Jobs/Roles in the ECE Community: National/Federal Level

As soon as I think of national early childhood organizations, I immediately think of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).  I chose this organization, because it provides an overall wealth of information regarding early childhood.  While their specific goals are listed on the home page of their website, in my opinion, the mission of NAEYC is to support young children and early childhood professionals.  NAEYC is a strong supporter of what is developmentally appropriate for each individual young child.
There are an immense variety of journals and/or articles located within the web page, questions are answered, issues are discussed, and upcoming conference information is shared.  As an early childhood professional, I skim through this web page on a weekly basis; there is always something new to read.  Although I have mixed emotions regarding NAEYC accreditation, I am a huge NAEYC supporter.  I will be attending their DAP Conference in 2 weeks, which is being held in San Francisco; I am presenting “Squish-Squash Open-Ended Art.” 
There are currently 3 job listings on the NAEYC web page.  I would be ecstatic to have any of the jobs, although there is little chance that my husband would move to Washington.  On the other hand, I am almost tempted to submit an application; they are ‘dream’ jobs.  The first job is for a Manger of Member Relations to work directly with volunteer leaders who want to improve the quality of early childhood education within their areas.  A B.A. degree and 3 years of experience are required in working with volunteers.  The next job that I located is Senior Director of NAECY Academy for Early Childhood Education, which works to improve the quality of early childhood programs recognizing and accrediting programs.  Basically the requirements are a strong knowledge of early childhood, communication and organizational skills. Without a doubt, this would be my ideal job, if located in a warm region of the United States.  Finally, NAEYC is hiring temporary workers for the summer months to give assistance by writing, reading, or editing their web pages or articles.  Again, if I could do this job from my home computer, I would be doing the happy dance.  I would LOVE to work for NAEYC!  The NAEYC web page is www.naeyc.org

The National Head Start Organization’s web page was my next choice to examine.  I chose this organization, because it is directly related to my Capstone project.  Their overall mission is support the Head Start community, including educators, students, and families.  For me, personally, I put ‘dual language learners’ in their search bar, and I was amazed that 23 records appeared.  I am eager to read carefully through them with the hopes of integrating some of the information within my challenge.  I would like a better understanding of the organizations philosophy of working with dual language learners.  I was unaware that so much information of specific issues of early childhood was located on Head Start’s web page.  This information can be found at www.nhsa.org
When I looked for job opportunities, I expected to see many positions available for teachers and directors.  There were 2 jobs listed, and I have doubts if they are current.  Perhaps, this part of the web page is not regularly updated.  The first job is for assist at a conference with various tracks; it is a part time position.  However, the conference was held in 2010!  The job listing after this is for a Nutrition Coordinator in a Philadelphia Head Start program.  Obviously, I do not have the experience or knowledge for such a position.  I did think this was going along with Head Start’s healthy kids program, because this individual would directly supervise the children’s nutrition, making certain their foods are healthy.  I liked that a lot!

The third national organization that I explored was the ADL web page.  This was a web page that I wanted to examine due to my diversity challenge.  Although I have searched my local web page, it is scarce compared to the national page, which is located at www.adl.org  There is SO much information related to my topic and to the world.  I was unaware that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was initially formed to combat anti-Semitism.  As a Jewish individual, I should have known this!  I was aware that currently they are advocates to stop all forms of racism. 
There is a wealth of information available for early childhood educators.  This is definitely ‘the’ web page that will offer assistance to early childhood educators wanting to implement an anti-bias curriculum within their classrooms.  I have been reading about the Miller Early Childhood Initiative, which provides a wealth of early childhood information.  In addition, as I stated previously in a discussion, the No place for HATE program would be amazing for early childhood.  While it has been initiated in various elementary and secondary schools, I think it has relevance in early childhood.  The program could easily be adapted to younger children.  I just might e-mail them my suggestion!  In addition, I must include that there are also articles for families, and I really enjoyed the bias free cooking activities.  I definitely am going to include information from this ADL to solve my challenge.
There were no jobs listed on the web page, but rather, it was suggested that individuals contact their local ADA office.  Personally, I would love to be employed by ADL to put together an anti-bias early childhood program; however, I am certain this would not be a paid position.  I will, however, seriously consider getting involved with No place for HATE, and of course, I WILL be putting together an anti-bias curriculum in a book or workshop form.

For me, this blog posting was extremely worthwhile, and I am thrilled that I chose to tackle it early in this week.  I will return to these web pages for additional information to help me solve my challenge, for sure! 

 

Exploring Roles in the ECE Community: Florida's Local and State Levels

While I am aware of many of the local and state early childhood organizations, agencies, and communities of practice, I never took the time to visit their webpages or get to know their inner-workings.  It was mind-boggling to come to the realization that there are so many organizations that ultimately work to better the lives for Florida’s children.

I looked deep into the Palm Beach County (PBC) Early Childhood Registry’s webpage (http://www.pbcregistry.org )  I live in PBC and am a Registry trainer, and yet, I have never spent time reviewing their web page.  My knowledge about the goals of the Registry are extremely limited.  My contact has been primarily submitting and re-submitting paperwork and workshops in order to get them approved for presentation.  I learned a huge amount of professional information.  The Registry’s goal is to support practitioners and trainers who work in early childhood in PBC.  The Registry has a strict program that must be completed prior to offering a trainer membership in this group. 
My purpose for becoming a Registry trainer was to elevate my capacity to present trainings in PBC.  After completing my training, I do receive recognition based upon my trainings, and the state will pay a fee for many of my trainings.   Was it worth the time to become a Registry trainer?  Yes, in many ways.  However, the amount of paperwork per training and the approval process is extensive, time consuming, and often, expensive.  So, in the long run, the recognition comes with a cost.  On the flip side, if I was a director and looking for local training, the Registry is a wonderful place to start, because I would be assured that the trainer and training has met specific qualifications.  In addition, there was a calendar of local trainings on their web page, which is extremely beneficial for early childhood educators.  The job openings listed were for lead and assistant teacher position.  For me, I am not currently interested in teaching a particular early childhood class, so it was not beneficial.  However, especially for those individuals directly out of school, these openings are worthwhile to pursue, certainly a starting point. 

Then, I went outside of my comfort zone, searching for an organization that I had not heard of.  As a result of my studies at Walden, I have become overwhelmed by the amount of children in South Florida who are hungry and/or homeless; it is almost like a bad dream.  I located the web page www.homelessvoice.org  Often, I see individuals collecting money at traffic lights for this organization (their vests have the name, Homeless Voice, imprinted on them).  As the name suggests, their mission is to provide shelter, food, and possible employment opportunities.  Their ultimate goal is to offer homeless individuals access to social services to enable their return to being self-reliant.    While employment opportunities as such were not listed, there were opportunities for individuals to volunteer and a listing of items that were always in need.  Several organizations and fundraising opportunities were listed as an opportunity to raise funds for their shelter.   I was taken aback and touched by their mission at ending discrimination against the homeless population.  Without a doubt, I was one of those people who had biases against homeless individuals; I referred to them as lazy.  My learning has eliminated these stereotypes, as I understand the reasons for homelessness.  I want to get involved.

Finally, I reviewed the Florida Head Start webpage (http://www.fl-hsa.org/).  My preschool was not a Head Start preschool, so as a director, I never had a need to review its mission.   Now, as an educator, I present workshops for many Head Start teachers, in addition to reading weekly at a Head Start school.  I have developed a newly found respect for the organization.  This assignment gave me an opportunity to learn more about Head Start.  I found the information to be up-to-date and the web page to be easy to navigate.  I copied and pasted several articles and/or information.   It was interesting to read their philosophy in reference to the importance of collaboration within the Head Start community; they stressed that such collaboration would enable various Head Start schools to share resources.

I had to search a bit to find where their job opportunities were listed.  Most of them can be found on the Palm Beach County School Board web page.  As expected, various Head Start schools posted jobs for teachers; each one, surprisingly, requested for ‘certified’ teachers.  I do not know what specifically was meant by ‘certified.’  There was an interesting job for a Curriculum Specialist in a Head Start Early Childhood Center.  Again, I do not know if I want to return to a particular school or classroom, but the ability to design a curriculum based on the needs of the students did interest me.  I actually called the school and hope to meet the director at a conference this up-coming weekend in Orlando.  It seems like a dream job, but I do not want it to alienate me as a presenter by associating myself with one particular school.  Several other jobs directly at the Head Start office were available, which would require ratings of schools.  Most of them require experience in the field of early childhood, and other than classroom teacher positions, a director’s credential is a necessity.  The jobs at Head Start require a college degree, but none of the availabilities specifically refereed to a degree in education or early childhood.  Since I am a huge supporter of the importance of a degree specifically in early childhood, the lack of such a requirement disturbed me. 

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