Exploring Roles in the ECE Community

Berks County IU is the grant holder for the PA Key in Pennsylvania's statewide QRIS system, Keystone STARS, Pre K Counts initiative, and the Head Start State Supplemental office.  One of the open positions currently at the PA Key that looked interesting is a PA Key Preschool Specialist which requires a Master’s degree in early education, child development or administration and a PQAS certificate preferred with a minimum of 5 years of high level work in the field of early learning and experience in partnership work and administration.  This person would provide monitoring and technical assistance to Head Start State Supplemental programs and Pre K Counts preschool programs.  A good candidate would have strong computer skills, an ability to work with an online reporting system, strong leadership, communication, and collaboration skills.

 

PennAEYC is the State Affiliate of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).  PennAEYC offers professional development, advocacy support, networking, leadership, and other opportunities for early childhood professionals.  One of the most outstanding resources is the SharedSource Pennsylvania, is new initiative that provides Pennsylvania’s  early childhood professionals with cost-saving and time-saving tools, best practice resources and a shared commitment to quality improvement. Shared Source gives practitioners access to policies, forms, regulations, handbooks, guidance, savings and more.  The Executive Director of PennAEYC is a position that requires administrative and leadership skills as well as very developed communication, advocacy, and collaboration skills.

 

DANYA International Inc. is the prime contractor for the Head Start Monitoring Project, responsible for all facets of monitoring Head Start and Early Head Start programs, including recruiting reviewers, scheduling Head Start monitoring reviews and building review teams, coordinating reviews, and analyzing and producing monitoring review reports.  The Office of Head Start (OHS) promotes the school readiness of young children from low-income families through local programs. Head Start and Early Head Start programs support the mental, social, and emotional development of children from birth to age 5.   A Head Start Reviewer Consultant is responsible for collecting data from programs across the country. Teams of reviewers travel usually from Sunday to Friday. Activities include conducting classroom observations, reviewing documents, and interviewing staff and gathering other data using the Office of Head Start Monitoring Protocol. The Protocol measures seven areas of grantee performance and contains key indicators that are used to assess each grantee. Reviewers are required to provide their own laptop to conduct the data collection and a cell phone to communicate during reviews. Reviewers should be well versed in the Head Start performance standards and have excellent verbal and written communication skills; Excellent data gathering and analysis skills; Computer literate and proficient in Microsoft Office; Ability to work independently as well as with a team; Ability to complete work in timely manner, as determined by the Review Team Leader; Earned bachelors or advanced degree in early childhood education or child development.  Candidates must have a minimum of 3 years of experience in a Head Start, public, or private early child development program for children birth to age 5 at the local, regional or national level, State or Federal oversight of child development programs, technical assistance provider and/or other type of early child development consultant.