Casey Caldwell has experienced great growth in her time at CEO. She started out as an Early Head Start Teacher and has steadily taken on new challenges and jumped at new opportunities to grow and is now the Center Manager for our Lansingburgh Family Resource Center. We interviewed her to find out a little bit more about her history.
What has your career at CEO looked like? Where did you start, and where are you now?
I started back in 2016 as a toddler teacher. I had my associate’s degree, and I was in the classroom for six years. During that time, I was on many different committees; the Pyramid Committee, I was a staff mentor, etc. Those committees allowed me opportunities to become more involved. I did that for about two years and then I got my bachelor’s degree. Once I had my bachelor’s degree, I applied for the Assistant Center Manager job at the Rensselaer Family Resource Center.
I got the job in Rensselaer and was there for a year before I transferred here to the LFRC as the Assistant Center Manager. Then I had the opportunity to become Center Manager and so now this is my second year as Center Manager here.
I’ve been with CEO for nine years as of April 11th. In my time here I went from a Toddler Teacher, to helping other teachers, to administrative roles, to now being the Center Manager of my own big school.
What was it like to earn your bachelor’s degree while working at CEO?
I went through Empire State College and did the work online. It took just a little over two years, much of it was during COVID too. I finished my degree while I was taking on the Assistant Center Manager role.
The Rensselaer FRC Center Manager, Tracy Baker, was an amazing mentor for me during that time. She guided me through the best way to do things and then I had to figure out my own way of being organized. Another challenge for me was moving into that Assistant Center Manager role, because now I was in a supervisory role over my peers. These were Teachers I had worked with for six years and then suddenly I am their supervisor. I tackled that by having honest conversations with them. They all completely understood, which helped make my transition a lot easier as well.
Personally, it was a lot of balancing too, my kids have sports and stuff like that after school. After work I was going right to activities, and then dinner, and then I had my “me time”. I had a little corner in my house for my desk. My kids knew that sometimes I would have to focus on my schoolwork at the end of the day, and it led to very long days and nights. I was motivated and excited to learn new things though. There were some things in the courses I knew from my daily life, but there were also things I didn’t, like the financial aspect of a daycare program. Being able to learn how all that stuff works was cool too.
How did CEO support your growth during your journey?
All the committees I was on, the mentorship, all of that helped set me up for success. I got answers anytime I had questions, and Tracy was an amazing support system for me too. CEO gave me the opportunities to take on new experiences that helped me to grow into the person that I am today.
I also applied for a scholarship with CEO, which I did get for a course where you take your experiences from work and your day-to-day life in the classrooms and you write an essay about it and they compute that into credits. I was able to write a couple essays based on all the stuff that I’ve learned throughout CEO and write those up for college credits.
Can you talk more about the work you were doing with the pyramid committee and the mentorship work?
I was involved in the Pyramid Committee first; my classroom was actually the pilot classroom when we rolled out the Pyramid Model. The Pyramid Model is a framework for promoting social, emotional, and behavioral development of children. Christina O’Brian, the Education Services Manager, came in and did the original observation. We had a meeting afterwards, and it really opened my eyes. I thought I was doing everything perfect but having somebody outside observing and noting what they saw, it made me really rethink the way that I was teaching. Being a part of the committee allowed me to take that information that I learned and share it with other teachers in the program.
Then the committee sent out newsletters and did activities with the other classrooms. It was great to share that information that I learned from my observation. Coming from a teacher’s point of view rather than somebody who’s not in the classroom, I think helps motivate the teachers a little bit more too. I loved it because the information the Pyramid Committee was sharing was about the social emotional aspect of the classrooms, and that really interests me. It’s the most important piece with these little ones.
After that I was involved in being a Peer Mentor. I absolutely love being a mentor because it was just doing what I do every day, while helping other teachers learn to do it. I was a Toddler Teacher in the RFRC at the time, and I would help mentor any other teacher that was new by showing them how we do things, how our online programs work, and just make sure that they were comfortable in their day-to-day job. I would guide them through our deadlines and show them how to do it and then would be there to assist them while they’re doing it on their own for the first time as well.
I love teaching people no matter how old they are, whether they’re six weeks old or they’re adult learning how to be a teacher. That was what led me to teaching the CDA program.
What was teaching the CDA program like?
When I became the Assistant Center Manager at the Rensselaer Family Resource Center, I taught the CDA program for the first time. I really enjoyed teaching the course and being able to share what I have learned with a new group of teachers.
The CDA (Child Development Associate) is the credential for becoming an Infant or Toddler Teacher. It’s a program that lasts about eight weeks in the summer and goes through the entire CDA textbook. I taught them everything they needed to know to get their CDA while simultaneously covering how CEO does things like lesson plans, home visits, etc.
Home visits are hard to teach too, so I went with them on home visits and talked to the parents and said, “do you mind if I help with this home visit because they’re learning how to do it?” And they never said no. It was great to help them build confidence, and then later seeing them flourish in their classrooms, I would think about how I helped to get them there.
What was it like transitioning from the Rensselaer Center to the Lansingburgh one?
I was nervous coming to Lansingburgh because it was a much bigger center. Rensselaer is our second biggest center, but I knew everybody there. I had been there for seven years at that point. I was comfortable. And sometimes it’s hard getting out of your comfort zone. But throughout the process I had conversations with members of the Early Childhood Leadership team at CEO, and hearing that they have confidence in me helped. I said, “You know what, you’re never going to grow if you don’t get out of your comfort zone.”
I came here and I worked with Center Manager, Jenna Graber, and she was fantastic, and the staff here were great too. They welcomed me with open arms, and they just made it a seamless transition. It was like I’ve been here for years. I was so happy that I made that decision to move on because I don’t want to hold myself back. If I didn’t make that change, I might still just be in the assistant role. And here we are going on two years in the Center Manager role, and I couldn’t be happier with the decisions I’ve made so far.
Physically the Center is a big change too. It is a much larger building than RFRC which is only 1 floor while LFRC is 3 in total. It is like as soon as I go upstairs, someone downstairs is calling me, so I definitely get my steps in.
When I was here by myself, it was very challenging in the best way possible. It helped me to grow as a supervisor. We just hired our Assistant Center Manager in January, and that’s been a huge help. Before that I really had to lean on my staff for a lot. They were so supportive though. I was able to delegate certain roles to different teachers in the building that were comfortable in their role in the classrooms, that they were able to take on a little bit more to help out. Everybody here works together and they’ve got my back, which is awesome.
What’s something that you’ve been working on with your Lansingburgh Team?
Before I started, there was two Center Managers. The Head Start Center Manager and the Early Head Start Center Manager. The program then made a switch from that system to Center Manager and an Assistant Center Manager. My big focus when I first came here was to work close with Jenna and the staff to create a welcoming environment and getting everyone to come together and to build a trusting relationship with each of the staff members.
By having potlucks, doing little things that get people together the connection has improved. I’ve been working hard on making sure that we can create a team vibe with the staff at LFRC. I want the staff to be comfortable with me too. I make a point every day to spend a little bit of time in every single classroom to help grow those relationships.
I think it’s working too, for the Christmas party, the staff led that themselves. They even got some staff that usually don’t participate in those types of things to participate. The camaraderie is building around here, and that makes me so happy.
What’s your favorite part of your job?
My favorite part of my job is going into the classrooms and seeing the children. I love the fact that it’s not just eight kids in my class that I’m with all day. It’s over 100 kids that I get to see all day and build relationships with them. And when I walk in the classroom, the children are excited to see me and the teachers are excited to see me and they make a big deal about it. I love being able to see the kids grow. I have babies that are here that I will get to see be toddlers, then preschoolers, then graduate. I not only have relationships with the children, but their families. I enjoy seeing them each day and having some great conversations.
What would you say to somebody who’s considering working for CEO?
There is so much support. I always know that there’s somebody I can call on for help, whether it was in my teacher role, the Assistant Center Manager role, or Center Manager role, there’s always somebody who’s there that can assist me with whatever it is I may need.
There is work life balance. Obviously, stress is going to happen, but leadership makes sure that we do have time to just decompress. You have the Education Team and the Health Team, and the Leadership Team and they are all so supportive. And it’s not something that you get when you’re in daycare. There it’s you and your co-teacher against the world. I think that’s one of the main things that draws people into CEO. CEO puts their staff wellness at the forefront and is there to support them all! I will be forever grateful for the opportunities that I have been given here at CEO and am excited to what the future holds for me here.
