My work has been supported by more than $8.3 million of funding, servicing as the Principle Investigator (PI) or Co-PI on more than $6.25 million. Through this funding, I have been able to work locally, state-wide, and nationally to help strategize for a variety of early childhood state-wide systems change projects.
Many of my recent projects have been with the Alabama Department of Early Childhood Education. These have led to an increased visibility and access to the state's high quality Pre-K Program, called First Class. I have helped develop the professional development system for the program (The Alabama Reflective Coach - ARC) that supports more than 1,200 teachers throughout the state. More recently, working as a Co-PI for a $2.6 million federal grant, I have provided support for developing the capacity of coaches and teachers to meet the needs of bilingual language learners.
As part of a data-collection and analysis team, we have produced numerous reports, information for presentations to state budget committees, press releases, etc., that support the First Class program. Through these efforts, First Class has increased its funding from $19 million (2012) to over $122 million (2019), serving roughly 3000 children in 2012 and 21,600 children in 2019-2020.
New projects include evaluating:
1. Birmingham Talks: a Birmingham project partnering with Bloomberg Philanthropies to support 2,500 parents and teachers develop new talking behaviors and increase conversations with infants and toddlers.
2. LETRS: an initiative with to support over 2,000 teachers to teach language and literacy skills across the state.
