Charlotte Pelz: A Commitment to Serve

“I’ve always wanted to help other people,” Charlotte says. “I come from a family of teachers and social workers, who had a strong sense of service.” That’s also Charlotte’s core value as a servant leader who has devoted her career to supporting early childhood teachers. “I’m passionate about the early childhood workforce since the pay and respect that our educators receive don’t reflect the importance of the work they do. It isn’t easy to spend every day working with young children. I so respect people who find a sense of joy and passion in helping young children advance.”

Educators also deserve the chance to advance, and Charlotte helps them as Vice President of Education at Care Solutions, Inc., a consulting company in Atlanta, Georgia. Care Solutions is pleased to partner with the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL) to help the department to complete their mission of improving outcomes for children and families by strengthening early learning experiences. Care Solutions does this through implementing DECAL Scholars, the Department’s program that helps educators reach their career goals and remain committed to the early learning profession. The program provides scholarships for educators to earn CDA® credentials and college degrees so they can provide high-quality early learning and care for children.

“I have about 10 people on the public facing side of my team,” Charlotte says, “and we work closely with the state to help the DECAL Scholars program fulfill its goals. The state defines the priorities and big ideas and then we work with them to put together the nuts-and-bolts details to support it. We do everything from answering applicants’ phone calls and processing eligibility applications to issuing payments, managing budgets, and testing software. We disburse funds for CDA renewal fees and CDA application fees for high school students in Career, Technical, and Agricultural Education (CTAE) programs. We also work with the educators who participate in the program,” Charlotte says. “We have a counseling component and talk to educators about their options to determine the best education path to meet their individual hopes and needs.”

Charlotte’s team also spends a lot of time speaking to instructors at training organizations and technical colleges about what educators need, as she explains. “Our team has its ear to the ground because we provide all the customer service and tech support when educators are trying to use our software to apply for scholarships. We work with the trainers to ensure they have accurate information about what our program does.” And these discussions also help Charlotte and her team to better fulfill the state’s goals. “The more we know about what’s going on in early childhood education in Georgia, the better Care Solutions can serve the DECAL Scholars program and the early learning workforce.”

One of the best ways to support educators is to help them earn their CDA, as Charlotte has heard from trainers in the 13 years that she’s worked at Care Solutions. “The trainers tell me that earning a CDA is a great way for educators to get the skills they need to provide children with excellent care and education. The CDA credential also helps educators gain recognition and the programs where they work benefit, too. Programs whose educators hold credentials get higher scores in Georgia’s quality rating and improvement system. DECAL wants every educator in the DECAL Scholars program to succeed in earning a CDA.”

Any educator is eligible for the CDA program, so long as they’ve been with their employer for at least six months. This requirement helps with retention in the early learning field, and so does the option of going on for an associate and bachelor’s degree, with DECAL’s continued support. “We have educators who have earned their CDA or associate degree in the past and want to explore an academic credential or degree so they can be a lead teacher in a lottery-funded Georgia’s Pre-K classroom or work in the K-12 system,” Charlotte says. “If they do, DECAL provides scholarships to help with tuition and educational expenses, such as books.”

Charlotte brings a wide range of experience to her role in helping educators reach their goals since she’s been working in the early learning field for nearly 25 years. “My first job out of college was working for a child care resource and referral agency,” she says. “Then I worked as a T.E.A.C.H. scholarship coordinator before going on to work at Child Care Aware of America, where I provided software support. When I came to Care Solutions in 2013, I started as a senior associate working on the DECAL Scholars program, a role in which I processed applications and interacted closely with participants in the program. I moved into my current leadership role as Vice President of Education when the former VP of Education retired.”

Since coming to Care Solutions, Charlotte’s experience working with the state of Georgia has been rewarding, as she points out. “The Commissioner of DECAL is passionate about providing the early childhood workforce with opportunities for professional growth and assisting educators in any way she can. It’s been fun to work with an agency that shares my commitment to members of the early learning field. DECAL cares about the educators, child care directors, and family child care providers, so there’s a lot of support from the top for the work that my team and I do.”

Charlotte’s ongoing goal is to enable all educators to get the professional growth opportunities they want. “Granted, there are plenty of barriers,” she says, “including caring for an aging parent or young children at home, which may not leave educators the time to earn a CDA. But we don’t want educators to say that financial costs stand in the way of earning a credential. That’s what DECAL Scholars is for.”

The DECAL Scholars team wants to knock down more of the roadblocks that prevent people from earning a CDA credential. “This year we’re going to conduct a CDA completion study and Care Solutions is partnering with DECAL to determine what we want to learn,” Charlotte says. “Our plan is to talk with key CDA stakeholders in Georgia and with educators who’ve received DECAL scholarships in the past.”

There are already strong signs that the program has made a positive impact, as Charlotte points out. “We have many educators who started with the CDA and went on to success in the early learning field,” Charlotte says. “One of the folks who stands out is an educator named Betty who was earning her CDA when I first started working at Care Solutions in 2013. DECAL Scholars supported her for several years, and now she’s a lead teacher with a master’s degree. She also assists a trainer in helping other educators earn their CDA, so she’s helping the next generation of educators to succeed, too,” Charlotte says. And she’s also building the future by spreading the word about the CDA.

“I love going to early learning conferences like the one held by the Georgia Association for the Education of Young Children (GAEYC) and hosting the DECAL Scholars booth,” Charlotte says. Attending conferences like this also gives Charlotte the chance to see the bigger picture beyond the daily work that she and her team do at Care Solutions. “It is easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day processing of applications, answering phone calls, trouble shooting and problem solving. Then you get to a conference, and someone stops by to say, ‘Your program changed my life’ and urges one of their colleagues to talk to me about earning a CDA. When that happens, it inspires me and reminds me that the work we do makes an impact on individual educators and on our state’s entire early childhood workforce,” Charlotte says. She’s happy to see with her own eyes that she’s lived up to her family’s commitment to serve.