Director of Evaluation and Research

Job Summary

Required Qualifications

• •Experience analyzing national, state, and district-level attendance data to identify trends, disparities, and opportunities for impact
• •Ability to develop credible frameworks to assess attribution, contribution, and influence where direct causality may be difficult to isolate
• •Experience leading development of an Impact evaluation plan for an organization aligned with strategic plans and goals of reducing chronic absence
• •Ability to establish standards for evidence claims used in external communications, fundraising, board materials, and thought leadership
• •Experience ensuring impact statements are rigorous, defensible, and clearly communicate limitations
• •Experience working with program staff to ensure research findings are incorporated into TA activities and inspire action
• •Experience designing and overseeing formative and outcome evaluations of programs, tools, and technical assistance initiatives aligned with strategic plans
• •Ability to recommend improvements to programmatic strategy and practice based on analysis of findings
• •Experience regularly reviewing findings with advisory boards, leadership teams, and all-hands meetings
• •Ability to build an inclusive research culture that centers the voices and experiences of students and families most impacted by chronic absence
• •Experience providing expert feedback to organization leadership regarding continuous improvement including support with process evaluations for new and existing initiatives to assess implementation quality, reach, fidelity, participant engagement, and operational effectiveness
• •Ability to integrate quantitative and qualitative evidence
• •Experience partnering with internal teams, partners, and external vendors to design, build, and improve dashboards with data visualizations, reporting tools, data systems, and collection instruments
• •Ability to translate business/program needs and grant objectives related to evaluation and research into technical requirements for vendors
• •Experience managing external vendor relationships specific to dashboard and data tool creation including developing scopes of work, timelines, budgets, quality standards and ensuring timely completion of deliverables on budget
• •Ability to ensure data quality, usability, governance, and reporting consistency
• •Experience managing implementation of new measurement systems or platform enhancements
• •Experience updating and improving data tools including the DATT (District Attendance Tracking Tool) and SATT (School Attendance Tracking Tool)
• •Ability to lead strategy to influence and disseminate research
• •Experience developing and leading an organization's multi-year research and learning agenda aligned to strategic priorities in partnership with CEO and VPs
• •Ability to identify and develop strategies to address research gaps as well as cultivate external research partnerships
• •Experience convening and facilitating research exchanges that bring together researchers, practitioners, and cross-sector partners to share knowledge, surface insights, address research gaps, and accelerate learning across the field
• •Ability to review research findings to ensure methodological rigor, evidence standards, as well as practical relevance to ensure what is shared is credible, defensible and useful
• •Experience codifying and disseminating findings to translate research into actionable guidance
• •Ability to partner with the communications team to amplify research findings through digital channels and public engagement
• •Experience partnering with State and District impact teams to build capacity of states and districts to adopt evidence based practice
• •Ability to maintain organized digital research infrastructure to ensure knowledge is accessible, current, and shared across the field
• •Experience representing organizations at conferences and convenings as a credible voice on attendance-related research
• •Ability to synthesize and translate existing research into accessible publications, briefs, reports, and tools that are accessible to practitioners, prospective funders, partners, and the public
• •Experience managing research consultants, fellows, and potential future staff including hiring, new staff orientation and onboarding, individualized professional development planning, regular performance feedback, and annual evaluation processes
• •Ability to support grant proposals and funder reports by providing rigorous evidence of impact and research summaries