Program: Onboarding New Leaders in Head Start

Purpose: New leadership in any environment can be tough. But, becoming a new leader in Head Start is particularly challenging. Head Start requires a very specific understanding of Federal requirements, program history and managing in an environment that is ever-changing. Come learn about how to support new Head Start leaders and how you can take charge of your new position and grow your own capacity to serve your program, staff and community. 

Learning Objectives: To Identify what is your leadership style is and who do you want to be as a leader; Exploring the differences between managing and leading; Determining actions to take over the next 6 months.

Presenters:

Dr. Deborah Bergeron served as director of the Office of Head Start from 2018-21. From 2019-21 she broadened her leadership as director of the Office of Early Childhood Development in the Administration for Children and Families. Known as “Dr. B” to former students and teachers, she spent three decades in pre-K–12 public education as a classroom teacher and school administrator and currently serves as deputy director for Community Engagement and Innovation at NHSA.

Zuly Vazquez is the senior manager of online professional development at the National Head Start Association. She has worked with Head Start and Early Head Start programs for over a decade, specializing in training, mentoring, coaching, facilitation, curriculum implementation, and management. She worked for several years in the classroom, providing high-quality education to children from different cultures, traditions, and ethnicities. She is a former EHS/HS parent. She has vast experience supporting and providing technical assistance to teachers, family child care providers, education specialists, and families in large EHS/HS programs in Florida and Georgia. Over her career, she designed a supplemental Christian early childhood curriculum, bilingual online lessons, and classroom observation tools and has facilitated early childhood education courses in English and Spanish at the college level. As an active early childhood advocate, she is a board member of her local NAEYC affiliate and Family Child Care Home Alliance of Georgia. She is a senior advisor of Latinas United for the Children of America.