Stumbling Through Work
Working in education is to stumble through your everyday! We love what we do, but staff, families, policies, regulations and sometimes even the children make us quit everyday then come back the next day. Just remember, you are not in this alone.
Episodes
83 episodes
Child Care Is Not Okay
We break down the newest NAEYC workforce survey data and call out the real reason child care keeps teetering on the edge: the money does not match the expectations. Then we get practical about leadership restraint, parent trust, messy staff con...
Don’t End Up On The News
Something is deeply broken when a childcare worker thinks it’s acceptable to punish a crying child with humiliation and confinement. We react to a North Carolina daycare case under investigation and say the quiet part out loud: abuse is abuse, ...
The Government Keeps Changing The Rules And Providers Pay The Price
They say it’s about fraud, but the numbers don’t match the panic. The federal government is rolling back key Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) rules, pushing child care subsidy payments back toward attendance-based billing and away from en...
Are We Building Child Care Systems Or Seats
NYC is pushing toward universal city-run child care, and depending on who you ask, it’s either a long-overdue lifeline or a wrecking ball aimed at private programs. I’m holding both truths at once: expanding access can change family budgets, bo...
Circle Time With Lenny Endsley
They promised families Disneyland, but too often educators are running a parking lot carnival on max ratio and pure willpower. We sit down for Circle Time with Lenny, a longtime educator with deep early childhood education experience and curren...
Funding Cuts
Nevada’s early childhood workforce is being asked to do the impossible again: earn more credentials, raise quality, and keep classrooms stable while the state pulls one of the only programs that actually makes college affordable. We dig into th...
Circle Time w/ Trina Richardson
Trina shares the joy that keeps people going—parents becoming confident advocates, babies flourishing into curious learners, and former students returning as thriving adults—while naming the stress cycles, the full-moon crisis days, and the bou...
Directors Aren’t Doctors; They’re Keeping Centers Open
Headlines say guidance changed. Our lobby says prove it. We unpack how federal vaccine recommendations collided with state childcare rules and turned drop-off into a debate club—and we give you the exact language to calm the room without playin...
Circle Time w/ Shanell Townsend
Ever been “voluntold” to fix the room everyone avoids while the favorite gets a trophy? We invited Chanel Townsend—educator, coach, and relentless advocate—to unpack how to walk into a chaotic toddler classroom, keep the peace, and still raise ...
Your Child Is Not DoorDash, And Pre-K Isn’t Amazon Prime
Preschool isn’t “just pre‑K.” We dig into the data on chronic absence and make the case that showing up is the intervention: consistent attendance wires language, early math, and self‑regulation, and those early gains echo into second grade and...
Circle Time w/ Airis Potts
We dig into the human side of early childhood leadership with Aris “Mama Vegas” Potts, from calling out harmful nap practices to surviving licensing scares and rebuilding trust. We push for boundaries, better funding, and a brighter path for ch...
Preschool Wins, Childcare Loses
Want to know how a well-meaning universal preschool plan ended up shrinking childcare access across Los Angeles? We pull back the curtain on the economics policymakers ignored: four-year-olds don’t just fill classrooms, they subsidize infant an...
Milk Mustaches and Mixed Messages
Headlines say whole milk is back for kids, but that’s not the whole story. We dig into what the new Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act really changes, what it doesn’t, and why most early childhood programs are still bound by CACFP, state licensing...
Circle Time w/ GiGi Wynn
With veteran coach and trainer Gigi Wynn, we explore ECE in different positions with what real support looks like when safety, behavior, and policy collide.
America Loves Kids Like I Love My Gym Membership
A country that can regulate crib slats but can’t protect classrooms has its priorities backwards. We start by tearing into the ritual that follows school shootings—thoughts, prayers, half-staff flags—and ask what it would look like to put child...
Child Care Math Is Rude
We call out the broken childcare math, the lazy myths about greedy centers, and the way policy failure pushes women and caretakers out of the workforce. Then we go inside preschool life under immigration fear, answer tough listener questions, a...
Inside A Preschool Scandal: Abuse, Oversight Failures, And The Fight For Safer Childcare
We confront a big-brand preschool scandal, then widen the lens to expose how staffing, oversight, and culture create the conditions for harm—and how to fix them with real accountability, funding, and courage. Along the way we answer listener qu...
We Came For Goldfish And Got Bleach Instead
A water pitcher, a cleaning bottle, and a rushed routine turned snack time into a health scare—then a bland corporate statement tried to make it disappear. We pull back the curtain on how incidents like this happen in real programs: thin ratios...
Childcare Math Doesn’t Add Up
Childcare isn’t expensive because anyone’s getting rich; it’s expensive because keeping tiny humans safe, fed, and learning costs real money. We open the books on rent, insurance, payroll, licensing, curriculum, food, and the constant stream of...
SNAP!: How A Shutdown Hits Childcare, Families, And Teachers
A shutdown stalls SNAP and shakes childcare, leaving families, teachers and programs scrambling for stability while kids lose consistency. We also confront bias against male ECE teachers, name red flags in constant staff reassignments, unpack r...
Grandma Is Not Helping And One Glove Is Not For Everyone
A daycare sends a Saturday-night email announcing it’s closed effective immediately, and by Monday morning parents, teachers, and an entire neighborhood are scrambling. We dig into what sudden closures reveal about the state of childcare: budge...
Pass the Collection Plate for Childcare?
The day a state slices $225 million from childcare and 45 centers go dark, the ripple doesn’t stop at the classroom door—it hits every shift, every meeting, every bottom line. We dig into why asking local businesses to “chip in” can’t replace p...
Kids Say...
Ever wonder what keeps educators up at night? Spoiler alert: it's rarely the children. In this refreshingly candid episode, we dive into the real challenges that make working in education both hilarious and maddening.From the three-year...
Beyond Talk: When States Actually Solve the Child Care Crisis
New Mexico has just achieved what many thought impossible – implementing truly universal, free child care for all residents regardless of income. Follow this podcast to stay updated on this groundbreaking initiative and share this episode with ...