Early Education Leaders, an Institute at UMass Boston | provides the leadership development opportunities and infrastructure that early educators need to support thriving children and families.

April 22, 2025
by earlyedinstitute
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FY2024 Impact Report

This past fiscal year marked a pivotal chapter for Early Education Leaders. From launching our new name to expanding leadership development programs across multiple states, our journey has been guided by a single, powerful vision: a world where racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse early educators are valued, respected, and sustainably supported as they transform early learning, ensuring all children are growing, thriving, and learning.

Last fiscal year marked an important milestone for Early Education Leaders when the number of early educators who have graduated from Leading for Change in Early Care and Education (LFC) — our 40-hour, research-based leadership program — surpassed 1,000!

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April 15, 2025
by earlyedinstitute
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Leading by Example: Adriana Batista-Guerra Empowers Early Educators

Adriana Batista-Guerra didn’t always see herself as a leader. The self-described introvert began her early education career as a family childcare provider and assumed leadership meant “picking up a banner” and advocating at the State House—activities well outside her comfort zone.

Adriana Batista-Guerra, Coach/Facilitator, Metro Boston Professional Development Center.

“I thought I would have to go and speak in front of a legislator,” she recalls. “There’s a place and time for that, and there’s a special person for that. And I am not this person.”

But through her participation in Leading for Change (LFC), Early Education Leaders’ entrepreneurial leadership program, Adriana’s definition of “leader” and “leadership” transformed. She came to see more clearly that her way of working with early educators—empowering them through mentorship and modeling—creates powerful ripple effects throughout the early education ecosystem.

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April 11, 2025
by earlyedinstitute
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A Promising Pathway: Early Insights from the Early Childhood Fellowship

From left to right: Early Education Leaders researchers: Da Hei Ku, Nicole Restrepo, Anne Douglass, and Yujin Lee.

At the 2025 Massachusetts Early Childhood Policy Research Summit, Early Education Leaders presented early findings from a study of the Early Childhood Fellowship (EC Fellowship) — an innovative, equity-driven program that is redefining what’s possible in early childhood workforce development.

The research, summarized on a poster titled “Supporting Bachelor’s Degree Completion for Early Educators: The Early Childhood Fellowship Model,” highlighted how the program is successfully addressing critical workforce needs in Boston by creating pathways for racially, linguistically, and culturally diverse early educators to complete their bachelor’s degrees.

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April 4, 2025
by earlyedinstitute
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Building the Future of Early Education: Inside the Early Childhood Fellowship

At a time when the early childhood education (ECE) workforce is facing urgent challenges and transformative opportunities, the Early Childhood Fellowship at UMass Boston is proving to be a powerful, equity-driven model for change.

The EC Fellowship is part of UMass Boston’s innovative early education BA program which serves 300 students annually and has established itself as a leader in recruiting, retaining, and graduating racially and linguistically diverse early childhood educators. It addresses critical barriers that often prevent early educators from completing their degrees and provides comprehensive support through five key components:

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March 24, 2025
by earlyedinstitute
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‘There’s a big difference between being a boss and being a leader’

“There’s a big difference between being a boss and being a leader,” says Tasha McNabb, Center Director at Next Generation Children’s Center in Marlborough.

This distinction is at the heart of what she and Assistant Director Karen Rodriguez have learned from Early Education Leaders’ Essential Leadership Model (ELM), which is taught through the Early Childhood Support Organization (ECSO).

Tasha and Karen, who collectively bring over 40 years of experience to early education, are midway through their three-year journey with the Essential Leadership Model, which equips early childhood education leaders with the tools and support needed to drive continuous quality improvement in their program, and enhance child outcomes. As a result of what they’re learning, they’ve made changes to how they — and their staff — interact with each other and engage with families.

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March 13, 2025
by earlyedinstitute
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Investing in Leadership and Driving Systems Change in Massachusetts

The Healey-Driscoll Administration recently released a comprehensive report on early education and child care in Massachusetts, underscoring the vital importance of professional development and leadership training in sustaining a high-quality early education workforce.

The “Inter-Agency Early Education and Child Care Task Force Year 1 Report: Community & Executive Branch Engagement on Early Education and Child Care in Massachusetts March 2025,” published in March 2025, details findings from extensive community engagement, including 14 listening sessions around the Commonwealth.

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March 7, 2025
by earlyedinstitute
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Call for Submissions: 5th Edition of the ECE Leadership Development Compendium

Early Education Leaders is excited to announce that we are now accepting submissions for the 5th edition of the Early Childhood Care and Education Leadership Development Compendium: A View of the Current Landscape.

As the only comprehensive catalog of leadership development programs in the early childhood education (ECE) field, the Compendium serves as an essential resource for practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and funders. This updated edition will continue the tradition of tracking and analyzing the landscape of leadership development programs in the ECE sector, making visible this vital yet often underdeveloped infrastructure in our field.

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February 24, 2025
by earlyedinstitute
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Early Education Leaders Receives $250K from Stranahan Foundation

Early Education Leaders has received a $250,000 grant from the Stranahan Foundation to evaluate its Early Childhood Fellowship program, which provides a debt-free pathway for racially and linguistically diverse early educators to earn their bachelor’s degrees.

The evaluation will examine how the Early Childhood Fellowship contributes to increasing the quantity, diversity, and quality of the early care and education (ECE) workforce in Boston. The project will include developing a comprehensive data system to track program implementation and impacts, gathering feedback from Fellows and staff, and assessing both short-term and long-term outcomes for Fellowship graduates.

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February 12, 2025
by earlyedinstitute
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From Lifeguard to Leader: How the Essential Leadership Model Influenced One Director’s Approach to Early Education

Sarah Martinez’s entry into early childhood education came through an unlikely clerical error. Fresh out of college and working as a YMCA lifeguard, she applied to a number of different jobs and her application was accidentally stapled to someone else’s who was applying for a teaching job. When a child care center called to interview her, mistakenly thinking she was a certified instructor with classroom experience, Martinez was candid about the mix-up but expressed interest anyway. Her only teaching experience at the time? Leading Sunday school lessons for refugee children at her father’s church and teaching swim lessons. Yet that chance occurrence launched what would become a fulfilling career in early education. Now, as director of an early childhood learning center on the North Shore managing 54 staff across 14 classrooms, Martinez credits the Essential Leadership Model, taught through the Early Childhood Support Organization (ECSO) program with helping her develop a more collaborative and effective leadership approach.

Sarah Martinez at a recent Essential Leadership Model class.

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January 31, 2025
by earlyedinstitute
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Nature Services Framework Offers Path to Environmental Education

Children are naturally drawn to exploring the natural world, yet helping them understand complex topics like sustainability and environmental stewardship can be challenging. How can early educators transform potentially overwhelming discussions about climate change into empowering conversations that inspire young environmental stewards?

A new article by Becky DelVecchio, Ph.D., project coordinator of Early Education Leaders’ Statewide Professional Development Academy, and co-authors Susan Ferguson and David Ferguson published in Exchange magazine’s Spring 2025 issue addresses this challenge by offering early educators a practical framework for teaching young children about their relationship with nature.

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