Teddy Kokoros

For Teddy Kokoros, collaboration, connection, and information sharing come naturally. He maintains a blog that shares news of relevance to early educators and also gives a platform for early educators to share their research and ideas. He uses his Twitter and Facebook accounts to do the same. And in 2019, he ran for (and won) a seat on his hometown’s board of library trustees because he wants to encourage collaboration among early educators and the town’s library.

“I think something the ECE field should be doing is finding ways to build partnerships with people in the community because these partnerships, whether they’re with K-12 schools, summer camps, museums, or libraries, makes the early education community stronger,” Kokoros says. Continue Reading →

Director of Leadership Programs Lynne Mendes

In her role as Director of Leadership Programs for the Institute of Early Education Leadership and Innovation, Lynne Mendes is much more than an educator, trainer, and facilitator. She is an evangelist for the field.

“We already have leaders working throughout early care and education. They might not think of themselves as leaders. But they’ve worked in every setting you can imagine,” says Mendes. “They come from all over the world and they’re so talented, so we just draw from that.”

One of the first things Mendes teaches the family child care and small business owners in the Leadership Institute’s Small Business Innovation Center program is that that they are, in fact, business owners. Through the course, which is anchored with the Leadership Institute’s curriculum on entrepreneurial leadership, participants go through a shift in mindset where they begin to see that their work is just as vital to the life of local neighborhoods as the pizza shop, hair salon, or insurance agency. Continue Reading →

Statewide Training and Industry Navigation Manager Teddy Kokoros

For Teddy Kokoros, collaboration, connection, and information sharing come naturally. He maintains a blog that shares news of relevance to early educators and also gives a platform for early educators to share their research and ideas. He uses his Twitter and Facebook accounts to do the same. And in 2019, he ran for (and won) a seat on his hometown’s board of library trustees because he wants to encourage collaboration among early educators and the town’s library.

“I think something the ECE field should be doing is finding ways to build partnerships with people in the community because these partnerships, whether they’re with K-12 schools, summer camps, museums, or libraries, makes the early education community stronger,” Kokoros says. Continue Reading →