About Me

My passion is helping teachers help children be both successful learners and socially competent. I am now an independent early childhood consultant following years of experience in public schools, state government, and in the private sector. To my clients, I bring over three decades of experience as an author, consultant, teacher, trainer, coach, facilitator, presenter, keynote speaker, product developer and manager, corporate vice-president, state-level administrator, and program evaluator. I have worked with a wide variety of programs: public schools, Head Start, childcare, military programs, faith-based and non-profit organizations. I enjoy brainstorming, creative problem solving and coming up with out-of-the-box solutions for early childhood educators.

Two of the most well known resources that I have co-authored are The Creative Curriculum for Preschool and Teaching Strategies GOLD, a seamless, observation-based assessment system for children birth through kindergarten. Both of these resources have been adopted by individual schools and centers, local school districts, and statewide adoption and are used in courses in higher education. One of the resources I am most proud of, though, is Helping Children Rebound, written to help teachers attend to the emotional needs of young children after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

I am a “tech enthusiast” who enjoys engaging and problem solving with educators worldwide through social media. I have worked on the development of an online assessment system and a mobile app to help streamline work for teachers so they can spend more time interacting with children.

I am a lifelong resident of Louisiana and received both my undergraduate and masters’ degree from Louisiana State University. I am excited about a new volunteer activity in the Baton Rouge community that I will advise, Imagination Playground. This is a mobile system of over-sized blocks that children ages 2 and up can use to transform any space in the community into an open-ended play space that encourages learning, social development, movement, and above all, fun.

Above all, though, I enjoy spending time with my family and find total bliss in being a grandparent!