole-family early childhood experiences for the children and families we serve. 
• Leads and empowers a staff of over 500 teachers, caregivers, center and regional directors, mental health clinicians, early interventionists, family advocates, program managers and others. 
• Leads staff by collectively celebrating their successes, learning from their mistakes, and, when necessary, holding them accountable to meet a high standard of excellence and putting children first.  
• Honors and exemplifies Kidango’s organizational values and values for children, including anti-bias and anti-racist, and helps to create an organizational culture that centers equity, well-being, and builds relational trust. 
• Collaborates closely with the chief team to collectively envision, plan, lead and manage Kidango. 
• In collaboration with the executive team, oversees the identification and achievement of Kidango’s school/life readiness goals. 
• Ensures all families have a positive, culturally-sensitive, trauma-aware customer experience, build  trusting relationships with their child’s teachers and other staff, receive desired support services and  resources, have opportunities to learn about early childhood development, what their child is learning  at Kidango, parenting, advocacy and leadership, and have opportunities to volunteer in their child’s  classroom. 
• Designs, selects, implements and evaluates a system of evidence-based early childhood curricula,  including early language and literacy (including dual language immersion), math, social-emotional  development, anti-bias education, and universal design for learning that is linked to teacher training and onboarding, coaching,  and uses classroom- and child-level data to inform instruction and continuous quality improvement.  
• Supports all classrooms in providing an inclusive environment for all children, including those with special needs. 
• Collaborating with the research department, builds, selects and implements a practical and effective  classroom, teacher and child data and evaluation system to inform continuous quality improvement  and measure the attainment of school/life readiness goals.
• Leads Kidango’s Children’s Collaborative, which is the leadership of our early childhood services, to co design and continuously improve our integrated model of early learning, mental health consultation and early intervention and inclusion supports. 
• By cultivating relationships with staff and families, ensures people feel comfortable and have multiple avenues to provide positive and negative feedback, and get help with any concerns.  
• Builds staff leadership capacity and helps create a culture of inspiring, supportive leadership.
• Ensures program compliance according to California Titles 5 and 22, and the federal Office of Head Start.  
• Oversees the writing of the annual Program Self-Assessment/Agency Plan of Action for the State of California and federal Office of Head Start. 
• Develops program budgets in collaboration and support with the Chief Financial Officer. 
• Hires, trains, supervises, and evaluates all assigned staff and assures that all staff in the Education Department are provided with training and accountability. 
• Works with assigned staff to facilitate hiring, training, supervising, and evaluating their assigned staff. 
• Oversees and ensures implementation of all training plans for the education department staff. 
• Motivates and monitors education department staff in the fulfillment of educational requirements. 
• Meets with direct reports on a regular basis for individual supervision and coaching based on reflective practices. 
• Collaborates with the VP of Development and Communications in developing funding requests and proposals. 
• Provides thought-leadership for the ECE field and beyond on how to educate and raise young children  to empower their potential and overall human development to help create a loving, compassionate, and  equitable world.

• Prefer a Master’s Degree and require a Bachelor's Degree in early childhood education, child development or related field. 
• Prefer a minimum of 8 years work experience in an executive position, including supervising others.  Prefer a minimum of 5 years work experience teaching in an early childhood classroom. 
• Strong oral, written communication skills with the ability to communicate effectively with people from a wide range of backgrounds.  
• Strong computer skills in programs such as Gmail, slack, and Microsoft Office.  
• Ability to provide leadership, accept responsibility, work independently and set own goals in a professional manner.  
• Ability to work on a variety of tasks simultaneously and able to work a flexible schedule, including some evenings and weekends.