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The Illinois Department of Early Childhood is officially open after years of development by state and local leaders.

The Wednesday launch serves as the first major milestone for the fledgling agency, which is tasked with consolidating most early childhood services previously split across three state departments. Despite the behemoth undertaking to house early childhood programs under one roof, the hard work has only just begun.

At the Illinois Department of Early Childhood’s helm is Teresa Ramos, the first secretary of the new agency. Ramos, who earned a doctorate from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, most recently worked as the first assistant deputy governor for education in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office. Before that, she held leadership positions at education nonprofits Illinois Action for Children and Advance Illinois.

Chalkbeat sat down with Ramos last week just before she addressed a lecture hall of providers, educators, and advocates attending a conference put on by Northwestern University’s Early Childhood Research Alliance of Chicago. The interview was forward-facing, aimed at getting Ramos’ perspective on the new department’s future beyond its July 1 start date.

The following questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.

As you’re rolling out the department, one of the main things is getting information out to families and providers. What is your plan over the next year to make sure that families and providers are informed about the department and know how to get the services they need?

We have, since the fall of 2023, been listening to families and providers about what they want. We have been really clear about setting up multiple ways of communicating and receiving communication from families. So we have work groups, we have our own internal and external infrastructure. We have conversations with you and others locally, and then preparing letters to providers. We sent one out last month, and then we’ll send one out to families in a couple of days.

Our short-term goal is a seamless transition, which means families shouldn’t really feel a big disruption in their services or care. They should feel like where they’ve gone before is where they can go again, and over time it should feel easier to navigate. For childcare providers who are out there supporting those families directly, we want to make it easier for them to do that work.

Obviously, the department doesn’t exist in a bubble. We’re in a time where, at the federal level, things are volatile, especially in the childcare and special education sector. How are you approaching leadership of this new department given this tumultuous period?

The volatility at the federal level means a lot of uncertainty and confusion for parents, but especially providers who might get information from a Tweet or commentary on the news. We have been really intentional about continuing to collaborate with the State Board of Education, the Department of Human Services, the Department of Children and Family Services, to make sure that we are all aligned and using every communications vehicle possible to share what we know definitively and what we don’t know.

That way, we are limiting the confusion and noise, and again, we become this place where providers and parents can go to ask their questions and get them answered. That’s how we’re managing that volatility in practice. I think, should it turn into our worst fears, there might be cuts or changes in priorities, meaning our programs will look very different than they look today.

With the new state budget going into effect at the same time as the Illinois Department of Early Childhood rolling out, there were some programs that did get an increase in funding. Others didn’t, they were just kept at a flat rate. What’s your vision for the new department’s role in advocating for early childhood funding at the state level to make sure programs are meeting families’ needs?

Our role is to listen to families’ wants and needs, and to understand what it takes for providers to deliver that across the racial, regional, cultural, linguistic diversity of the state. It’s also figuring out how to orient our grants, contracts, and funding to be aligned to that, and be in a cycle of continuous improvement, continuous listening as families’ needs and dynamics change.

We have to then take that information and say, ‘OK, this is what it would take to make sure that this is not a one size fits all program that only works for some.’ It’s a program that has to work in a rural community, in Chicago, across the diversity. So our job is to listen and really try to understand the costs, and do that in partnership with the field. We will share that with the many decision-makers in state government — the agency, the governor’s office, the General Assembly — to get incremental progress, which I see in the investment in early intervention and our operating infrastructure this fiscal year.

I’m curious what this role means to you personally given the significance of leading this department. How do you feel about taking that on?

It is an honor to get to do this work every day. I love it. It is so purpose driven, and I have a team of folks who are really early childhood education and care public servants. They want to work to make government services work for other people, and that fuels all of the work.

I’m also a mom of a 6-year-old. It is hard to juggle being a mom with a full-time job and having a 6-year-old and care options and piecing those together. I want to make it simpler. I understand the juggle, and it’s not even the most extreme for me. I know we can do better. I want to be accountable and responsible for doing better to drive equity and efficiency, and ultimately programs that work for everybody across the diversity of the state.

In a year from now, what in your mind would be considered an accomplishment that shows you’ve done your job well running the Illinois Department of Early Childhood?

We will have turned on July 1 into a central place of truth for the field, for parents, and for providers on where to get accurate information. In a year from now, it will feel like people know where to go to ask a question and someone is accountable to get them an answer or to keep them updated on that. That really leads our orientation toward serving the field.

I hope by next year at this time, we should see a launch of new technologies that support an improved operation infrastructure. Nothing will be done, but we’ll probably be in some user testing with parents and providers to make sure that how we are transforming how people engage with the state or our contract and grant partners is better.

Makiya Seminera is a reporter covering how the state and federal government affect education in Chicago and across Illinois. Contact Makiya at mseminera@chalkbeat.org.