“Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work,” wrote children’s author C.S. Lewis. And these words appear on a big sign that Kimberly has in her office at Delaware State University, where she heads its Early Childhood Innovation Center (ECIC), a program that began a bit more than a year ago. As the executive director of the ECIC, Kimberly provides the state’s early childhood professionals with technology, coaching, financial assistance to cover tuition and access to flexible coursework as they work toward the Child Development Associate® (CDA) Credential™, associate degree and bachelor’s degree. The holistic support her program provides empowers early childhood professionals and prepares them for career advancement and better paying jobs. Still, that’s not Kimberly’s major goal.
“Sometimes the general public and students at the ECIC have needed a reminder that it’s not about you or me,” she explains. “It’s about the children. We’re advancing our education, so we can give children what they need to advance in the brief span of time that they’re with us. Every year, you get a new set of children, and you have nine to eleven months to influence them before they move onto someone else. So, we all need to focus on the children and give them the great foundational skills they need to succeed in school, life and transitioning to the K-12 space. Our work always must be centered around the children.”
Quality early childhood education focuses on a whole child approach, and Kimberly also takes a whole teacher approach as she breaks down the roadblocks that stop early childhood professionals from pursuing their dream of higher education. “Once accepted into our program, people receive laptops and stipends to offset the cost of life expenses such as safe, reliable child care and transportation to cohort meetings,” she explains. “We’ve designed our programs to have an embedded coaching component that meets you where you are and helps you take the next step, whether that’s getting CDA® or working on your bachelor’s degree. We also offer completion bonuses to people when they finish the program to address some of the financial issues that our early childhood professionals face.”
Granted, all these ideas for supporting early childhood professionals have been floating around the state for a long time. But until the creation of the ECIC, they weren’t pieced together. “We’ve consolidated all these services under one roof,” Kimberly says, “and we’re working with education departments at institutions of higher education throughout the state to ensure that anyone now pursuing or thinking about a degree in early childhood knows about the programs we offer. Anyone who’s working in an early childhood program in Delaware can come to us, and we’ll give them career advice and guidance on the best first step for them. If that’s the CDA, we have a wide range of cohort models and partner with many colleges and universities statewide and in surrounding locales that offer specialized support like early childhood education programs in Spanish. We want to support our students in a variety of ways that focus on equity, cultural sensitivity and inclusion.”
While Kimberly has built a lot of leeway into the program, she does insist upon results to justify the investment Delaware has made in the ECIC. “We have a $31.6 million grant that supports our work,” she says, “and we’re using a lot of it to help people earn their CDA. Over the next three years, we have to show the positive impact of the grant, which demands that people complete the program. One of our taglines is ‘Insisting on success,’ so we make sure to stand by people from the time they start to the time they finish the program.”
Kimberly is convinced that the ECIC will produce concrete results. “We believe that helping people to earn their CDA is going to have a big impact on classroom practices, children and families,” she says. “We also believe that the educators will continue to grow after taking that first step by earning a CDA. Research in Delaware and nationwide shows that many people go on to earn their bachelor’s degree once they hold a CDA. So, we’re ready to change people’s lives by helping them earn the Council’s national credential.”
Kimberly’s own life changed when she discovered the early childhood field in college. “I originally intended to be an elementary school teacher, but I struggled to get through the required math classes for teachers,” she recalls. “So, my advisor had a real down-and-dirty talk with me and suggested I switch my major to early childhood education.” Doing so offered Kimberly the flexibility to work with young children in classroom settings, become a program administrator, design professional development opportunities for ECE professionals and work in higher education preparing and supporting the ECE workforce. That’s exactly what Kimberly did!
And along the way, Kimberly worked to be her best by earning a doctorate in educational leadership. “My research has focused on access to higher education and the perceptions of early childhood educators to further learning,” Kimberly says. “I put my findings into practice as I transitioned into the world of higher ed and began working in a teacher preparation program for early childhood educators,” she explains. And she has used her expertise to open many doors for educators statewide.
Before taking on her current role, she served for six years as the executive director of the Office of Early Learning at the Delaware Department of Education. While there, she provided leadership to a wide range of programs, such as the Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS), home visiting, Early Head Start, scholarship, compensation incentives and innovative funding strategies for the early childhood workforce. “We were designing and implementing various policies focused on recruiting and retaining the workforce with a goal of raising qualifications, expectations and compensation,” she says. And this experience serves her well as she now helps early childhood professionals meet Delaware’s new requirements for being in the classroom.
“Delaware is now going to make the CDA a major milestone and requirement for various teaching roles in classrooms,” Kimberly says. “Soon, the state qualifications will change and require CDA, associate and bachelor’s degrees for the early childhood workforce. Our program will guide early childhood professionals in making the climb up the career ladder,” and there’s more impetus now for them to rise. The new rules are changing the game in Delaware, as Kimberly explains. “We wanted to build a program like the ECIC for years when I was working for the state, but there wasn’t enough of an appetite for it. Now there is because our program aligns perfectly with the demand for more highly skilled professionals in ECE. We’re making sure people can get all the support they need to comply with the new state policies and regulations. So, the timing is perfect.”
The ECIC is setting the standard for knocking down roadblocks for all early childhood professionals, especially those who have faced inequities for too long. “So, we’ll have special Spanish-speaking cohorts,” Kimberly says. “We’re also supporting high school ECE career pathways, along with family members who have children attending an early childhood program and want to enter or advance in the early childhood field. So, through our cohort program, we’re going to be able to offer them an opportunity to get the credentials and skills that will let them do more to serve the communities where they live.”
Kimberly expects to serve a large number of nontraditional students through her program, and she’s seen how far these students can go. “Before working for the state,” she recalls, “I was the department chair for the early education department at Delaware Technical Community College and I had an idea for bringing college to working professionals in ECE. So, I found a partner and we went to a local child care program every week and taught two courses that counted for college credit. I had a very special cohort of ten ladies who had been working in the early childhood field for many years. One of them was in her sixties and said, ‘I can’t do this.’ But I told her that you’ve completed one class and you’ve passed it. Now you’re getting an A in your second class. You can succeed because you live and breathe this work every day. And by the time I moved onto another job, she had earned her CDA.”
She and other members of the cohort also succeeded in doing more than they ever expected, as Kimberly learned in subsequent years. “I stayed in touch with this cohort and found that most of them had earned an associate degree and moved on to their bachelor’s degree, though they were far beyond the traditional college age. And this goes to show that people can succeed if you give them the right support and help them have the right mindset,” Kimberly says. And the achievements of these seasoned teachers also shows that C. S. Lewis was right when he said, “You are never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream.”
Kimberly’s own dream has always been to change the public perception of early childhood education. “When I was teaching in the early childhood classroom, I used to tell people I worked in brain research because early childhood professionals play a major role in building young brains,” Kimberly recalls. They seemed confused when she added that she was an early childhood professional, but people are now coming to understand the value of the work that our early childhood professionals do, as Kimberly’s glad to see. So, we need to focus more than ever on giving our early childhood professionals the education they need and insisting that they do succeed. Teaching young children, as Kimberly knows, is the most important work you can do.
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Chief Operations Officer (COO)
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 (CFO)
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.
Vice President of People and Culture
Janie Payne is the Vice President of People and Culture for the Council for Professional Recognition. Janie is responsible for envisioning, developing, and executing initiatives that strategically manage talent and culture to align people strategies with the overarching business vision of the Council. Janie is responsible for driving organizational excellence through strategic talent practices, orchestrating workforce planning, talent acquisition, performance management as well as a myriad of other Human Resources Programs. She is accountable for driving effectiveness by shaping organizational structure for optimal efficiency. Janie oversees strategies that foster a healthy culture to include embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion into all aspects of the organization.
In Janie’s prior role, she was the Vice President of Administration at Equal Justice Works, where she was responsible for leading human resources, financial operations, facilities management, and information technology. She was also accountable for developing and implementing Equal Justice Works Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strategy focused on attracting diverse, mission-oriented talent and creating an inclusive and equitable workplace environment. With more than fifteen years of private, federal, and not-for-profit experience, Janie is known for her intuitive skill in administration management, human resources management, designing and leading complex system change, diversity and inclusion, and social justice reform efforts.
Before joining Equal Justice Works, Janie was the Vice President of Human Resources and Chief Diversity Officer for Global Communities, where she was responsible for the design, implementation, and management of integrated HR and diversity strategies. Her work impacted employees in over twenty-two countries. She was responsible for the effective management of different cultural, legal, regulatory, and economic systems for both domestic and international employees. Prior to Global Communities, Janie enjoyed a ten-year career with the federal government. As a member of the Senior Executive Service, she held key strategic human resources positions with multiple cabinet-level agencies and served as an advisor and senior coach to leaders across the federal sector. In these roles, she received recognition from management, industry publications, peers, and staff for driving the creation and execution of programs that created an engaged and productive workforce.
Janie began her career with Verizon Communications (formerly Bell Atlantic), where she held numerous roles of increasing responsibility, where she directed a diversity program that resulted in significant improvement in diversity profile measures. Janie was also a faculty member for the company’s Black Managers Workshop, a training program designed to provide managers of color with the skills needed to overcome barriers to their success that were encountered because of race. She initiated a company-wide effort to establish team-based systems and structures to impact corporate bottom line results which was recognized by the Department of Labor. Janie was one of the first African American women to be featured on the cover of Human Resources Executive magazine.
Janie received her M.A. in Organization Development from American University. She holds numerous professional development certificates in Human Capital Management and Change Management, including a Diversity and Inclusion in Human Resources certificate from Cornell University. She completed the year-long Maryland Equity and Inclusion Leadership Program sponsored by The Schaefer Center for Public Policy and The Maryland Commission on Civil Rights. She is a trained mediator and Certified Professional Coach. She is a graduate of Leadership America, former board chair of the NTL Institute and currently co-steward of the organization’s social justice community of practice, and a member of The Society for Human Resource Management. Additionally, Janie is the Board Chairperson for the Special Education Citizens Advisory Council for Prince Georges County where she is active in developing partnerships that facilitate discussion between parents, families, educators, community leaders, and the PG County school administration to enhance services for students with disabilities which is her passion. She and her husband Randolph reside in Fort Washington Maryland.
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