Leading the Way Confrence

Today was the Leading the Way Conference at UW-SP. Again, it was another wonderful conference at a very affordable rate. The Leading the Way Conference is something put together by several agencies, including the Wisconsin Rapids Child Care Resource and Referral.

This year's keynote speaker was Patricia Dischler and she was very funny. She currently has several books out that seem like worthwhile purchases.

I spoke at the first session, leaving me time to attend a few other sessions before heading home.
My presentation was less than steller this year and you can read about that here. I'm hoping for better luck next year. I did go to a very interesting presentation put together by the Registry, NTC, MSTC, and UW-SP. This was a very informative presentation regarding all of the educational opportunities for Early Childhood Professionals and the wonderful collaborations that are happening in Wisconsin between UW-SP and the technical college stystem.

While at this conference, I ran into some of the my old coworkers and had a pretty interesting discussion with them. They told me that staff are not pursuing continuing education opportunities locally because of the cost factor. Why was this interesting? Well, these same folks were willing to drive 40 minutes away to Stevens Point because this conference was less than half the cost of the presentations that are often offered in Wausau. This is an area of concern that I am going to bring to my next WECA meeting and see if we can come up with some solutions. It seems like such a shame that so many wonderful learning opportunties are being passed by right here in our own community.