DOUBLE TAP TO ZOOM WITH PHONE OR TABLET   INTRODUCTION   5 observations of education leaders in the field and on best practices in human resource development. You’ll learn from their challenges and successes. Sara, Center Director Sara is the director of a child care center. She has been a director for ten years and feels that she is good at her job. Her center has a high staff-​turnover rate, especially in the assistant teacher group. Sara’s center has six lead teachers for two infant classrooms, two toddler classrooms, and two preschool rooms. Four of the lead teachers have bachelor’s degrees and two have Child Development Associate (CDA) credentials. Her center is seeking NAEYC accreditation. It is also part of the state’s quality initiative. The center has a Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) rating of three stars, and Sara has a goal of obtaining four stars within the next year. She feels confident in her ability to lead her staff, but she is challenged by teachers who are resistant to suggestions and by the frequent changes in staffing.  ■ Monique, Education Coordinator and Coach Monique is an education coordinator and coach in a Head Start program. She does not have super­visory responsibilities, but she is in a leadership position. She oversees five classrooms in three buildings. Her job is to ensure the curriculum is implemented, the children are learning, and the teaching staff (lead teachers and assistants) does all there is to do. When her director ap- proached her with the idea of becoming an education coach, she was excited. She always wanted to boost the quality of instruction in her program. She also felt worried, because she had attended coaching workshops before, and while she had learned a lot, the whole approach seemed over- whelming. She has a solid knowledge of early childhood education and good interpersonal skills, but she does not yet have the vocabulary nor the structure to organize a coaching plan for the classroom staff.  ■ Jon, Principal Jon is the principal of a public elementary school. His district began a pre-​K to third grade initiative last year, and, as a result, he has two pre-​K classrooms in his building. He has no experience with pre-​K. As an elementary principal, he had not even considered K–3 as part of early childhood education until recently. He likes the idea of serving younger children and is looking forward to this new “pre-​K–3 alignment” as a benefit to children. He still finds the arrangement to be somewhat stressful. He now has a leadership role in an area where he has no expertise. He worries that the newly hired pre-​K teachers will do their own thing and not listen to him.  ■ COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL