Program Associate, Statewide Implementation and Change Leadership

Program Associate Of Statewide Implementation & Change Leadership

About West Ed

As a community of over 1,400 researchers, practitioners, consultants, and administrative professionals from all backgrounds and life experiences, we are committed to making a qualitative difference in the lives of youth, children, and adults. We conduct and apply research, develop evidence-based solutions, and provide consulting services across the country in both rural and urban communities to improve equitable outcomes for individuals from infancy through adulthood.

Serving as trusted partners in the areas of education, health, and justice, our teams enhance capacity within communities and school districts to prioritize impact — asking the right questions, customizing methodologies, developing relevant tools, and implementing best practices specific to a diverse range of stakeholder needs.

West Ed supports individual initiative, excellence, and hard work of all individuals in our hiring and work practices. West Ed complies with all applicable federal and state anti-discrimination laws, as well as OFCCP requirements. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to disability, or status as a protected veteran.

SPECIAL NOTICE REGARDING THE WORK LOCATION OF THIS POSITION—Although West Ed provides the option of working at one of its facilities for employees, many roles allow employees to choose to work remotely for their own convenience. The decision to allow remote work at the employee's convenience is based on the requirements of the position or project in question.

West Ed seeks a Program Associate of Statewide Implementation & Change Leadership 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.

Position Overview

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.

Core Focus Areas

This position will join a team of staff working on West Ed's growing collection of statewide modernization partnerships in which West Ed 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 West Ed 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 work streams 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 West Ed's modernization work spans…