About

RESPECT Across Nebraska is a collaborative partnership among institutions of higher education, early childhood professionals and local communities working together to advance equity and inclusion in early childhood teacher preparation in Nebraska. RESPECT partners share a commitment to ensuring Nebraska has enough qualified early childhood professionals to meet demand, while fostering a workforce that reflects the rich diversity of the state’s children and families.

Our Partners

What We Do

Our goal is to create an accessible, effective and sustainable system for preparing early childhood professionals who will provide quality care and education for Nebraska’s children and families. This goal supports the critical need to increase the number of qualified early childhood professionals in Nebraska who reflect the diversity of the children and families they serve.

To achieve this goal, we strive to:
  1. Remove barriers to completion of early childhood education degrees and credentials.
  2. Design pathways to degrees and credentials that are accessible and equitable.
  3. Build systems to support early childhood educators in completing degrees and certification.

How do we do this?

RESPECT team members are building a culturally-sustaining, strengths-based framework designed to generate multiple pathways for students — both traditional and nontraditional — to achieve their educational goals and earn professional credentials to join the state’s early childhood workforce.

  • AIM 1: Develop a shared competency-based framework defining common expectations for educator preparation, credentialing and licensing across all early childhood settings.
  • AIM 2: Cultivate authentic community partnerships to ensure the competency-based curriculum and accessible pathways are implemented in ways that are contextually grounded and culturally sustaining.
  • AIM 3: Develop accessible pathways and support mechanisms to ensure all members of Nebraska’s early childhood workforce have equitable opportunities to earn a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education and teaching certification.

The Challenges

Addressing these challenges is necessary to ensure all children in Nebraska reach their full potential, and families and communities can thrive.

Workforce Shortage

Nebraska is facing a severe shortage of qualified early childhood educators.

Child Care Scarcity

Working parents and caregivers need affordable, quality care and education for their young children. 

Inadequate Pathways

Current teacher preparation pathways do not adequately support culturally-sustaining pedagogy.

Limited Accessibility

Preparation programs are not readily accessible for current and prospective early childhood educators.

Finding Solutions

One solution to these early childhood challenges is to shift the culture of Nebraska’s higher education system. Those who care for young children need specialized training and education to do their jobs well. This means we need to provide them with access, support and resources to meet children’s learning and developmental needs.

Core Values

ESTABLISH EARLY CHILDHOOD AS IMPORTANT

Establish the understanding that early childhood is a unique and valuable period in human development.

ELIMINATE SYSTEMIC BARRIERS

Eliminate systemic barriers that prevent aspiring teachers from equitably accessing higher education opportunities and create accessible, attainable and equitable pathways and supports to ensure high-quality care and education.

APPLY STRENGTHS-BASED PERSPECTIVE

Apply a strengths-based perspective that recognizes, values, elevates and capitalizes on each community’s assets, including cultural and historical knowledge, values, wisdom, practices and narratives.

STAY OPEN AND LISTEN

Operate in a spirit of openness and continue to listen carefully to community voices, create safe spaces for narratives, and intentionally and collaboratively seek equity across all communities.

AFFIRM AND EMPOWER TEACHERS

Affirm the value of all aspiring teachers, including those who are traditionally marginalized, and empower them by building self-efficacy and a sense of agency driven by the fact that they make a difference in the lives of children, families and communities and possess skills that contribute to positive outcomes in themselves and those they serve.

BE RESPONSIVE

Respond to the needs, strengths and uniqueness of aspiring teachers, as well as the children, families, colleagues and communities with whom they interact.

ADVANCE HIGHER EDUCATION

Create a meaningful, culturally relevant, research based and enriching higher education curriculum, and provide aspiring teachers with opportunities to explore ideas, synthesize information, translate new learning into meaningful understandings and strategies, problem solve and invent meaningful approaches to support children’s learning.

PROMOTE REFLECTION AND PROBLEM-SOLVING

Provide the means for aspiring teachers, program developers and community/state decision-makers to engage in deep reflection collectively and consistently, and effective problem-solving within and among themselves and their communities, to expand the early childhood workforce in Nebraska in new and effective ways.

Acknowledgments

RESPECT Across Nebraska builds on existing early childhood education resources, collaborations and successes, including: