“Education saved my life.”

Linda Smith always wanted to be a teacher. She credits her early educators with providing refuge from a challenging home life that included addiction, abuse, poverty, and mental illness. “My family was doing the best they knew how,” Linda recalls, “but because of physical and mental disabilities, life was just hard. For a long time. I attached myself to school, and that was my way out.”

Linda’s journey helped her to see and feel the effects of great teachers. It also influenced her decision to go into education as a profession. “I wanted to provide a safe space for children who went through the same experiences as I did,” she says. “I always knew I wanted to work with children who had experienced trauma.”

Linda graduated from the University of Missouri with a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education and a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction. She worked for 16 years at Dewey International Studies Elementary School in St. Louis, beginning as a third-grade teacher. After the Saint Louis Public School District expanded its prekindergarten program, she moved to the pre-K setting and discovered a love for teaching 3- and 4-year-olds. She also began taking on leadership roles and special projects. When the district sought an early childhood coordinator in 2022, she got the job.

Today, Linda is the director of early childhood education for the Saint Louis Public Schools. She liaises among 2,100 children, their families, and 125 early childhood educators. Approximately 80 percent of the children she serves are Black, 15 percent are multilingual, and 100 percent receive free and reduced lunch. About 30 percent of the children served by the district have been identified as unhoused.

Following, Linda reflects on her work, the challenges facing early childhood educators, and the ways she works to honor the children and families she serves.

You transitioned to a district position after 16 years in the classroom. What was that like?

I really loved being a classroom teacher. But when this position came open, I was drawn to the idea of building relationships with teachers and families and the central office staff.

I’d been in the district, so I knew the system. Still, it was challenging to move from thinking about one classroom to thinking about the whole system. I went from feeling like I was at the top of my game as a teacher to coming in and feeling that I didn’t know anything at all. That was my internal learning curve. I had amazing mentors who guided me in the jump from the classroom to the central office. I didn’t have to know everything every day. My mantra was, “It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

Your constituency is very large. How do you ensure that you’re meeting the needs of children, families, and educators?

It’s important that I’m visible and responsive. I visit our pre-K schools to get a temperature check of what’s going on in the classrooms: Is professional development working? Are we being culturally responsive? These walkthroughs help inform district-level decisions and help us identify teachers who are outstanding in a particular area or who may need additional supports.

Talk a little bit more about cultural responsiveness. What does that look like?

Being culturally responsive means we’re including all of our families and welcoming all of their funds of knowledge. All of our families have something to bring to our settings, and all of them want the best for their children. That’s really critical to the foundation of our district.

We encourage our families to share artifacts from their homes (like menus or props) for our dramatic play areas. We ask them to read to our classes in their home languages. At the district level, we’re intentional in the books and materials we select for classrooms. Everyone should see themselves represented.

We reach out to our families in a lot of ways. For instance, the district has a Literacy for the Lou initiative, where we provide literature to families and share ideas about literacy activities they can do at home. We celebrate NAEYC’s Week of the Young Child® to elevate our pre-K program and teachers and to celebrate families as well. We have family events every night of that week, where we focus on social and emotional skills, STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics], and literacy. This past year, we had a STEM night at The Magic House, a children’s museum in the city. Almost 1,000 people participated! We had snacks and STEM-focused books like Future Engineer, by Lori Alexander. Every child left with one high-quality children’s text. The best part was when families said, “I can’t believe we have access to the whole museum for free!”

So much has been written about the push for more academic instruction in early childhood settings. As the director of early childhood education in a public school district, how do you guard against that?

This is something we’re seeing, and it comes from a place of good intentions: To increase academic outcomes and hold all students to high standards. However, if it’s done without a whole-child approach, an understanding of child development, and a connection to play, it can actually stifle creativity and joyful exploration. Instructional practices have changed, but child-directed play has a place in the curriculum. It is meeting children where they are and helping every child grow, learn, and reach their potential.

Where do you see yourself in the next few years?

I’m interested in advocacy work, especially in social justice. I really like working with multilingual and neurodivergent learners. [Linda has a master’s degree from Webster University in teaching English as a second language.] And I’m interested in trauma-informed teaching. I’m grateful for where I am right now and excited for whatever is next.

Photograph: courtesy of Christine Rolfe
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