ABOUT Family Engagement Lab

Family Engagement Lab (FEL) is a national nonprofit that catalyzes equitable family engagement and student learning in historically underserved communities. Our work builds partnerships between teachers and families by bridging classroom curriculum and at-home learning, and facilitating ongoing communication and collaboration. 

Mission: To ignite the potential of millions of families to support their child's learning. 

Traction: FEL has measurably increased family engagement in learning for over 45,000 students, through partnerships with major school districts in the country (e.g., Louisiana Department of Education, Oakland Unified, Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, and Baltimore City Schools). 

Nationally Recognized: By eminent academic institutions such as Harvard University, the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, and J-PAL at MIT. 

Founded: 2016

Total Funded: $7M

Funders: Top K-12 education foundations, including the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Guggenheim Network for Social Innovation and the NewSchools Venture Fund.

Team size: 8

Location: Remote (with Pacific Time overlap)

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WHY WORK WITH US

Mission Driven and Founder Led:

Founders Vidya Sundaram (CEO) and Dr. Elisabeth O’Bryon (Chief Impact Officer) are leading a highly qualified and motivated team committed to using technology to benefit our nation’s most vulnerable students, with a focus on children living in poverty, children adversely affected by racism, and multilingual learners.

A Non-Profit with Product-Market Fit:

Family Engagement Lab is a unique non-profit that acts like a start-up. As a non-profit, we’re able to access funding to disrupt educational inequity in communities neglected by for-profit education vendors. We build products iteratively and in collaboration with our users, and have dramatically improved learning outcomes and long-term opportunities for underserved students.

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THE PROBLEM

Students from low-income families, students of color and multilingual learners together comprise a majority of US students, yet are significantly underserved by public education systems. The pandemic has widened income and racial disparities, with students in high-poverty schools projected to experience 5% lower income during their lifetimes (Hanushek and Woessman, 2020).

Inequalities in how schools engage with families contribute to the disparities, leaving underserved families eager to help their children succeed in school, yet lacking the resources and information to enable them to do so.

OUR SOLUTION

Family Engagement Lab catalyzes equitable family engagement and student learning by bridging classroom curriculum and at-home learning. We help schools and teachers share relevant and timely tips and activities aligned with high-quality literacy and math curriculum, fostering a deeper connection between families and their children’s learning. 

Our core program, FASTalk (Families and Schools Talk), gives educators a simple and accessible way to communicate via text messages to adult caregivers in their preferred language, leveraging content sequenced through the school year. We use data from our FASTalk tool, along with interviews, focus groups, and surveys to continually refine our approach. FEL has measurably increased family engagement in learning for over 45,000 students, not only satisfying and engaging parents but also giving students greater confidence and ability to succeed in school and beyond.

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THE ROLE:

We are seeking a full-time Program Analyst/Senior Program Analyst (depending on experience) to monitor, analyze, and interpret data to inform FASTalk program planning and decision making. A successful candidate will have experience employing a variety of evaluation methodologies, including surveys, interviews, focus groups, and web analytics to gather programmatic insights. The Program Analyst/Senior Program Analyst will also be responsible for summarizing their findings and providing recommendations for improving program effectiveness. 

The Program Analyst/Senior Program Analyst will report directly to the Chief Impact Officer, but will collaborate closely with members of the Family Engagement Lab team across district partnerships, content, research, sales, marketing, fundraising, and product to maintain high levels of programmatic impact.

A successful Program Analyst/Senior Program Analyst will be able to put on their resume that at Family Engagement Lab they led rapid-cycle experiments that optimized FASTalk engagement, impact and cost-effectiveness; managed multiple research studies evaluating FASTalk’s effectiveness in diverse schools; and provided key insights for case studies used to share best practices and bring FASTalk to new school systems.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Use programmatic data-based insights to support strategic priorities across functional areas - 40%

• Partner with Product Manager and Development team to support definition and prioritization of FASTalk features and systems

• Partner with District Partnerships team to communicate key insights and generate data summaries for partners

• Partner with the Research team to collect programmatic feedback through surveys, interviews, and focus groups, as well as a review of program analytics

• Partner with the Sales team to provide data-based insights to support expansion and renewal conversations

• Partner with Fundraising team to support grant reporting and grant applications

• Lead organization’s data collection & analysis efforts - 40%

• Maintain calendar of recurring program analysis needs, and backlog of analysis projects

• Review FASTalk web and mobile application analytics and monitor usage using BI tool (Domo)

• Create processes that improve efficiencies in reporting for internal and external stakeholders, in collaboration with Product and Engineering

• Conduct interviews, surveys, and focus groups with program users and key stakeholders

• Identify, analyze, monitor, and interpret trends or patterns in programmatic data 

• Collaborate with Engineering to develop and maintain data flows needed to monitor product usage data 

• Synthesize and report on key programmatic insights - 20%

• Review and synthesize information and data into recommendations, presentations, reports, and summaries for internal and external audiences (e.g., leadership team, funders, district partners, prospective partners)

• Other 

• Keep abreast of the latest developments in the fields of evaluation, visualization, data analysis, and technology, proposing innovative methods and approaches

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Graduate degree in a related field

• 5-7 years of relevant professional experience for Senior Program Analyst; 2-4 years for Program Analyst

• Analytical skills and research background

• Ability to analyze and interpret program data to identify any risks, issues, solutions, and recommendations

• Working knowledge of statistics and statistical software applications and ability to perform quantitative (descriptive, inferential, multivariate, psychometric), qualitative (e.g., focus group, content analysis), and mixed methods research

• Experience with a wide range of data visualization techniques and technologies

• Familiarity with program evaluation methods

• SQL, Excel expert; expert in one or more statistical analysis tools

• Communication skills

• Ability to ensure diverse stakeholders understand complex data and technical concepts

• Clear and effective communicator, both in writing and verbally

• Enthusiastic about using data to tell stories

• Work style

• Ability to work well autonomously and also as a member of a highly collaborative team

• Strong organizational skills that reflect an ability to perform and prioritize multiple tasks seamlessly with excellent attention to detail 

• Demonstrated track record of effectively collaborating with remote teams across geographic locations

• Demonstrated understanding of and commitment to supporting equity and inclusion

• Conscientious, ethical, and experience with best practices in handling private, student data

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Experience working in PreK-12 education or general educational organization

ESSENTIAL MINDSETS:

• A passion or interest in education and family engagement and a love of technology

• Highest level of ethics and integrity

We encourage applications from all backgrounds, especially BIPOC or applicants from traditionally underrepresented communities, and are committed to having a team that is made up of diverse skills, experiences and abilities.

CULTURE AND VALUES:

As a company with a strong commitment to making schools more inclusive of students and families from underserved backgrounds, we care deeply about creating an organization where diverse perspectives can thrive. We are a very high performing team, and we hold ourselves and each other to high standards. At the same time, we are collaborative and supportive, allowing us to tackle challenges together. 

OTHER DETAILS:

• This position is remote but requires regular communication by phone and video conferencing across the continental US. 

• This position requires occasional post-pandemic travel for team meetings.

• Applicants must be able to commit to 40 hrs/week.

• Desired start date: ASAP

• Salary range for the position is $100,000-$120,000, based on experience.

BENEFITS:

Our benefits include generous vacation and holidays, top-tier health/dental/vision coverage, inclusive parental leave and 401(k) with up to 4% employer match. We take a remote-first approach with flexible hours (9am - 2pm PT overlap) and 1-2 team offsites per year to bring everyone together. 

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