Dear Friends of the ECEI,

2024 has been quite a year!

In November, we celebrated the career and retirement of the inimitable Dr. Diane Horm. Oklahoma has been so fortunate to have a scholar of Diane’s caliber and commitment creating and building the Early Childhood Education Institute. As a portion of a “festschrift” celebration in her honor, Diane presented an overview of the accomplishments and contributions of the ECEI from its inception in 2006 through 2024. She cited the following as the primary ECEI accomplishments:

1. Building early childhood as a focal area at the University of Oklahoma
2. Developing strong community partnerships that served to enrich the academic and research programs at OU
3. A strengthened national focus on the infant/toddler period of development as foundational to building a strong society
4. Creating a fertile setting for longitudinal research to impact research, practice, and policy

Diane led these remarkable efforts with vision, commitment, and grace. She mentored staff and scholars, recruiting a cadre of talented committed colleagues that has carried the ECEI priorities across the country. Our goal in the years ahead is to continue Diane’s legacy, to sustain and expand these foundational accomplishments. We will continue to design and implement rigorous and innovative evaluation and research that elevates quality experiences for young children. We will work with our program partners to tell the stories of their dual-generation early childhood programs that prioritize children and families furthest from opportunity. We will examine ways that policies can increase access to quality programs and what practices best support well-being for children, families, and early childhood professionals.

I joined the ECEI in August of last year, as the second director of the ECEI and GKFF Endowed Chair. Much of my research has focused on how children’s early relationships and interactions with parents and teachers impact their development and learning. In recent years, with the Buffett Early Childhood Institute, my research and evaluation focused on building capacity to transform access to quality early care and education for children and families. The combination of these lines of learning has prepared and energized me to embrace my role leading the ECEI into its next era.

Ten years ago next month, I delivered a TED talk at UNC-Chapel Hill sharing a vision for quality early care and education inspired by the Abecedarian Study. The Abecedarian Study, and its sister studies, the Perry Preschool Project, and the Chicago Parent-Child Centers, demonstrated that intensive, high-quality early childhood education and care enhanced the life trajectories of children whose families were experiencing poverty and oppression. This groundbreaking work made it clear that investment in quality early care and education was an investment in America’s future.

Early Head Start and Educare are often considered programmatic descendants of the Abecedarian Study. Thirty years after the Abecedarian, Diane and ECEI colleagues published findings of an RCT with children in Educare, demonstrating that the high-quality programs benefit children academically and socially well into elementary school. Diane talked about this powerful study in the Oklahoma Education Journal, published earlier this year. While funding for RCTs is a rare opportunity, this work provides a pathway for ongoing work that demonstrates the value and impact of quality ECE programs.

In 2025, our newly-funded work includes learning more about families’ perspectives regarding access to quality for their infants and toddlers and examining ways to enhance air quality in early childhood settings.

We are currently hiring a Senior Research Associate, an incredible opportunity for a scholar wanting to do impactful applied research. And stay tuned – we’ll also be hiring a Data Manager in the next few months.

Finally, our favorite piece of Diane Horm’s retirement story is that she is not leaving the ECEI or Oklahoma quite yet. While her family home in Pennsylvania is remodeled, Diane will continue in a part-time role through 2025 as a Senior Research Fellow, leading OK-AIR projects with Dr. Changjie Cai (OUHSC), examining ways to enhance the environmental quality in early childhood settings.

Best Wishes,

ECEI Director Kate Gallagher

MOVING AHEAD

Each year, we set ambitious goals for our team related to the number of publications and grants submitted. For 2024, we planned to submit $2 million in new grants and contracts, and 10 new publications in peer-reviewed journals.

We are thrilled to announce that we met and exceeded both goals in 2024! Beth Sullins, assistant director of operations, announced that we submitted 14 new articles in peer-reviewed publications, on topics such as self-regulation, language and literacy, and health services for young children.

Our grant submissions were impressive as well. We submitted over $2.6 million in new grants and proposals, well over our 2-million-dollar goal. We continued to broaden our reach, submitting grants to ACF, EPA, NIH, NASA, and OPSR. We are still waiting on decisions about several of these proposals. Stay tuned for news about some new projects coming in 2025!

“As we predicted, this year was one of transition with Dr. Horm’s retirement in December and our new director, Dr. Kate Gallagher, assuming leadership of the ECEI. We brought on a new post-doc this fall and continue to search for researchers to join our team. Our small but mighty group was joined by faculty colleagues who helped us move our work forward and develop strong proposals,” said Sullins.

According to Sullins, the ECEI set new goals for 2025, which we hope is a year of growth and renewal.

In 2025, our goals are:

• Submit 10 articles in peer-reviewed journals with at least one first-author article per researcher
• Submit $3,000,000 in grant proposals with at least one new funding award secured

Thanks to our staff, faculty partners, and community partners who were crucial to helping us succeed this past year. We could not do this work without them. We look forward to 2025: a year of focusing on infants and toddlers, the ECE workforce, air quality and the impact of climate change on early childhood programs and families, and much more.

RECENT EVENTS

Diane's Retirement Celebrations

Diane's retirement consisted of two events on November 15. First up was the Festschrift to honor Diane's contributions to the fields of early childhood and research. Diane's presentation "Retrospective: Highlights of 18 Years at OU-Tulsa" reflected on her many accomplishments and contributions through the years and wrapped up with her saying "Thank you to all Superhero Colleagues". Several great speakers helped us highlight Diane’s achievements and accomplishments and the lasting impact of both the Early Childhood Education (ECE) Program and Early Childhood Education Institute (ECEI).

This was followed by a reception in Founder's Hall, where about 60 guests attended. The ECEI, along with the OU-Tulsa College of Education, presented Diane with her official retirement gift of a captain's chair featuring the University of Oklahoma seal on the front and a personalized engraved plate on the back. Dean Stacy Reeder gave a short presentation and then joined Associate Dean Vickie Lake to give a toast honoring Diane's 18 years of service.

UPDATES FROM THE FIELD

Our ECEI Research Associates spend a significant amount of time observing and playing games with the young children who take part in our various research studies. Here are a few of our favorite interactions:

OK-AIR: Advancing Indoor Environment Research for Children in Oklahoma

Diane Horm, Changjie Cai, Barbara Fuhrman, and Craig Van Pay

https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/RTZYG

An intervention with a randomized design of measured air quality from 24 Early Head Start/Head Start center-based classrooms and the effectiveness of two air disinfection techniques (air filters and UV light scrubbing) on improving air quality and attendance rates of both children and teachers.

A Longitudinal Study of Head Start Teacher Turnover Trends and Factors

Kyong-Ah Kwon, Wonkyung Jang, Timothy Ford, Diane Horm, Noreen Yazejian, and Donna Bryant

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2024.104916

We used multilevel survival analysis with a longitudinal database to examine Head Start teacher turnover trends and their relationships with teacher, child, and work environment characteristics. The annual turnover rate ranged from 18 to 41%. After controlling for various covariates, we found that teachers with higher education levels, fewer years of experience, and/or higher levels of depressive symptoms were at higher risk of leaving. Also, teachers with more Dual Language Learners and children with health issues in their classrooms were more likely to leave. Teachers who perceived they had more job resources and intrinsic rewards were less likely to leave.

Expanding the Child Care Table of Influence: Reaching Under-Resourced Families to Understand Their Needs and Barriers to Accessing Early Childhood Care and Education

Jamlick Peter Ondieki Bosire, Alexandra Daro, Kathleen Gallagher, and Kymberly Caddell

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2024.108056

Children enrolled in high quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) programs benefit by enhanced overall development and educational success. Families benefit from quality ECEC by workforce participation and increased family income. Communities benefit with increased productivity through labor force participation and a reduction in the costs associated with unemployment and remedial education. Despite these benefits, a significant proportion of children from historically under-resourced backgrounds lack access to high quality ECEC. Efforts to understand families’ needs and barriers to ECEC access could help increase their children’s participation. Parents (118) from historically under-resourced backgrounds participated in focus groups to share their perceptions of caring for and educating their children. Using thematic analysis, we discovered several themes regarding under-resourced families’ perceptions of ECEC. The community based participatory methods used in this study served to enhance family participation, data quality, and community acceptance.

Examining the Interplay of Teacher Well-being, Executive Function, and Adaptability in Virtual Instruction During COVID-19 Disruptions

Aileen Garcia, Shinyoung Jeon, Kyong-Ah Kwon, and Diane Horm

https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2024.1399854

The documented challenges of the early care and education (ECE) workforce include poor well-being, inadequate compensation, and high turnover rates. The COVID-19 pandemic not only exacerbated these issues, but also imposed additional demands such as virtual instruction, highlighting the need to understand how teachers’ well-being relates to their adaptability in teaching. The present study examined whether early childhood teachers’ well-being is directly and indirectly related to adaptability to virtual instruction via teachers’ executive function during the COVID-19 pandemic. With a research-practice partnership project in a Head Start program in a metropolitan area in the central United States, data were collected from the Early Head Start/Head Start annual teacher survey (n = 148). Mediation analysis showed that teachers who demonstrated higher well-being displayed higher levels of executive function, which in turn was associated with greater adaptability in virtual instruction. Beyond the pandemic, findings highlight the importance of supporting teachers’ well-being and executive functions to promote adaptability, which is critical not only in virtual instruction, but also in successfully navigating other challenges of the teaching profession.

Impact of COVID-19 on the Well- being of Parents with Young Children from Under-Resourced Backgrounds: A Qualitative Study

Jamlick Peter Ondieki Bosire, Kathleen Gallagher, and Alexandra Daro

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-024-02893-0

Parental well-being has implications for child outcomes and child well-being. The COVID-19 pandemic has placed substantial psychological distress on parents especially those from under-resourced backgrounds who also have young children. Most of the available studies have used surveys to understand the impact of COVID-19 on parents’ well-being with only a few of those studies looking at parents with children below five years from under-resourced backgrounds. We explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the well-being of 118 parents from under-resourced communities using qualitative methods. Through thematic analysis, we identified eight themes related to the impact of COVID-19: (1) Losing child care and taking teaching/care responsibility, (2) new rules and routines, (3) loss of basic needs, (4) fear of the virus, (5) loss of social support, (6) loss of jobs, (7) deeper connections, and (8) enhanced hygiene. We also identified four themes related to how parents coped with the impacts of the pandemic: (i) engaging in hobbies; (ii) making plans; (iii) accepting, and (iv) avoiding arguments. Implications include supporting parents’ autonomy and providing flexibility at work, developing and tailoring mindfulness and stress reduction interventions to support parents’ self-compassion and psychological flexibility skills, preparing lesson samples and helping parents role play to support their self-efficacy in teaching children, and prioritizing keeping child care settings open.

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