Rochelle’s mom scoffed when Rochelle said she wanted to teach children. “My mom wanted me to be a doctor so I wouldn’t struggle like she did, and I started college as a pre-med major,” Rochelle recalls. “I was part of a work-study program and had a job at my college’s child care program, where I fell in love with the kids. But when I told my mom that I planned to work in the early childhood field, she wondered what you could possibly teach babies and told me you don’t go to college for that.”
Rochelle would come to change her mom’s mind about the value and the purpose of the early childhood profession by founding Wilcox Academy of Early Learning, where she serves over 300 children in New Orleans, Louisiana. She has been nurturing young minds there since 2006, and her path to success began when she learned about the Child Development Associate® (CDA) Credential™. “I had dropped out of school,” Rochelle says, “got married and was working part time in child care centers when I met Olga Jackson, this great woman at our local resource and referral agency. She urged me to get my CDA®, and I took all the CDA coursework, which inspired me to go on for my associate degree in early childhood education.”
By 2004, Rochelle had the competence and confidence to open her own family child care home. “Then Hurricane Katrina hit, so my family and I moved to Houston for a year. When we returned to New Orleans we had lost everything like many other families.” But New Orleans rose again, and so did Rochelle. “While looking for an apartment,” she recalls, “we came across this building that used to be an early learning center. And two months later, my husband told me that he had used his 401(k) to lease the building for me. When he did, he said, ‘I know you believe in child care, and this is a reminder that I believe in you. So, I’m ready to support you in whatever you want to do.’”
That was the start of Wilcox Academy, and it’s rapidly grown thanks to grants from public agencies and private groups. “We opened our first building with 34 children. We serve 84 children in our second building, 60 in our third site, 125 in our fourth site. And in 2025, we’ll be opening yet another site.” But when you’re talking about expansion, that’s only a drop in the vast bucket of need for child care, as Rochelle admits. “There are 9,000 children in New Orleans who are waiting for child care.” Some of them are on her long waiting list, and Rochelle is fighting for children in her city and across the state to receive the child care that they need.
She is convinced she can make an impact by speaking out and telling her stories of challenges in the early childhood field. She has also inspired other educators to join her by starting For Providers By Providers (4PXP) to build a wave of empowered leaders in early care and education. She draws her strength and sense of conviction by recalling this phrase from author Alice Walker: “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”
At 4PXP, Rochelle has acted on these words by building a collective, independent policy voice for educators serving Louisiana’s low-income children of color. 4PXP provides Let’s Talk Advocacy Calls and a podcast to help lead the discussion on how to increase access to high-quality early care and education that meets the needs of working families. And her group has used its collective voice to increase public funding for the early childhood field, as Rochelle is proud to say.
“We talked to members of the New Orleans City Council and convinced them to come to centers in their districts,” she says. “By opening their doors to public officials, providers helped city officials realize that early childhood education matters. As a result, former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu put an extra $750,00 for early learning in the 2018 city budget. The next mayor doubled that in 2019, and over three years, the additional funding for early childhood education reached $3 million.”
That was a fine achievement, Rochelle says, but it didn’t go far enough. So, she and her team members at 4PXP galvanized their base in their early learning field to support the passage of a law that would provide early learning with steady funding. “We had 500 people going door to door and making phone calls to drum up votes for the law,” she says. “Parents took their children out to knock on doors and carry signs. Folks at early learning centers cooked and handed out plates of food, then urged people to advance our field at the voting booth. As a result, the city of New Orleans allocated $21 million in property taxes to child care for the next 20 years and the state matched that through the Child Care and Development Block Grant.”
Still, funding for child care won’t make a full impact without enough skilled teachers to serve young learners. So, last year, 4PXP worked with AmeriCorps Louisiana to launch the Early Childhood Teacher Corps, a program to recruit, train and place future early childhood educators in high-quality classrooms across New Orleans. Rochelle also started the Elite Teacher Institute to provide educators with high-quality CDA training and coaching to help ensure they would succeed. “The candidates we serve include many retirees who are trying to get back into the workforce and high school students who are trying to figure out their next steps in life,” Rochelle says. And she encourages them by providing $1,000 scholarships that they can use for college or for their CDA.
Last year, Rochelle gave two scholarships to young women who she had taught at Wilcox Academy when they were children, she recalls. “Now they’re both recent high school graduates, and they’re both working for me while earning their CDA.” And being with them takes Rochelle back to the days when the CDA launched her into success in the early childhood field.
Rochelle’s mom is now proud of what Rochelle has achieved and even worked with her at Wilcox Academy until she retired a few years back during COVID. She’s come to see the value of early learning and realized you can teach something to babies, as Rochelle explains. She also sees that Rochelle made the right choice when she chose to follow her heart into the early childhood field, Rochelle says. “Now she tells me, ‘I’m glad you didn’t take my advice.’”
Introduction The Child Development Associate® (CDA) credential, awarded by the Council for Professional Recognition, is a foundational credential for early childhood educators across the United States. While the CDA® has long been recognized as a...
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As professionals dedicated to the advancement of early childhood education, we understand the critical role that a highly skilled and well-trained workforce plays in the development and success of young children. At the Council for...
The Council for Professional Recognition has long been a leader in quality in early childhood education, ensuring that educators meet the highest standards of competence and professionalism through the Child Development Associate® (CDA) credential. As...
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What inspired you to launch the Reimagine project? Dr. Calvin E. Moore, Jr. (CM), Chief Executive Officer: I joined the Council when we were in the middle of the pandemic and needed to rebuild the...
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Vice President of Strategic Alliances
Elisa Shepherd is the Vice President of Strategic Alliances at the Council, where she leads initiatives to advance the Council’s mission and strategic plan through designing, managing, and executing a comprehensive stakeholder relationship strategy.
With over 25 years of experience in early childhood education (ECE), Elisa has dedicated her career to developing impactful programs, professional development opportunities, and public policies that support working families, young children, and ECE staff. Before joining the Council, Elisa held numerous roles within the childcare industry. Most recently, she served as Associate Vice President at The Learning Experience and as Senior Manager at KinderCare Education, where she influenced government affairs and public policies across 40 states.
Elisa’s commitment to leadership is reflected in her external roles on the Early Care and Education Consortium Board of Directors, the Florida Chamber Foundation Board of Trustees, and as the DEI Caucus Leader for KinderCare Education. She has been recognized as an Emerging Leader in Early Childhood by Childcare Exchange’s Leadership Initiative.
Elisa earned a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a focus on child development from Pennsylvania State University in State College, PA.
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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