Welcome to our Employee Spotlight series, where we highlight the exceptional individuals driving the success of Child Care Services Association (CCSA). Today, we’re excited to introduce Kimberly Bynum, Program Manager for T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® NC Scholarship Program. Join us as we explore Kimberly’s journey with CCSA, uncover her evolving perspective on our organization, and celebrate the significant contributions she has made over the years.
As we commemorate our 50th anniversary, learn about the profound impact our dedicated staff have on CCSA and the communities we serve.
How long have you worked at CCSA and what does your job entail?
30 years! I started when we were still called Durham Daycare Council in 1997.
Part of my duties are to manage our specialist staff and coordinate our statewide outreach efforts. I also work with students who are working towards their online master’s degree in education, with an emphasis on leadership and administration at UNC-Greensboro or UNC-Wilmington.
What do you recall about the early days?
When I was a resource teacher for Durham Daycare Council, we actually substituted for licensed childcare facilities in Durham County. My job as a sub was to go into those family child care homes or licensed child care facilities if they had staff that needed time to attend class. Then I worked as a T.E.A.C.H. counselor once we became Child Care Service Association. I remember back in the day we would have to print all the authorization paperwork for every participant we approved courses for and fax them all, it was very time-consuming. We were all very happy when our new system was implemented and we were able to send authorizations directly from the database instead of printing everything.
How has your job changed over the years?
I worked as a resource teacher or substitute teacher before I became a counselor over at T.E.A.C.H. Then I moved from being a coordinator to a manager. But about 12 plus years ago, we used to have additional projects and so part of the professional development initiative, which T.E.A.C.H. is under that umbrella, we had a program in Durham and one in Raleigh and I managed those two projects, as well as providing oversight to part of the T.E.A.C.H. team. When those programs ended in 2011, I came back to T.E.A.C.H. full-time.
What has been your biggest achievement/success and CCSA’s greatest accomplishments?
I mean, outside of being one of the handful of long-term employees, I would say working on my master’s degree while at CCSA. I was able to use some of the data from research to actually complete my thesis project.
We had scholarship participants who were always asking when we were going to offer a master’s degree program, so back in 2015 we received some Race to the Top dollars and were able to offer additional scholarship opportunities, one of those being our leadership and master’s in education scholarship, which was a long time coming.
One of the things I appreciated about us being able to offer that scholarship is being able to connect to the UNCG and UNCW recipients I worked with for two years. I would meet them in person for the first time at the commencement and a lot of them would meet in person for the first time because their programs were completely online. There was this real connection because, after a couple of years of working with these individuals, you get to learn a lot about them so you feel like you really know them on a personal basis and then just to meet them in person was very rewarding. They always express their gratitude for the program, and for me as a support for them, as they were going along achieving that educational goal.
What would you consider to be the biggest change in CCSA over the years?
For our United Way kickoff, we used to offer kind of like a variety show just to get people excited about giving. Staff would volunteer to do a musical presentation, kind of like putting on the hits but it would be based on one of the United Way agencies in the Triangle. I remember that being such a fun little break from work and people really enjoyed it. We used to also have a company picnic where you could bring your families. It would be a nice time to get people together and celebrate outside of work and just show appreciation for all staff.
What’s your favorite part of the job? What excites you most?
The favorite part of the job that excites me is interacting with staff on a daily basis. Even though many staff work remotely, it’s great to be in the office and interact with staff in a non-virtual setting once in a while. The connections are important. Another favorite part of my job is knowing that we’ve accomplished and met our objectives year after year. When our customers (internal and external) thank us for something that we did, that’s exciting and rewarding.
What is your biggest hope for the next decade? In what ways do you expect to grow?
I’ll talk about technology for a little bit. It would be nice to have different applications as far as our tools for tracking our scholarship recipients and being able to communicate with them. We have thousands of people so it gets a little time-consuming when you have to call individuals and request the same information from all of them. If we had a system that was sending that information out, it would help cut down on staff time and help us be more efficient.
As far as the agency growing as a whole, I’m sure there are many more programs, many more scholarships that we will probably be able to provide to early care and education professionals in the future. Some years ago, we expanded our scholarships to cover early childhood educators who don’t work directly with children but who work on behalf of young children. I think we’ll see more of that occur. Maybe even in the future, there’ll be a doctorate program. I know one of the concerns is professors aging out of the university and college system, so we would need people to replace those professors. If we provided the doctoral scholarship, that would help address those concerns in the future.
Describe what CCSA means to you, on
a personal level, in 15 words or less.
A place of help, assistance and guidance.
“There was this real connection because, after a couple of years of working with these individuals, you get to learn a lot about them so you feel like you really know them on a personal basis and then just to meet them in person was very rewarding. They always express their gratitude for the program, and for me as a support for them, as they were going along achieving that educational goal.”
-Kimberly Bynum
T.E.A.C.H. Program Manager II
