Teachers and Support Staff
Our teaching team is instrumental in providing children and parents with a learning experience unparalleled to any other.
Professional Development & Staff
Children's Learning Adventure is the first early childhood educator to create a role at every center dedicated solely to the training and success of its teachers. Through guidance of an Educational Specialist, all teachers receive a minimum of 60 hours of initial training in areas of curriculum implementation, health and safety, classroom management, and brain development research.
Nurturing Environment
Here at Children’s Learning Adventure, our staff and teachers are dedicated and trained to help ease the minds of parents. Parents can trust their children are receiving the best education from professionals, whose number-one priority is to provide an environment that is safe and nurtures the physical, emotional, and social development of each child.
Communication
Children’s Learning Adventure staff and teachers understand that having a relationship between the school and home environment is a critical component of each child’s progress. Every family receives a weekly Field Report, which outlines the activities implemented each week, Developmental Milestone Checklists, and identifies personal areas of strength for each child. Our Field Reports also outline activities for parents to practice at home to build upon the skills and knowledge their child learned throughout the week at school.
ADVISORY BOARD:
Learn about the Advisory Board staff at Children's Learning Adventure:
Dr. Jill Stamm is the cofounder of New Directions Institute for Infant Brain Development (NDI), now a member of Arizona’s Children Association family of agencies, and an associate clinical professor at Arizona State University in the Department of Psychology in Education. Dr. Stamm's Ph.D. is in Learning and Instructional Technology. She is an author and a national and international speaker on early brain development and the connection of healthy brain growth to later learning and school achievement.
Dr. Stamm is the author of the book, Bright from the Start, The Simple, Science-backed Way to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind from Birth to Age 3, published by Penguin Press in 2007 and featured in Parenting Magazine and various newspaper and magazine publications. She is frequently quoted in child development articles in The Arizona Republic and has appeared over thirty times on television and has done countless radio and website interviews. She has presented at conferences in Scotland, Germany, Italy and Spain, as well as throughout the United States. She is a frequent speaker at the Learning & the Brain conferences hosted in Boston by Harvard and MIT and in San Francisco by Stanford, and at the Child Welfare League of America conferences in Washington, D.C. Her many written articles have appeared in magazines and scientific journals.
Dr. Stamm is a member of the National Advisory Panel of the Learning & the Brain Conference. She serves on the Governor's Advisory Council for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). In the past she has served on the Governor's Advisory Council for Head Start in Arizona, Arizona Community Foundation Early Care and Education Advisory Committee, Arizona Science Center's National Advisory Council on Brain Development, City of Phoenix Task Force on Early Childhood, and Greater Phoenix Leadership P-20 Education Reform Board. She has been honored by DePauw University, the Governor's Office, the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce and Arizona State University.
As a spokesperson and fundraiser for New Directions Institute, Dr. Stamm launched an event called The Science of Early Learning Award Luncheon. Each year an honoree and a speaker are chosen who have been instrumental in promoting early childhood education or brain development. In 2008, the honoree was Arizona's Governor Janet Napolitano and the speaker was former North Carolina Governor James Hunt. Governor Hunt in his remarks not only praised Governor Napolitano's vision for children and the Phoenix business community's commitment to early learning, but also gave credit to New Directions Institute as being the model for advocacy for early care in education which should be implemented in every state.
Dr. Stamm and her team have developed a Certified Trainer Program utilizing the S.T.E.P.S. to Early Brain DevelopmentSM Curriculum based on five key elements that lead to healthy brain development: Security, Touch, Eyes, Play, and Sound. The curriculum and training program are available through NDI. Dr. Stamm is also the creator of new training tools: Brain Boxes™, a unique patented set of products being used to train child care staff to interact with young children in a way that encourages healthy brain development, and the Baby Brain Box™, a gift product for birth to one year olds.
Dr. Stamm is the mother of Jenny, who has multiple handicaps, and Kristin, a doctoral candidate in neuroscience at UCLA.
Billie J. Enz is a Senior Academic Professional and a faculty member in Early Childhood Education. She earned her Ph.D. in Elementary Educational and Reading from Arizona State University. Dr. Enz has two strands of research: 1) teacher development and issues of teacher retention, and 2) family literacy. She has written extensively in both areas and is considered an expert in teacher induction and family literacy and is considered a national and international leader in early childhood family literacy
Nationally, Dr. Enz served for three years as the president of the Family Literacy Commission for the International Reading Association. She has also served as president of the Young Children Literacy Development special interest group, and is currently a member of the Early Childhood Commission for the International Reading Association. She is also a board member for the Early Literacy Institute for High Scope.
Dr. Enz is also the president of the board for New Directions Institute. This non-profit agency has developed numerous initiatives to serve Arizona’s youngest citizens, children from birth to age five. New Directions initiatives include the First Teacher Project that targets parents of pre-natal through toddlers and the Leaps and Bounds Project which provides outreach to families of preschoolers. Dr. Enz has written the curriculum for both of the projects, conducts training, and has worked with doctoral students to design and conduct research on the impact of these projects. All of these initiatives have been developed with the assistance of teachers and administrators in local school districts.
Dr. Enz, is also a co-principle investigator for the Navajo Early Educator Project – a 2.5 million Early Reading First Grant was awarded to the Navajo Nation. The Navajo Early-Childhood Educators Partnership is a joint effort of the Navajo Nation, the Southwest Institute for Families and Children with Special Needs, New Mexico State University and Arizona State University. The project has provided professional development training to 160 teachers serving 3,000 Navajo children. It also will establish community-school-family teams to help ensure that children are ready to succeed when they enter school. We will also train 10 mentor teachers to work at the five agency Head Start offices (Shiprock, Tuba City, Chinle, Crown Point, Fort Defiance).
Patti Phillips has more than 40 years of experience in several distinct and diverse educational settings including public schools, private schools and has directed programs in both the private and the non-profit sectors. She has an B.A. and M.A. in Early Childhood Education. Patti is the past Executive Director of the Beatitudes Age Link, an NAEYC accredited child development center in Phoenix. She serves as adjunct staff for New Directions Institute, providing training, workshops and curriculum support in the area of Early Brain Development.
Jamie Lopez has 15 years of experience as an educator. She earned a Bachelor's degree in education from the University of Arizona, Magna Cum Laude. She was an elementary school classroom teacher for ten years. One of those years was spent in Hawaii where she enjoyed the unique experience of teaching in a Japanese Buddhist School. She then returned to Arizona to teach in Bilingual and Dual Language classrooms. During that time, she became a Structured English Immersion trainer of trainers, a Career Ladder Teacher, and a supervisor of student teachers.
She also completed her Masters' Degree from Arizona State University Suma Cum Laude. After her time in the classroom, Jamie created and implemented a program called "Bilingual Babies" Spanish Instruction for Preschool Students. She is an adjunct instructor for English as a Second Language at Estrella Mountain Community College as well as an adjunct trainer for New Directions Institute for Infant Brain Development.
While she is not teaching in formal settings, she enjoys the daily learning opportunities that she is able to provide for her three young sons. They keep her grounded and interested in staying on the cutting edge of best practices for children. Jamie and her husband live with their sons in Goodyear, Arizona.
