CECPD's Registry and Professional Development Systems are written into the Oklahoma State Licensing Law. The department provides education and job and career training to over 15,000 Oklahoma early care and education professionals.

1. Established in 1998. A collaboration between the Department of Human Service Child Care Services and the University of Oklahoma, College of Continuing Education, Outreach.
2. Vision: To enhance the effectiveness of all early childhood professionals by providing multiple educational opportunities, thus ensuring Oklahoma's young children receive high-quality, developmentally appropriate care and education.
3. Mission: Supporting and growing professionals in early care and education by providing expert and current professional learning and best practices education that enhances quality care for all children.
4. Staff: 70 full-time employees and 30 contracted Educators
5. Highlights:

• • Oklahoma Professional Development Approval System (PDASP)
    • 700,000 non-credit, professional learning hours provided
    • 100 educators deliver professional learning across Oklahoma
  • Oklahoma Professional Development Registry (OPDR)
    • Processes up to 3000 applications each month
    • Registry includes approximately 23,000 active participants
  • Online Courses: cecpdonline.org – over 25 online courses available
  • Leadership Academy: over 1000 graduates since inception
  • Early Learning Quick Assessments (ELQA– ELQA.OU.EDU)
    • Web-based assessment for three- and four-year old's
    • Provides teacher-friendly data to differentiate instruction
    • Literacy
    • Numeracy
  • Instructional Coaching Institute: provides training for instructional coaches throughout the US.
  • Research: CECPD designs and implements several research projects focusing on young children's acquisition of early language and literacy skills.
  • Early Literacy Quick Assessments (Literacy and Numeracy)

6. Services

• Leadership Academy
• Focused Portfolios
• Oklahoma Professional Development Approval System
• Training for Child Care Careers Curriculum
• Entry Level Child Care Training (ELCCT)
• Video Lending Library
• The Oklahoma Professional Development Registry
• Conference and Training Calendar
• The Coaching Institute
• Early Learning Quick Assessments (ELQA)
• Since 2002, CECPD has received over $12 million in federal funding grants for early literacy research. Some of this research resulted in the development of the Early Learning Quick Assessments (ELQA) and the Coaching Institute. The funding also provided numerous hours of professional learning to early childcare and education educators.

Additional detailed information:

Non-credit Courses

The Center for Early Childhood Professional Development (CECPD) houses the Oklahoma Professional Development Approval System. Services include credentialing and professional recognition, consultation and technical assistance, educator training, Focused Portfolios™, and curriculum development. In the fiscal year 2022, early childhood professionals and practitioners took 700,000 non-credit professional development hours provided by CECPD. All training provided is delivered by CECPD-approved training organizations and educators.

Professional Development

CECPD is responsible for the Oklahoma Professional Development Registry (OPDR), a state-wide system for approved trainers and organizations to share professional development opportunities and for childcare providers to monitor their professional development (now employs a paperless process). The OPDR processes up to approximately 3000 applications every month. In addition, the Oklahoma Director Credential (ODC) certificates issued have increased by 61% this year. To date, the Registry now includes approximately 23,000 active participants.

For 18 years, the Leadership Academy has provided expert professional development to Oklahoma's childcare directors. The Academy provides participants with specific knowledge and strategies to enhance their effectiveness in maintaining sound business practices. It ensures that the needs of the children, staff, and families are fully met. Approximately 1000 participants have graduated from the Leadership Academy since its inception in 2003.

Training Programs

Instructional Coaching

The Center for Early Childhood Professional Development is home to Instructional Coaching Innovations. Coaching Innovations provides high-quality, comprehensive professional development to instructional coaches, from novice to expert. The sessions are specifically designed for coaches of all levels and content areas--birth through grade 12--and include topics that enhance and refine coaching skills and techniques that equip and empower instructional coaches.

We teach coaches to effectively use guided reflective practices and a partnership approach to accelerate each teacher's professional learning. The coaching strategies presented prepare coaches to fully support and engage teachers in improving their instructional practices, thus resulting in increased teacher effectiveness and improved student outcomes.     

Online Training

CECPD offers over 20 online training classes. These highly successful classes generate at least $50,000 in revenue annually.

Research and Assessments

Early Learning Quick Assessments (ELQA.): developed at CECPD and researched in collaboration with the Educational Training, Evaluation, Assessment & Measurement department (ETEAM) in 2004. The collaboration resulted in the development of a user-friendly literacy assessment with the goal of enhancing teacher effectiveness, improving child outcomes, and closing achievement gaps.  This evolution included ELQA’s initial launch as a paper and pencil assessment.  Next, we migrated it to a software platform and educators loaded it onto their computers.

Today ELQA are web-based assessment tools that facilitate formative progress monitoring of early literacy and numeracy skills. The ELQA is developmentally appropriate for children ages three to five and provides teachers with detailed data to plan differentiated instruction. Children's early learning skills are assessed at the beginning and repeated throughout the school year. ELQA provides data for teachers to 1) identify children at risk for not meeting early learning benchmarks and 2) differentiate instruction to prepare young children to enter kindergarten with the necessary literacy and numeracy skills to benefit from formal school instruction.

Through many years of iterations and improvements, ELQA now consists of 14 literacy and numeracy assessments, including dual language, virtual, and 3-year-old assessments.  At present, over 1000 classrooms in Oklahoma use ELQA. Our team spent several years collecting and analyzing data to document the validity and reliability of ELQA with large samples of kindergarten students.  Currently, over 1000 classrooms throughout Oklahoma are using ELQA. In 2022, ELQA generated approximately $150,000.00.

 Our philosophy continues to embrace the concept of providing teachers with meaningful data to inform differentiated instruction, thereby improving student and program outcomes. Almost twenty years later, CECPD continues its commitment to improve our assessments, professional development, and instructional coaching based on input from early childhood classroom educators and current and internal research. Our goal is that school systems nationwide choose ELQA as their early childhood assessment. 

Cultural Offerings

Annual Hispanic Child Care Conference: CECPD continued collaborating with the Oklahoma Child Care Resource & Referral Association (OCCRRA) to support the 12th Annual Hispanic Child Care Conference.

In addition to the annual Hispanic conference, state-wide training was offered, in Spanish, on topics such as infant safe sleep, emergency preparedness, infection control, and learning environments.

Two childcare providers completed training in Spanish to fulfill requirements for the Child Development Associate (CDA) credential awarded by the Council for Professional Recognition.

 Partnerships and Collaborations

Child Care Services (CCS) and their partners (including CEPCD) share the common goal of creating initiatives that support the development of high-quality childcare programs. CECPD is proud to contribute to Oklahoma's continued quest for quality, along with the Oklahoma Child Care Resource and Referral Association, Oklahoma Partnership for School Readiness, Career Tech, and Oklahoma for State Regents for Higher Education.

CECPD recently partnered with the National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance in a pilot study--Strengthening Compliance. The study measured the effect of training designed to provide early childhood professionals a roadmap to assess their environment for health and safety compliance, understand the importance of knowing health and safety regulations, and be equipped with the knowledge needed to maintain safe environments. 

CECPD was awarded the University of Oklahoma College of Continuing Education Outreach Innovation Award based on its collaborative and innovative work with the Oklahoma State Department of Health. The pediatric Obesity Mini Collaboration Improvement and Innovation Network (mini-CoIIN) project focused on implementing evidence-based practices in early childhood care and education settings that support healthy behavior in young children.