Associate: Data Governance
RESEARCH & EVALUATION
440 N. BROAD STREET
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19130

Central Office

Job Number: 4600181092

Start Date:

Open Date: 06/17/2019

Closing Date:

Job Description Revised 6/26/19
The School District of Philadelphia is the cornerstone provider of public education in Philadelphia. For forward-thinking administrators and educators, opportunities abound. Over 131,000 students entrusted to the District arrive at school every day with an extraordinary range of needs and aspirations. We are committed to delivering on their right to an excellent public school education, and we are particularly focused on ensuring every student has access to exceptional educational opportunities. Equity is our mandate. Will you join us?
The mission of the Office of Data Governance (ODG) is to oversee policies, procedures, and analyses to maximize the integrity of data used by district and school stakeholders for decision-making. ODG's work is multifaceted and involves processes and initiatives to develop, establish, and institutionalize policies and systems to ensure that data is accurate, relevant, and useful. We accomplish this through (a) facilitating the formation of Data Governance policies among district leaders and implementing the subsequent policies, (b), establishing systems that use existing data sources to identify errors in data entry, incorrect applications of business rules, and conditions in which action needs to be taken by stakeholders in schools or throughout the district, and (c) conducting analyses that improve data quality, identify sources of error, and resolve inconsistencies between data sources.
Job Summary
The Associate role manages and analyzes data from varied sources to produce District and school-level performance research reports and/or metrics and better understand trends in District, school, and student performance to support the production of performance frameworks that facilitate system-wide decision-making. The associate will handle datasets and conduct large-scale data analyses, which may require employing a number of tools to achieve success. Associates will also build reports or visualizations to convey the outcomes of their analyses to internal stakeholders in program offices. The Associate also assists with the development and dissemination of oral, written, and visual summaries of key findings and the provision of analytic support to promote the understanding and appropriate use of data. Finally, the Associate produces federal, state, and locally-mandated reports and creates data sets for internal and external partners and audiences.
Essential Functions

• Assists with the resolution of complex research, data, and procedural issues.
• Develops business rules to identify data quality concerns.
• Performs data analysis to identify data quality issues.
• Assembles, clean, manage, and analyze large data sets containing District, school, and student-level data.
• Establishes systems to proactively identify data quality issues and alert data owners to address them.
• Engages with district stakeholders to identify their data needs and translate them into business rules and operational systems that support them.
• Develops data quality reports for stakeholders.
• Assists with the validation and analysis of data submitted to federal, state, and locally mandated reports.
• Provides support to various audiences to promote understanding and appropriate use, interpretation, and application of data.
• Creates data sets for internal and external partners and audiences as necessary.
• Other duties as assigned.

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university in computer science, mathematics, statistics, public policy, information systems or a related field.
• Three years of full-time, paid, professional experience, two of which have included working with large longitudinal data sets.

OR

• Master's degree from an accredited college or university in computer science, mathematics, statistics, public policy, information systems or a related field.
• One year of full-time, paid, professional experience which has included working with large longitudinal data sets.

OR

• Any equivalent combination of training and experience determined to by acceptable by the Office of Talent in collaboration with the Office of Evaluation, Research & Accountability.

• All work experience related to the position must be included on the resume.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
Demonstrated knowledge of:

• descriptive and inferential statistics.
• statistical software packages, such as SPSPP, Stata, and/or SAS.
• management of large data sets in relational database applications using SQL.
• merging disparate data sources to create new data sets.
• how to identify and resolve data anomalies or discrepancies, particularly across multiple data sets.
• best practices in data management, including extraction, storage, documentation and database design.
• one or more scripting programming languages, such as Python or Javascript.
• data warehouse and/or data science and inquiry practices.
• national, state, and/or local K-12 education data and calculation methodology.

Demonstrated ability to :

• manage and analyze large longitudinal data sets.
• work cross-functionally to ensure that all District-held data are accurate, complete, understandable, and accessible to relevant stakeholder groups.
• research, evaluate, and recommend changes to systems and processes related to the collection, reporting, and dissemination of data.
• communicate key analytical findings to multiple audiences (including non-technical audiences) in oral, written, and visual form.
• train District staff and external audiences on the appropriate use, interpretation, and application of data systems and tools.
• communicate key analytical findings to multiple audiences (including non-technical audiences) in oral, written, and visual form.
• train District staff and external audiences on the appropriate use, interpretation, and application of data systems and tools.
• communicate effectively, both orally and in writing.
• establish and maintain effective working relationships.

Disclaimer
The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by people assigned to this classification. They are not to be construed as an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills required of personnel so classified.

Additional Job Information: This is a 12-month, non-represented role. The salary grade for this position is 4026. Interviews may be conducted to determine how well a candidate meets the established criteria. Please note that not all qualified candidates may be selected for an interview.

DISCLAIMER: Interviews may be conducted to determine how well a candidate meets the established criteria. Please note that not all qualified candidates may be selected for an interview. Additional factors, including, but not limited to, disciplinary action, ability to follow directions, punctuality, and professional conduct will be considered in the evaluation process.

The selected candidate must have no pending disciplinary action or anecdotal record on file and have not been subject to any disciplinary action within the past eighteen (18) months. In addition, the candidate must have an excellent record of attendance and punctuality during the last three (3) years (defined as no more than eighteen (18) occasions of lateness or absence for personal illness within this period of time with the exception of one extended long-term absence)