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Partner Spotlight: Stacy French, director of quality improvement at Child Care Aware
We are proud to present the first in a new series of blog posts honoring the network of professionals and organizations that support and sustain the early childhood education sector in Minnesota. Each Partner Spotlight post will feature a Q & A with an early childhood leader in our state. Our first Q & A is with our esteemed, longtime colleague Stacy French, director of quality improvement at Child Care Aware of Minnesota.
What is your connection to CEED?
SF: My connection to CEED is rooted in my work as a Parent Aware coach, a role I held for eight and a half years. Throughout that time, CEED served as a critical partner in my professional practice, particularly through its leadership in CLASS® training and resources.
The CLASS observational assessment tool was essential to my coaching work. It provides a research-based framework that supports meaningful interactions between educators and children. Using this tool, I was able to guide educators in strengthening instructional quality, emotional support, and classroom engagement in ways that were reflective, intentional, and developmentally responsive.
In addition to training, CEED’s coaching videos were an invaluable resource. These materials enhanced my ability to coach effectively by offering concrete, real-world examples that supported observation, reflection, and growth. The videos allowed me to deepen conversations with educators and tailor coaching strategies to meet individual classroom needs. Overall, CEED played a significant role in strengthening my coaching practice and shaping how I support educators in building high-quality learning environments for children.
In my current position as director of quality improvement at Child Care Aware of Minnesota, I continue to work with CEED’s early childhood program quality team to ensure that our coaches have the training and guidance they need to work with educators using the CLASS tool.
What do you see as the most pressing early childhood issue right now?
One of the most pressing issues in early childhood today is program stability amid compounding and intersecting crises, particularly for providers serving Minnesota’s immigrant and multilingual communities. Early learning programs are navigating persistent staffing shortages, financial strain, declining enrollment, and increasing regulatory and quality expectations while simultaneously supporting children and families who are experiencing profound fear, stress, and uncertainty.
Stacy French
Across the state, families, especially within Somali and Latino/Latina communities, are keeping children out of childcare due to fear related to immigration enforcement activity. This fear is not abstract; it shows daily attendance patterns, enrollment decisions, and family engagement. Parents are hesitant to travel, to drop off their children, or to interact with systems they perceive as potentially putting their families at risk. As a result, children are missing critical early learning opportunities, consistent routines, and social-emotional supports that are foundational to their development and well-being.
These dynamics place significant strain on childcare programs. Declining attendance directly impacts financial viability, staffing stability, and the ability to sustain operations, particularly for small, community-based providers operating on already narrow margins. Programs serving immigrant and historically marginalized communities are disproportionately affected, despite often being the most culturally responsive, trusted, and deeply rooted supports for families.
At the same time, the early childhood workforce is being asked to carry increasing responsibility without commensurate structural support. Providers and coaches are not only supporting children’s learning, but also responding to trauma, fear, and broader community disruption. The challenge before us is not simply maintaining quality standards, but building systems that are responsive, flexible, and humane systems that recognize the real conditions under which providers and families are operating and that prioritize sustainability, equity, and stability alongside accountability.
What don’t most people know about Child Care Aware and your work in quality improvement? To put it another way, what would you like more people to understand about your work?
What many people don’t realize is that quality improvement is not about checklists or compliance, it’s about relationships, trust, and long-term capacity building. At Child Care Aware, quality improvement work is deeply relational and responsive. Coaches and staff walk alongside providers through change, uncertainty, and growth, often during some of the most challenging moments in their programs’ histories.
I would like more people to understand that quality improvement is adaptive work. It requires listening closely to providers, understanding community context, and adjusting systems when they no longer fit real-world conditions. Our work is about helping programs stay open, stay grounded, and continue serving children and families not just meeting standards, but sustaining care in ways that are equitable, culturally responsive, and realistic.