Early Childhood Strategic Leadership Institute

Over 100 Early Education policy makers, leaders and educators came together in June 2018 to learn, share and problem solve effective leadership practices.

In June 2018, ECA, with its partners at Wellesley College’s Centers for Women, hosted the first statewide Institute on Early Childhood Strategic Leadership.  The Institute attracted over 100 leaders in the Early Childhood Profession including center directors, administrators, principals, education coordinators, special education directors, and coaches and offered a unique opportunity for community based, private and public school program leaders to learn, share and problem solve effective leadership practices. The Institute featured 11 sessions targeting such topics as building instructional leadership capacity, exploring high quality practices, making inclusion work and the power of reflective practices.

Speakers included:

• Judy Schickedanz, Ph.D., Professor Emertia, School of Education, Boston University, and member of the National Early Education Council for Jumpstart and author of Inside PreK Classrooms: A School Leader’s Guide to Effective Instruction
• Catherine Marchant, Teacher, educator, instructional coach and consultant for schools and districts and co-author of Inside PreK Classrooms: A School Leader’s Guide to Effective Instruction
• Courtney Williams, Co-founder and CEO of TORSH, an educational software company that provides a video observation platform used for teacher development
• Jason Sachs, Executive Director, Early Childhood Education at Boston Public Schools
• Amy O’Leary, Director of Early Education for All, a campaign of Strategies for Children and President of NAEYC
• Ruben Carmona, Principal, Abraham Lincoln Elementary School, Lowell MA

The workshops offered were:

• Measuring and Promoting High Quality Practices
• Setting the Stage for Effective Teaching
• Providing High Quality Inclusive Practices
• Role of Technology in Developing the EC Workforce
• Supporting Strong Early Educational Programming Preschool to Second Grade
• The What and How of Instructional Leadership
• Providing Services through the Lens of Trauma
• Reflective Practices and Self-Care for Leaders
• The Leader as Coach
• Collaboration with Others to Meet Needs of DLL Children and Families