8 Tips to Promote Diversity Education in Your Program

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HOW TO INTENTIONALLY INCORPORATE DIVERSITY IN NON-DIVERSE SETTINGS


As an assessor, I have the opportunity of peeking into many classrooms and early care environments around Illinois. Similar to the national perspective, Illinois is diverse when taken as a whole, but there are many areas of the state where the majority of the children and staff have similar cultural backgrounds. It is important for all children, regardless of the makeup of their own neighborhood, to have experience with diversity at a young age.  


I have encountered many providers who find it easy to teach about diversity when the children they serve are diverse. In these instances there may be a family member who can act as a guide for the provider or who can visit the classroom and share some traditions with the child’s classmates. On the other hand, when all the children are of the same background, providers may have a more difficult time incorporating diversity into their program. These are the environments, however, where it is most important to intentionally teach about the diversity of humans because it is out of the child’s everyday experience. 


If you are not sure where to begin, you are not alone! Below is a list of ideas to get you started: 


  1. Display materials, books, and pictures in your program that represent diverse people. Be intentional about including representations of people of differing race, age, gender, culture, and ability. 
  2. Provide books for teachers to read to the class that feature diverse main characters. If there are words that you are unsure of how to pronounce, a Google search of “How do you say…” will often bring up an audio file so you can hear the correct pronunciation. 
  3. Encourage teachers to have fun learning a few songs/rhymes in a language other than English. When I taught, I loved to use Ole! Ole! Ole! by Dr. Jean. This fun CD has each song sung in English and then Spanish. I do not speak Spanish, but I found it easy to follow along with. 
  4. Reach out to a nearby college or community college. A community college is a great resource to find experts on many topics close to home. An instructor or student there may be able to come in and read a book in another language. 
  5. Take your program on a field trip to a local nursing home or assisted living home. Experience with older adults can help children see past medical devices. 
  6. Host a program-wide food tasting day. Try food, especially fruits and vegetables from different cultures and talk about where they are grown. As a teacher, I enjoyed hosting tasting parties in my classroom. When learning about the color green, we tried fruits and vegetable of that color. We included tomatillos and kiwis. 
  7. Provide teachers with resources to use in lesson planning. A great example is this Pinterest Board by Tara Bailey: Multicultural Preschool Lessons. 
  8. Encourage your teachers to participate in professional development that will strengthen their skills in teaching about diversity. When teachers return ask them to share what they learned with their colleagues and then ask them what support you can provide so that they can put the things they’ve learned into practice. 



Are you interested in learning more about how to incorporate diversity into your program? Check out the book Leading Anti-Bias Early Childhood Programs: A Guide for Change. 

Colleen McLaughlin is an Assessor and Training Specialist at the McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership at National Louis University. Before joining the McCormick Center, Colleen worked as a teacher and administrator in both diverse and non-diverse early learning and care settings.

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Examining the Role of Employer Benefits and Turnover in Center-based Child Care

By Robyn Kelton, M.A. • June 27, 2025
INTRODUCTION Turnover rates in child care are among the highest in education, with over 160,000 workforce openings predicted annually (Bassok et al., 2014; Doromal et al., 2022; Joughin, 2021; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). While some turnover is expected and even necessary, the levels of turnover experienced in the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC) are not only alarmingly high but deeply problematic. In 2021, a national survey conducted by the National Association for the Education of Young Children found that over 80% of child care centers were experiencing a staffing shortage, with the majority of those programs reporting one-to-five open roles, but 15% reporting between six and 15 open roles (NAEYC, 2021). Staffing shortages result in lost revenue, financial uncertainty, and program instability, often forcing administrators to operate below capacity and/or under reduced hours (NAEYC, 2021; NAEYC, 2024; Zero to Three, 2024). Limited enrollment slots and classroom and program closures lead to increased waiting lists (Zero to Three, 2024; Carrazana, 2023). In turn, families are placed in a highly vulnerable position of needing to leave the workforce to stay home with their child or turn to potentially unsafe or unregulated child care. Moreover, increased turnover in classrooms interrupts continuity of care and disrupts the relationships built between children and their educators (Reidt-Parker, J., & Chainski, M. J. (2015). Research has begun to highlight some of the programmatic and personnel characteristics predictive of increased staff turnover in ECEC programs. Low wages are most commonly identified as a strong predictor of turnover (Amadon et al., 2023; Bryant et al., 2023; Fee, 2024; Guevara, 2022; Totenhagen et al., 2016). However, workforce advocates and some researchers have begun to expand conversations on compensation to explore the impact the profession’s general lack of benefits such as paid time off, access to health insurance, and retirement benefits has on retention (e.g., Amadon et al., 2023; Bryant et al., 2023; Fee, 2024; Lucas, 2023). While informative, this body of work has typically approached benefits as binary variables (i.e., have or do not have) rather than reflect the spectrum on which benefits are commonly offered (e.g., the number of days off, the percent of insurance covered by the employer, and levels of retirement matching funds). This Research Note aims to expand on previous work investigating the relationship between benefits and turnover by exploring the possibility of a more nuanced relationship between the variables to determine if the level of benefits offered impacts turnover rates. METHOD This study used data collected via formal Program Administration Scale, 3rd Edition (PAS-3) assessments conducted by Certified PAS-3 Assessors between 2023 and 2025. To become certified, PAS-3 assessors must first achieve reliability (a score of at least 86%) on a test conducted after four days of training on the tool. Next, they must conduct two PAS assessments within three months of reliability training. PAS-3 national anchors reviewed the completed assessments for consistency, accuracy, and completeness. The study analyzed data from 133 PAS-3 assessments collected during the certification process across 12 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Mariana Islands.  Measures Data for this study were collected using the PAS-3, a valid and reliable tool used to measure and improve Whole Leadership practices in center-based programs (Talan, Bella, Jorde Bloom, 2022). The PAS-3 includes 25 items, each composed of 2-5 indicator strands and scored on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = inadequate, 3 = minimal, 5 = good, and 7 = excellent). Item scores are averaged to determine a mean PAS-3 score. Of particular interest to this study is Item 5: Benefits. Item 5 measures employee access to health insurance and considers what percentage of the cost is paid by the employer, the total number of paid time off days within the first and fifth years of employment, access to a retirement plan, and the percentage at which the employer will match the employee’s contribution. Last, Item 5 explores provisions made to cover the costs of staff’s professional development. Non-applicable is allowed as a response for indicators related to health insurance and retirement if there are no full-time staff employed by the program. Sample Program enrollment ranged in size from four children to 285, with a mean enrollment of 65 and a median of 55. Total program staff for the sample ranged from two to 44 staff, with an average of just under 14 staff (13.93) and a standard deviation of 8.80. Table 1 below provides a detailed breakdown of staff by role and full-time and part-time status.
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