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.

July 9, 2025
by earlyedinstitute
0 comments

From Survivor to Leader: How One Educator Used Leadership Training to Transform Her Approach to Supporting Families

By the time she was 21, Trina Tilghman-Dix had lost both her parents and she found herself raising her teenage brother while still navigating her own grief. That early experience of being thrust into leadership shaped Tilghman’s nearly 30-year career in early childhood education, where she repeatedly found herself in supervisory roles without formal leadership training.

“I survived each time and I learned by just reading books and taking certain trainings here and there,” she recalls.

Her DIY approach to learning worked. Today, Tilghman-Dix is employed by the Wicomico County Public School system and the multi-site program coordinator for several Maryland-based Judy Center Early Learning Hubs in Wicomico County, family support centers where local agencies collaborate to provide integrated services for children birth to age 5. In her role, Tilghman-Dix supervises multiple sites and staff members across Wicomico County.

Continue Reading →

July 2, 2025
by earlyedinstitute
0 comments

How Leading for Change Transformed One Director’s Belief in Herself

Sarah Roebuck has wanted to be a teacher from the time she entered kindergarten as a “scared little kid” and encountered a “really nice teacher.”

“In my mind and in my heart, this really nice teacher was the answer to the world’s problems,” Roebuck says. “So from that moment, I wanted to be a teacher. I had zero doubts. I didn’t question it. I didn’t think of doing anything else as I grew up.”

She studied early education in college and went on to have career teaching in elementary school, including kindergarten, and eventually early care and education. Today, as Executive Director of the Goddard Schools in Gaithersburg, Silver Spring, and North Bethesda, Roebuck oversees programs serving 250 students each, with teams of 45 full-time faculty members at each location.

Roebuck stepped into her executive director role in 2020, right as the COVID-19 pandemic began. Although her schools never closed, they did lose most of their students. They remained open with new students who were the children of parents who were doctors, scientists, firefighters and “all the people who were doing the work on the ground.”

Continue Reading →

June 10, 2025
by earlyedinstitute
0 comments

Holding the Circle: Christina Lopez on Belonging, Leadership, and the Power of Showing Up

At the 2025 Early Educator Leadership Forum, Christina Lopez invited attendees to pause, look around, and recognize the power in the room. A longtime early childhood educator, advocate, and president of the Maryland Association for the Education of Young Children, Christina opened her remarks by calling attendees into community: “Look at the faces near you… the excitement, the joy for this work, the hope and the dreams in our eyes.”

Continue Reading →

June 10, 2025
by earlyedinstitute
0 comments

Teaching Kindness, Transforming Classrooms: Latrelle Nicholson’s Call to Action on Bullying

At this year’s Early Educator Leadership Forum, Latrelle Nicholson reminded us of a hard truth: bullying can begin as early as age three—and it can deeply undermine a child’s sense of safety, belonging, and capacity to learn. But her message was equally clear: educators can change that story.

Nicholson, an educator and DEI trainer, shared the details of the Change Project she created while taking Leading for Change, our entrepreneurial leadership program. Her project is an anti-bullying curriculum grounded in a simple but transformative idea: kindness.  

Continue Reading →

June 10, 2025
by earlyedinstitute
0 comments

Leading Loudly, Learning Always: Sarah Roebuck’s Five Lessons for Early Educators

Sarah Roebuck took the stage at the 2025 Early Educator Leadership Forum wearing a dress made of newspaper clippings celebrating early educator achievements that offered a bold visual reminder that early childhood educators are making headlines—and making change.

A graduate of the Maryland Early Childhood Leadership Program and executive director of three Goddard School locations in Maryland, Roebuck offered a clear message to Leadership Forum attendees: we are not aspiring leaders—we are leaders. Now.

Continue Reading →

June 6, 2025
by earlyedinstitute
0 comments

New Study Shows Leadership Development Can Be Scaled Effectively to Reach Early Educators 

A new study from Early Education Leaders, an Institute at UMass Boston, has found that leadership development programs for early educators can be successfully scaled while maintaining impact—and even expanding equity.

The peer-reviewed study, recently published in a special issue of Education Sciences titled “Strengths and Assets of the Early Childhood Workforce”, evaluated the scaled implementation of Leading for Change, a 40-hour entrepreneurial leadership development course for early educators that was developed by Early Education Leaders. Researchers found that participants in the scaled version of the program—delivered by locally trained facilitators—experienced similar gains in leadership mindset and knowledge as those in the original pilot, which was led by the program’s developers.

Within the scaled Leading for Change cohort, leadership knowledge significantly increased from pre-LFC to post-LFC. Likewise, in the pilot cohort, leadership knowledge also significantly improved from pre-LFC to post-LFC.
Continue Reading →

June 4, 2025
by earlyedinstitute
0 comments

“Leadership Is Love”: Panelists Reflect on Advocacy, Identity, and Belonging in Early Education

The closing session of the 2025 Early Educator Leadership Forum brought the room to its feet—not with a formal keynote, but with a deeply personal and profoundly moving panel discussion moderated by Christina Lopez. The panel featured four powerful voices: Jessica Acevedo, Ana Teresa Farias, Giane O’Connell, and Nicole Johnson—educators, researchers, and frontline leaders who are transforming early education from within.

Together, they offered a compelling portrait of what leadership looks like when it’s rooted in love, equity, and lived experience.

Continue Reading →

May 27, 2025
by earlyedinstitute
0 comments

2025 Early Educator Leadership Forum: A Day of Power, Purpose, and Possibility

The energy at UMass Boston was boisterous, joyful, and electric as more than 200 early educators gathered for the 2025 Early Educator Leadership Forum. Hosted by Early Education Leaders, the annual gathering was a celebration of the power, potential, and purpose of early educators as changemakers. From thought-provoking keynotes to powerful storytelling, the event showcased what happens when educators lead the way with bold ideas and reimagining what’s possible in early childhood education.

As participants checked in, grabbing coffee and pastry to fuel for the day, we asked what they were most looking forward to. Answers ranged from “Sharing new ideas and learning new ones!” to “Connecting with other child care providers” to “Hearing all the stories.”

The Leadership Forum formally opened with a powerful welcome from Dr. Anne Douglass, founding executive director of Early Education Leaders. Framing the Leadership Forum as “the only convening dedicated specifically to cultivating the leadership of frontline early educators,” Douglass acknowledged the field’s current challenges—funding threats, systemic inequities, and political attacks on marginalized communities—but emphasized the strength and resilience of the workforce.

Continue Reading →

April 30, 2025
by earlyedinstitute
0 comments

April 2025 Newsletter

🗓️ Register Now: 12th Annual Early Educator Leadership Forum

Join us for the 12th annual Early Educator Leadership Forum featuring early educators who are driving systems change, equity, and innovation in early care and education.

📍 Location: UMass Boston
📅 Date: Saturday, May 10, 2025
⏱️Time: 9:30 a.m. – 3 p.m. 
🎟️ Registration: Click here to register

Continue Reading →

April 22, 2025
by earlyedinstitute
0 comments

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!

Continue Reading →
Skip to toolbar