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Many excellent teachers flounder when they are promoted to director. Some question their own ability and commitment and ultimately leave the field. Others focus their attention on the classroom or curriculum and avoid the leadership, administrative, financial, family support, and community advocacy areas. As a result, many programs that may be excellent for children, fail because of inadequate visibility in their community, poor management, or lack of funds or leadership.

Directors’ ongoing professional development

Directors are hungry for information, for growth, for validation, and for colleagues who share their commitment. Formal instructional opportunities that encompass all areas of the director’s role are necessary: More information on financial management, systems and planning skills, personnel and human relations, marketing and community relations, as well as continued work in child development, curriculum planning and implementation.

Directors’ needs differ depending on their backgrounds:

• Teachers, or those whose background is primarily classroom teaching, need coursework that not only introduces them to the administrative duties of a director, but also leads them to discover why the administrative areas are important, and how they relate to the delivery of a high-quality program.

• New directors need specific instruction on how to administer a high-quality program. They benefitfrom focused course content and the opportunity to connect with more experienced colleagues.

• Those who have been on the job for a number of years need the opportunity to test their knowledge and skills, to network with others, and to move beyond basics to a deeper level of understanding of their role.

• Others, such as assistant directors or students not yet working in early childhood programs who aspire to the position of director, need the same pieces already mentioned. They also need help determining if the director role is one they truly want.

Wisconsin’s Directors’ Credential Program

Coursework for early childhood teachers has been abundantly available, but course work for directors has been scarce, and largely overlooked and undervalued. The development of a credential specific to child care administration gives these dedicated, hardworking directors a place in the education system of their own. The Wisconsin Professional Credential for Child Care Administrators was developed to meet this need and is recognized by NAEYC as meeting part of the requirements for director qualifications in their accreditation process. Other states have developed administrative credentials as well. The Wisconsin experience is presented here for the purposes of illustration; other models may differ. The graduates of the first two cycles of training (including Holly) were asked about their experience.

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