Meet our millionth CDA®. Jada is 18 years old and lives in Whiteriver, Arizona, on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, where she has already shown that she’s a leader. “I am the co-president of our White Mountain Apache Tribal Youth Council, where we do our best to come together and serve our tribe,” she says. The Council has fed the homeless, held an anti-bullying essay contest, provided yoga meditation classes and campaigned against drinking and texting while driving, as Jada explains. “We do our best to improve life for ourselves and others.” That’s also a goal Jada has embraced since she was eight or nine years old and decided she wanted to become a teacher.
Jada has always had an ingrained love of children and found a way to act on it while attending Theodore Roosevelt High School on her reservation. “We had elective classes in business, automotive construction and early childhood,” she says. “I decided to take early childhood classes and learned about the CDA in my junior year. When my teacher talked about the credential, I was intrigued and stuck with it throughout high school. During my senior year, I gained my experience hours at ABC Daycare, a center located at my school, and working directly with the children only increased my determination to be a teacher.”
This hands-on experience with children was the best part of earning a CDA, she says. “I learned the importance of working with children one on one and getting down to their level so they could look you in the eyes. I realized that children like it when you call them by their names and talk about the things that especially interest them. For example, one little three-year-old boy loved sheep, so I often chatted about them with him.”
Conversations like this showed Jada that every little member of the flock you face in a class is precious and unique. So, she realized that a teacher shouldn’t be like a sheep and blindly follow the rules in an early childhood textbook. “There are different ways to teach children, and things don’t always go the way they tell you in a book,” she says. “Sometimes the kids can be crabby,” she says. And that’s when it helps her to remember a couple of teachers who had touched her heart in the past. “My seventh-grade math teacher was really bubbly and kind,” Jada recalls. “So was my kindergarten teacher, who knew the importance of hugs.”
Jada also knows how much hugs can help, so she always asks children if that’s what they want. And hugs were especially important to a little girl who had a sudden change in mood. “She was super happy until she had a new sister,” Jada recalls. “The little girl now seemed to feel she wasn’t getting the attention she wanted at home and wanted one of the teachers to hold her all the time. So, we would hold her as much as we could until it was time for her to go home. When we had to let go, she would cry. So, we would tell her it would be okay tomorrow and try to get her mind on something besides being held.”
And working with this child taught Jada the importance of being sensitive to children’s mood swings and trying to figure out what they need. “For example, one little boy,” as she recalls, “suddenly became upset when we were doing an activity in class. He started crying, and the other CDA students and I weren’t sure what to do until one of the teachers realized the activity was too hard for him.” He couldn’t learn to do it, but Jada did learn something from listening to what the teacher said.
Jada is also hoping to learn something from a seasoned teacher who she recently encountered by chance. “I was working at the fire department over the summer,” she recalls, “and I told the firefighters I wanted to be a teacher. One of the firefighters told me his mom had been a teacher for 30 years, and I met her this year when I brought my little cousin to her first-grade class. It turned out that the firefighter’s mom was my cousin’s teacher and she offered to let me come work in her classroom a few days a week. So, I’ll be doing that this year while I’m attending college online,” Jada says.
She also plans to continue teaching at ABC Daycare while advancing her education. Her goal is to do even more as a teacher to improve life for the members of her tribe. “As a Native American, I feel I have a responsibility to address some of the issues my people face, whether it’s poverty, struggles with parenting or failure to see the value of education. I also want to help preserve Apache culture and language as a part of my classroom practice with young children.”
And she’s determined to do it despite some discouraging feedback. “When I tell people what I want to do, they always bring up the fact that you don’t make much money in the early learning field,” Jada says. But fortunately, she has her mom’s total support for her career decision. Even more important, Jada has an internal sense of drive since she cares more about serving others than about the salary she makes. “If I feel in my heart that this is what I want to do, it’s my decision to do it.”
Jada took a big step ahead in her chosen field when she graduated from high school this May with her CDA. Now she urges other high school students to also earn their credentials. It takes some work, she admits, “but it’s so worth it” if you share Jada’s passion for serving our youngest learners. “Earning my CDA taught me new and different ways to work effectively in the classroom, so I continued pushing myself each day. Whenever I felt overwhelmed, I would tell myself to just breathe, a way to reset my body and mind. It paid off, and last month I finally received my CDA certificate in the mail.”
This cause for celebration also showed Jada that persistence pays off. “If you keep going forward, you will see the benefit of your CDA journey to a career in ECE.” And high schoolers who take Jada’s advice will have the tools to benefit kids and the communities where they live. That’s why Jada is striving to do her best as a rising teacher and a young tribal leader. Our country could use a million more just like her.
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Vice President of Strategic Alliances
Elisa Shepherd is the Vice President of Strategic Alliances at the Council, where she leads initiatives to advance the Council’s mission and strategic plan through designing, managing, and executing a comprehensive stakeholder relationship strategy.
With over 25 years of experience in early childhood education (ECE), Elisa has dedicated her career to developing impactful programs, professional development opportunities, and public policies that support working families, young children, and ECE staff. Before joining the Council, Elisa held numerous roles within the childcare industry. Most recently, she served as Associate Vice President at The Learning Experience and as Senior Manager at KinderCare Education, where she influenced government affairs and public policies across 40 states.
Elisa’s commitment to leadership is reflected in her external roles on the Early Care and Education Consortium Board of Directors, the Florida Chamber Foundation Board of Trustees, and as the DEI Caucus Leader for KinderCare Education. She has been recognized as an Emerging Leader in Early Childhood by Childcare Exchange’s Leadership Initiative.
Elisa earned a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a focus on child development from Pennsylvania State University in State College, PA.
Chief Operations Officer (COO)
Andrew Davis serves as Chief Operating Officer at the Council. In this role, Andrew oversees the Programs Division, which includes the following operational functions: credentialing, growth and business development, marketing and communications, public policy and advocacy, research, innovation, and customer relations.
Andrew has over 20 years of experience in the early care and education field. Most recently, Andrew served as Senior Vice President of Partnership and Engagement with Acelero Learning and Shine Early Learning, where he led the expansion of state and community-based partnerships to produce more equitable systems of service delivery, improved programmatic quality, and greater outcomes for communities, children and families. Prior to that, he served as Director of Early Learning at Follett School Solutions.
Andrew earned his MBA from the University of Baltimore and Towson University and his bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland – University College.
Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
Jan Bigelow serves as Chief Financial Officer at the Council and has been with the organization since February of 2022.
Jan has more than 30 years in accounting and finance experience, including public accounting, for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. She has held management-level positions with BDO Seidman, Kiplinger Washington Editors, Pew Center for Global Climate Change, Communities In Schools, B’nai B’rith Youth Organization and American Humane. Since 2003, Jan has worked exclusively in the non-profit sector where she has been a passionate advocate in improving business operations in order to further the mission of her employers.
Jan holds a CPA from the State of Virginia and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Lycoming College. She resides in Alexandria VA with her husband and dog.
Vice President of People and Culture
Janie Payne is the Vice President of People and Culture for the Council for Professional Recognition. Janie is responsible for envisioning, developing, and executing initiatives that strategically manage talent and culture to align people strategies with the overarching business vision of the Council. Janie is responsible for driving organizational excellence through strategic talent practices, orchestrating workforce planning, talent acquisition, performance management as well as a myriad of other Human Resources Programs. She is accountable for driving effectiveness by shaping organizational structure for optimal efficiency. Janie oversees strategies that foster a healthy culture to include embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion into all aspects of the organization.
In Janie’s prior role, she was the Vice President of Administration at Equal Justice Works, where she was responsible for leading human resources, financial operations, facilities management, and information technology. She was also accountable for developing and implementing Equal Justice Works Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strategy focused on attracting diverse, mission-oriented talent and creating an inclusive and equitable workplace environment. With more than fifteen years of private, federal, and not-for-profit experience, Janie is known for her intuitive skill in administration management, human resources management, designing and leading complex system change, diversity and inclusion, and social justice reform efforts.
Before joining Equal Justice Works, Janie was the Vice President of Human Resources and Chief Diversity Officer for Global Communities, where she was responsible for the design, implementation, and management of integrated HR and diversity strategies. Her work impacted employees in over twenty-two countries. She was responsible for the effective management of different cultural, legal, regulatory, and economic systems for both domestic and international employees. Prior to Global Communities, Janie enjoyed a ten-year career with the federal government. As a member of the Senior Executive Service, she held key strategic human resources positions with multiple cabinet-level agencies and served as an advisor and senior coach to leaders across the federal sector. In these roles, she received recognition from management, industry publications, peers, and staff for driving the creation and execution of programs that created an engaged and productive workforce.
Janie began her career with Verizon Communications (formerly Bell Atlantic), where she held numerous roles of increasing responsibility, where she directed a diversity program that resulted in significant improvement in diversity profile measures. Janie was also a faculty member for the company’s Black Managers Workshop, a training program designed to provide managers of color with the skills needed to overcome barriers to their success that were encountered because of race. She initiated a company-wide effort to establish team-based systems and structures to impact corporate bottom line results which was recognized by the Department of Labor. Janie was one of the first African American women to be featured on the cover of Human Resources Executive magazine.
Janie received her M.A. in Organization Development from American University. She holds numerous professional development certificates in Human Capital Management and Change Management, including a Diversity and Inclusion in Human Resources certificate from Cornell University. She completed the year-long Maryland Equity and Inclusion Leadership Program sponsored by The Schaefer Center for Public Policy and The Maryland Commission on Civil Rights. She is a trained mediator and Certified Professional Coach. She is a graduate of Leadership America, former board chair of the NTL Institute and currently co-steward of the organization’s social justice community of practice, and a member of The Society for Human Resource Management. Additionally, Janie is the Board Chairperson for the Special Education Citizens Advisory Council for Prince Georges County where she is active in developing partnerships that facilitate discussion between parents, families, educators, community leaders, and the PG County school administration to enhance services for students with disabilities which is her passion. She and her husband Randolph reside in Fort Washington Maryland.
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