Since graduating in 2008, Tonya has already made an impact in the world of early childhood education and her influence only continues to grow. She credits this success to her time in HDFS at UConn. Tonya came to UConn excited about majoring in HDFS with a concentration in Early Childhood Development and Education and participating in the work-study program at the UConn Child Development Labs. Her classwork with top-notch professors and mentors who weren’t afraid to be progressive, the hours she spent in the amazing Child Labs, and her years as president of the HDFS Undergraduate Committee, were foundational to her future success. Her study of child development, families, diversity, and curriculum set the stage for her advocacy for high-quality and equitable childcare across several states and settings. With a desire to dive more deeply into teacher certification to enable her to serve young children with special needs and in urban settings, Tonya completed a Master’s in Early Childhood Special Education from Southern Connecticut State University in 2012. Tonya strove to acquire a range of experiences to decide where she could have the most impact and to understand experiences of children in different socioeconomic and ability groups. Her full-time work was at a private school in the PreK program. During several summers and weekends, she worked at the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for kids with chronic illnesses. She completed student teaching in urban settings within public school elementary classrooms as well as an inclusive Head Start classroom. During graduate school, Tonya completed a summer with Semester at Sea studying Multicultural Education to expand her understanding of early childhood education globally. Tonya then joined Teach For America in New Orleans to work on the complex and urgent educational inequity movement happening there. She started working in one of the most challenging schools in the city. Tonya then moved to a progressive charter management organization called ReNEW Schools where they were starting an early childhood program directly related to her graduate school work. She started in their first early childhood center that would feature classrooms with both students with special needs and typically developing students (often referred to as a collaborative model). Over her eight years with ReNEW, Tonya became Center Director, then Curriculum Specialist, then Instructional Coach for all early childhood programs, and then Director of Early Childhood Programs. Tonya led the original center as well as two additional centers she started with the organization, several public preschool and pre-k grant programs, and a city-wide early intervention program. Tonya led all programs to have high-quality scores on state-wide quality assurance measures ensuring positive early education outcomes that could change the trajectory of young children’s lives. Under her leadership, ReNEW Schools provided fair wages and full benefits for all full-time early childhood educators. Her high standards for herself, the teachers and leaders she mentored, and her programs were grounded in her early work in HDFS and at the Child Labs. She constantly seeks growth and learning for herself but her foundations for what is right for kids and what is possible for them is rooted in the content, mentoring, and experience that she received at UConn from mentors like Anne Bladen, Meg Galante-DeAngelis, Fabienne Doucet, and Kate Andrew.
In 2019, Tonya started a family and relocated to Pennsylvania where she started a consulting firm, Teach Reach Master Consulting, that serves childcare centers, school systems, and families nationally to provide training and coaching. She continues to stretch her impact at local and national levels through providing training to promote the implementation of high-quality interactions, higher-order thinking, and equity-based leadership. Tonya’s time at UConn allowed her to be outside of her comfort zone and lead others. Those challenges provided her the confidence and courage to continue to face larger challenges and adversity after college. She was mentored by women who held the bar high regarding interacting and teaching students to help them meet their highest potential every day. The experience, courage, and confidence she built at UConn, has helped Tonya influence many children and to ensure that ALL children have access to the highest quality of early childhood education.