Special to The Truth<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, John C. Jones, president
\nof HOPE Toledo, announced the appointments of Elisa Huss-Hage and
\nNancy Okuley to new positions in the organization. Huss-Hage is
\nserving as director, Early Childhood Education, and Okuley as HOPE
\nToledo\u2019s Professional Development and Support specialist.<\/p>\n
Elisa Huss-Hage joins the leadership team of HOPE Toledo after 25
\nyears at Owens Community College as a faculty member in the Department
\nof Teacher Education and Human Services. Over the years, she has
\ndedicated significant time to the National Association for the
\nEducation of Young Children (NAEYC) and its higher education work to
\nestablish and maintain teacher preparation standards for the field of
\nearly childhood education. She has served as a NAEYC accreditation
\nprogram Peer Reviewer since 2005, and as a member of its Higher
\nEducation Commission from 2009-2015\u2014serving as Chair from 2011-2015.
\nShe was elected to serve on the NAEYC Governing Board (2016-2020),
\nwhere she was Chair of their Early Learning Systems Committee. In that
\ncapacity, Huss-Hage was responsible for leading the revisions to the
\nprofession\u2019s foundational documents\u2014the Developmentally Appropriate
\nPractice positioning statement, the Professional Standards and
\nCompetencies for Early Childhood Educators, and the creation of the
\nAdvancing Equity in Early Childhood Education positioning statement.<\/p>\n
As HOPE Toledo\u2019s director, Early Childhood Education, Huss-Hage is
\nresponsible for the operational efficiency of HOPE Toledo\u2019s Pre-K
\ninitiative and leads the ongoing design, development, and
\nimplementation of the program with HOPE Pre-K Providers. \u201cWe are
\ngrateful to have someone of Elisa\u2019s experience and leadership in this
\nposition,\u201d stated Jones. \u201cShe will oversee and coordinate the work to
\nsupport our Pre-K Providers, ensuring instructional best practices,
\ncurriculum fidelity and accountability for implementing the high
\nstandards of quality required of a HOPE Pre-K Provider. She will also
\nmake sure that our providers are supported with resources and
\nassistance where needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur community is an amazing place to live and raise a family. Among
\nits valuable resources is a cadre of high-quality early learning
\nenvironments and dedicated early childhood educators for families of
\nyoung children to utilize. Equity in access to these essential early
\nlearning experiences is among the priorities of HOPE Toledo and is one
\nthat resonates with me,\u201d said Huss-Hage. \u201cIn all that I have done in
\nmy career as an educator, working to support and ensure access to
\nhigh-quality educational experiences for all of Toledo\u2019s children is
\nby far the most important!\u201d<\/p>\n
Huss-Hage holds a MEd in Educational Administration and Supervision
\nfrom the University of Toledo, where she also earned her Bachelor of
\nEducation in Special Education with an emphasis in Social Psychology
\nand Early Childhood Education.<\/p>\n
Also assuming a key role with HOPE Toledo is Nancy Okuley. Okuley has
\nspent over 30 years in Toledo, Ohio, working with a variety of
\nprograms to develop quality education for children. In 1992, she
\nstarted Sylvania Children\u2019s Center \u2014serving as both a director and
\nteacher. She went on to spend 10 years working as a home-based
\nchildcare provider while her own children were young. In 2006, she
\nstarted St. Joseph Parish Preschool in Sylvania where she earned
\nawards for her work as an early childhood educator. She also spent 22
\nyears as an adjunct faculty member at Owens Community College, Lourdes
\nUniversity, and University of Toledo.<\/p>\n
As HOPE Toledo\u2019s Professional Development and Support specialist,
\nOkuley will be responsible for providing classroom support and
\nindividualized coaching so that HOPE Pre-K teachers can enhance and
\nfoster teaching quality\u2014as measured by the Early Childhood Environment
\nRating Scale (ECERS)\u2014and improve overall educational experience. The
\nHOPE Toledo Pre-K Standard for Professional Development has a primary
\nfocus on the quality and content of professional development to
\ninclude: topics which are high interest\/high need and delivered in a
\ncommunity-based approach; individualized coaching to meet the needs of
\nthe teacher; and dedicated lesson planning to assure high-quality
\ninstruction meets the needs of each child in the classroom. It will be
\nthe responsibility of the Professional Development and Support
\nspecialist to focus on these priority areas.<\/p>\n
Okuley holds a MEd in Teaching and Curriculum from Lourdes University,
\nwhere she also earned her Bachelor of Education in Early Childhood
\nEducation with an emphasis in Psychology. She and her son, Isaac, have
\nmade several presentations to area organizations about his diagnosis
\nof autism and their experiences as a family.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am thrilled with this position with HOPE Toledo because I will be
\nable to work with individual preschools in the city to fine-tune their
\nalready wonderful programs,\u201d stated Okuley. \u201cThe mission of HOPE
\nToledo is near and dear to my heart, and I am grateful to be a part of
\nthis team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Special to The Truth Earlier this month, John C. Jones, president of HOPE Toledo, announced the appointments of Elisa Huss-Hage and Nancy Okuley to new positions in the organization. Huss-Hage is serving as director, Early Childhood Education, and Okuley as HOPE Toledo\u2019s Professional Development and Support specialist. Elisa Huss-Hage joins the leadership team of HOPE […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[99],"class_list":["post-3800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3800"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3801,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3800\/revisions\/3801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3800"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=3800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}