Professional Development Support Coordinator

Think Small, Minnesota’s leader in early learning, is dedicated to advancing early childhood care and education. For over 50 years, we have supported the full potential of every child and championed equity-focused policies and practices to empower a just, inclusive, and equitable care and education system for children during their crucial early years. Recognizing the profound influence of early experiences on a child’s future success, we are committed to improving the quality of early childhood settings to optimize development.

This position provides in person and virtual technical assistance to early childhood educators in the 7-county Metro area in pursuit of Professional Development training opportunities; supports training coordination, staffs Think Small office front desk while training is running and provides administrative support. This position will primarily support trainings held at the Minneapolis office and may also include hosting trainings at Think Small-St Paul.

Common Interactions: Early childhood educators, trainers, Professional Development staff statewide, agency staff, partner agencies, community members.

Requirements: 

Client Focus

• Providing service excellence to internal and/or external clients.
• Follows up with clients during and after delivery of services to ensure that their needs have been met.
• Keeps clients up-to-date on the progress of the service they are receiving and changes that affect them.
• Keeps clients up-to-date on the progress of the service they are receiving and changes that affect them.
• Return calls from Professional Development voicemail lines as priority.
• Assist customers with use of Develop website over the phone, online, and in-person, informing and aiding with online account/membership creation, training search, and training registration.
• During phone calls & customer interactions: problem-solve issues, questions, and connect to appropriate resources/
• Staff weekday (M-Th) evening and Saturday trainings at Think Small offices as scheduled; including participant sign-in, room set up, training material preparation, and other professional development support.

Information Gathering & Processing

• Locating and collecting data from appropriate sources and analyzing it to utilize in work duties and/or prepare meaningful and concise reports that summarize the information.
• Identifies relevant facts and issues underlying a particular problem.
• Identifies the information needed to complete an assignment or make a decision.
• Researches the most useful source of information to meet the requirements of the task. -Poses direct questions to immediately available people.
• Reads relatively short texts to locate a single piece of information.
• Follows prescribed methods of information collection.
• Provide weekly training participation updates to the Department, indicating necessary cancellations.
• Share data on what educators are requesting for training and whether it is a course we have available or do not have available. Coordinators to support responsive service delivery.
• Enter confirmed training event details and training attendance into the Develop website.

Accountability

• Holding yourself and others to high standards of accountability and creating an infrastructure and transparent corporate culture that supports and measures personal and organizational responsibility and accountability.
• Acts in accordance with relevant standards, codes and legislation.
• Checks assumptions about mutual expectations and clarifies standards of overall performance.
• Monitors the quality and timeliness of one’s work, appropriately using the resources at one’s disposal.
• Follows through and meets personal commitments to others on time.
• Welcomes and acts upon constructive feedback to improve behavior and results.
  Admits openly when mistakes have been made and takes responsibility to deal with them quickly and efficiently.
• Perform all job duties to department expectations and standards.
• Perform other duties as assigned.
• Maintain regular, reliable attendance.
• Safe job performance.
• Competency in required computer programs.

Teamwork

• Working collaboratively with others to achieve organizational goals.
• Initiates collaboration with others.
• Assumes additional responsibilities to facilitate the achievement of team goals.
• Seeks input from other team members on matters that affect them.
• Collaboration with customers, coworkers and external partners
• Timely, engaged participation in meetings
• Prepare reports as required
• Current, valid certifications as required
• Perform back up department duties as needed
• Contribute to marketing efforts of trainings with a high attention to detail and accuracy on marketing materials, data entry and externally facing training schedules.
• Contact trainers and venues to confirm training dates, locations and participant numbers; coordinating trainer needs with venue and roblem-solving issues
• Make calls or compose and send professional level emails to both trainers, educators and venues regarding training event cancellations

Education

• Associate’s degree;
• OR ongoing coursework toward Early Childhood degree or CDA; With 1 year customer service experience
• OR High school diploma with 2 years of experience in Customer Service and technical support.

Experience

• Relevant experience in data-entry with high attention to detail and accuracy
• Experience prioritizing projects and meeting deadlines
• Customer Service
• Microsoft Office Teams
• Zoom

Must complete the following requirements upon hire:

• Data privacy and security training
• Background study
• Develop membership

Computer knowledge

Working knowledge of

• MS Office programs (Outlook, Word, Excel, SharePoint)
• MS Teams
• Zoom

Physical demands

• This position is mostly sedentary with occasional demands to walk and stand
• There are occasional requirements to lift up to 20 pounds
• There is frequent requirements to move wheeled meeting room furniture to prepare for trainings
• There is frequent keyboarding, computer use and communicating via phone, email and in person

Travel demands

• Valid driver’s license, reliable personal vehicle and proof of insurance is required for metro area travel

Other

• Evening and weekend hours required
• Flexibility of scheduling required to meet job and department needs

Benefits:

• Salary: The salary range for this position is $35,000-$48,000, based on experience and educational background.
• Hybrid Work Schedule: A mix of on-site and remote days for work-life balance.
• Comprehensive Insurance Options: Medical, dental, vision, short- and long-term disability, life, pet, critical illness, and long-term care insurance.
• Flexible Spending and Savings Accounts: Medical and dependent care FSA, Health Savings Account (HSA), and legal/ID protection plans.
• Retirement Savings: Pre-tax and ROTH 401(k) plans with employer match.
  Generous Paid Time Off:
  • 23 days of sick/vacation time earned in the first year.
  • Eight scheduled holidays and five floating holidays.
  • Six weeks of paid parental leave.

Application Process: If you are a mission-driven Professional Development Support Coordinator ready to make an impact in the early childhood education sector, we encourage you to apply for this opportunity. Think Small is an equal opportunity employer, and we welcome candidates of all backgrounds to apply.