Director of Excellence

About the Book

In Director of Excellence, educator and author Christine Kalbaugh delivers what is promised in the book's subtitle: Practical Guidance for Running a Professional, Profitable, Exceptional Child Care Program.

Based on the knowledge and wisdom of Journal of Child-Care Administration, a highly successful periodical the author founded in 1991, Director of Excellence bridges the gap between owners' and directors' expertise in education and child development, and their relative lack of experience and training in the business world.

Drawing on extensive research, visits to centers throughout the country and wide-ranging interviews with experts, including practicing owners and directors, leaders in education and business, authors, professors, attorneys and other respected authorities, the book covers a myriad of topics that must be dealt with in the management of a child care center.

Emphasis throughout the book is on practicality; on providing useable, tested, realistic ideas for running a center in an enlightened, businesslike and educationally sound manner.

Among the issues Director of Excellence addresses in detail:

• Finance
• Inclusion
• Parent Relations
• Health and Safety
• Staff Management
• Policy and Philosophy
• Program Improvement
• Advertising and Promotion
• Handling Serious Problems
• Enhancing Leadership Skills

Information is presented in an uncluttered, interesting format that makes it easy to read and absorb. Sentence and paragraph structure and length, headings and text effects are designed to allow the reader to easily access specific material in order to review, implement or share what has been learned.

By addressing the extremely varied and challenging responsibilities of center administrators, Director of Excellence not only provides invaluable guidance, but also inspires readers to use the book as a starting point in the continued pursuit of knowledge and excellence.

Director of Excellence is based on the philosophy of Christine Kalbaugh: "Only in enlightened, professionally-run centers are young children in group care assured of safe, healthy, nurturing environments suited to their optimal development in all areas."

This book can truly transform a child care center.

About the Author

Christine Kalbaugh is the creator and author of Journal of Child-Care Administration, a periodical relied upon since 1991 by thousands of owners and directors of child care centers in the United States, and by those in other countries as well.

An experienced educator herself, she envisioned JCCA as a way to provide child-care administrators with sound, current, real-life business and practical knowledge, and to help them use that knowledge to run their child care centers in the most professional, profitable way possible, to benefit them and the children in their care.

Director of Excellence distills the knowledge and wisdom of JCCA. Based on countless interviews that Christine Kalbaugh has conducted with owners and directors and other respected authorities in education, business and related fields, as well as her own extensive research, it reflects her belief that enlightened care of young children is one of the most important cornerstones of society, and that owners and directors are among the most influential guiding forces of that crucial work.

"Through the years," she says, "I developed tremendous respect for owners and directors. As a group, they are highly knowledgeable, amazingly inventive and extremely articulate. Above all, they are overwhelmingly generous and eager to share what they have learned with their colleagues. I am honored to be among them, helping them to achieve the excellence they are always seeking."

Director of Excellence was created to help in that quest for excellence. It is based on Christine Kalbaugh's deeply held philosophy: Only in enlightened, professionally-run centers are young children in group care assured of safe, healthy, nurturing environments suited to their optimal development in all areas.