Late last year, Betty Witt moved from the classroom (after 25 years) and into a full-time administrative position as our Assistant Director. This change was long in coming. Although Betty served as the in charge person in Cindy’s absence for many years, Cindy was a solo administrator. The addition of our Constructivist Preschool classroom created the revenue needed to change the center’s infrastructure so that we could add more teacher support and administrative support.

Cindy and Betty continue to define the assistant director job description but some distribution of administrative/managerial tasks have been determined. Betty is managing staff scheduling, arranging substitute coverage, and arranging extra planning time for teachers. Additionally, she is tracking staff PTO and coordinating payroll with the church. Betty is also posting child care payments and handling deposits. Much of her work is the more technical “back of the house” work, whereas Cindy’s function includes planning and visioning, supervision and coaching, program development and training, enrollment, communication and budgeting.

The addition of this new position also allows Cindy to participate more fully as a leader outside of the center. She now sits on the board of the Tennessee Association for the Education of Young Children as the Development Chair, serves on the planning team for the TAEYC Conference, is a mentor for the Community Foundation’s emerging substitute service, ChildcareMatters, and is a frequent trainer and leader in the early childhood community.

The bottom-line is that McKendree’s program benefits from this new position and from this fresh distribution of labor and resources.