School Program Specialist

About Us

Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Bay Area (BBBSBA) envisions a world where all youth achieve their full potential. Our mission is to create and support one-to-one mentoring relationships that ignite the power and promise of youth across the ten Bay Area counties. Our evidence-based approach has proven to be successful for over 100 years nationally and over 65 years locally. Join our team at BBBSBA to make a lasting impact on the lives of young people, families, and mentors in our community!

Role Overview

The Program Specialist, Education & Workforce (School Programs) drives the operational success and expansion of our school-based mentoring initiatives, including High School Bigs in our first year, and the potential for small group mentoring models in the future. While new to the Bay Area, High School Bigs is a highly reputable peer mentoring model that has successfully activated over 14,000 high school mentors within the Big Brothers Big Sisters network nationwide. The Program Specialist manages the full match lifecycle of High School Bigs (mentors) and their elementary school Littles (mentees) —collaborating with school teams to recruit, screen, and enroll students and provide them ongoing support. The Specialist facilitates structured mentoring sessions after school (with potential future expansion to school-day programming), delivers targeted leadership development, conducts rigorous match support, and liaises with our Big Futures Program Specialist to support high schoolers with college and career guidance and workplace exposure events.

Key Responsibilities

Site Facilitation & Program Delivery (40%)

• On-Site Facilitation: Coordinate and facilitate peer-mentorship programming across assigned school clusters, launching initially with two sites in Richmond with a goal to scale to new sites and proven program models within the next two years.
• Session Leadership: Deliver structured on-site programming for cohorts of 10–20 matches per session (up to 40 youth total), adapting delivery between after-school periods and small-group mentoring sessions embedded within the school day as needed.
• Curriculum Facilitation: Tailor and deliver peer-mentorship curriculum focusing on social-emotional learning, identity, accountability, STEAM, and growth mindsets.
• Leadership Training: Conduct recurring standalone training and workforce-readiness workshops for high school mentors to build their soft skills and leadership capacities.

Community Engagement & Enrollment (20%)

• Recruitment & Intake: Cultivate relationships with high school pathway teachers, counselors, and after-school coordinators to source high-potential mentors and refer high-need elementary youth with parent/guardian consent.
• Screening Interviews, Assessment & Matchmaking: Conduct empathetic screening interviews and orientations with high school students and elementary youth assessing fit for the program in adherence with national safety protocols, and pairing students intentionally to create lasting match relationships.
• Volunteer Management: Coordinate with Recruitment & Intake team to leverage support from volunteers from college, community organizations, and companies to provide new opportunities to program participants.

Case Management & Match Support (20%)

• Caseload Supervision: Maintain regular, documented check-ins with matched Bigs and Littles and school site contacts to monitor match relationship health and maximize student safety.
• College & Career Coaching: Liaise with Big Futures Program Specialist to provide direct post-secondary coaching to High School Bigs, monitoring their progress toward graduation, college applications, scholarship opportunities, and vocational pathways.
• Resource Integration: Connect program participants to broader organizational resources in financial literacy, youth mental health, etc.

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Administration (20%)

• Database Maintenance: Input comprehensive attendance, interaction logs, and safety documentation into the MatchForce (Salesforce) CRM platform with high fidelity.
• Network & Affiliate Exchange: Regularly connect with counterpart Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies across the country to share programmatic insights, navigate challenges, and integrate network best practices.
• Internal Synergy: Collaborate closely with BBBSBA Programming, Marketing, and Fundraising teams to elevate impactful match stories, contribute to grant reporting, and supply qualitative data for agency campaigns.
• Agency Engagement: Participate in cross-functional workgroups and support landmark organization-wide events (such as the annual gala, winter match parties, and community recruitment campaigns).

Core Competencies

• Group Management & Facilitation: High comfort level commanding and keeping an audience of up to 40 youth of varied ages engaged in a fluid, non-traditional classroom environment, delegating to volunteers and additional support staff to keep students on task.
• Relational Intelligence & Empathy: Proven ability to build swift, authentic trust with diverse stakeholders, from elementary schoolers and teens to school principals and parents.
• Child Safety Lens: Unwavering commitment to risk management and safety regulations throughout screening and monitoring processes.
• Agility & Adaptability: High capacity for flexibility in navigating public school infrastructures, changing bell schedules, and scaling program boundaries.

Qualifications

Required

• Education: Bachelor’s degree, or equivalent experience required.
• Experience: 2+ years of direct experience working in schools, teaching or training groups of high school and/or elementary students.
• Communication: Exceptional oral, written, and customer service communication skills.
• Travel: Reliable personal transportation to support travel between the Oakland headquarters and school partner locations in Richmond, and potentially other Bay Area locations in the future.
• Technical Savvy: High proficiency across Google Workspace and Microsoft Office, with an active orientation toward integrating AI and productivity workflows.

Preferred

• Language: Conversational or fluent in Spanish
• CRM Familiarity: Prior experience utilizing Salesforce or MatchForce database architecture.
• Contextual Knowledge: Familiarity with the West Contra Costa Unified educational ecosystem, CTE/education pathways, or local college and workforce development systems.

Our Values

Our values guide us every step of the way: Connection, Adaptive Growth, Resourcefulness, Empathy, and Safety. We bring together people who might never have met otherwise, forging bonds that change lives. We embrace challenges with flexibility and creativity. We lead with compassion. We prioritize safety. We work tirelessly to break down barriers so that every young person has access to the brighter future they deserve.

Equal Employment Opportunity

BBBSBA provides equal employment opportunities to all qualified individuals without regard to race, creed, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, or non-disqualifying physical or mental handicap or disability.

Americans with Disabilities Act

Applicants as well as employees who are or become disabled must be able to perform the essential duties & responsibilities either unaided or with reasonable accommodation. The organization shall determine reasonable accommodation on a case-by-case basis in accordance with applicable law.

Job Responsibilities

The above statements reflect the general duties, responsibilities and competencies considered necessary to perform the essential duties & responsibilities of the job and should not be considered as a detailed description of all the work requirements of the position. BBBSBA may change the specific job duties with or without prior notice based on the needs of the organization.