Prioritizing Your Time As An Early Educator
s care providers, it often becomes natural to neglect our own needs. We use up all our time making sure the children in our care are happy and cared for, often at the expense of...
Dr. Calvin Moore shared that when he first arrived at the Council and took on the CEO role, he was focused on assessing the early childhood education (ECE) landscape, the reach of the organization and what the Council could do to advance the profession.
He spent time speaking to the Council’s Board, the Child Development Associate® (CDA) Advisory Committee, Council staff and experts in the field. He appreciated that the Council was supporting educators by providing content, resources and more, but he and others wanted it to take the work further.
The result, with support from the Board, was setting a new ambitious goal: “Advancing Early Childhood Education (ECE) competence as a field of practice by expanding the use of the National CDA Competency Standards to unify the field’s performance around equitable and evidence-based early childhood educator pedagogical practices.” National CDA Competency Standards are proven and trusted but they needed to meet current needs for equitable, pedagogical practices that would be backed by the Council’s legacy of evidence-based approaches.
There are six CDA competencies:
The Council promotes these competencies as paramount for educators to understand and use in the classroom and with children.
As the first CDA-holder to lead the Council, Dr. Moore knows just how interwoven these six competencies are with one another. During the pandemic, he often heard people worried about being able to keep children in a safe and healthy environment. Also, helping advance physical and intellectual competence was very important over the past two years with the discussion and reality of children’s learning loss.
At the top of Dr. Moore’s list also is being able to help centers run the most effective professional development programs. With where we are and with so many centers closing during the pandemic, the Council recognizes programs must be responsive to the needs of families.
Supporting ECE is at the heart of everything being done at the Council. The Council has also recently partnered with the Children’s Equity Project to increase the knowledge, awareness and understanding of early educators on issues of equity, bias and systemic racism to ensure that equity is front and center in everything.
Dr. Moore wants to be sure that the Council and others are showcasing and recognizing the CDA standards as leading in the ECE field. He acknowledges there is undoubtedly more work to be done, for example, at higher education institutions and other organizations.
Dr. Moore said that the Council is in the beginning stages of conversations about what success will look like. Part of this effort will focus on sharing the expertise among the Council’s leadership, staff and supporters. It will be important for the organization to become further recognized as the go-to expert in assessing the ECE competencies.
Dr. Moore has known the members of the Council’s Board for many years and was encouraged that the Board was willing to think innovatively and outside the box.
Dr. Moore said that more changes will be coming to capture this type of innovative thinking. The Council is strengthening its commitment to being a learning organization that always wants to put its best foot forward. Dr. Moore shared that he likes being a part of an organization that is constantly growing and looking to improve what it does every day.
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Chief Operations Officer
Andrew Davis serves as Chief Operating Officer at the Council. In this role, Andrew oversees the Programs Division, which includes the following operational functions: credentialing, growth and business development, marketing and communications, public policy and advocacy, research, innovation, and customer relations.
Andrew has over 20 years of experience in the early care and education field. Most recently, Andrew served as Senior Vice President of Partnership and Engagement with Acelero Learning and Shine Early Learning, where he led the expansion of state and community-based partnerships to produce more equitable systems of service delivery, improved programmatic quality, and greater outcomes for communities, children and families. Prior to that, he served as Director of Early Learning at Follett School Solutions.
Andrew earned his MBA from the University of Baltimore and Towson University and his bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland – University College.
Chief Financial Officer
Jan Bigelow serves as Chief Financial Officer at the Council and has been with the organization since February of 2022.
Jan has more than 30 years in accounting and finance experience, including public accounting, for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. She has held management-level positions with BDO Seidman, Kiplinger Washington Editors, Pew Center for Global Climate Change, Communities In Schools, B’nai B’rith Youth Organization and American Humane. Since 2003, Jan has worked exclusively in the non-profit sector where she has been a passionate advocate in improving business operations in order to further the mission of her employers.
Jan holds a CPA from the State of Virginia and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Lycoming College. She resides in Alexandria VA with her husband and dog.
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