The Tobin School

Supporting our Tobin Faculty in their Professional Growth

TECPAAt Tobin we strongly believe that teachers need to be life-long learners. While our licensing agency requires at least 20 hours of professional development annually for all early childhood teachers to keep their license current, Tobin utilizes a unique approach to ensuring top quality training and professional development is always available to our faculty team.

The Early Childhood Professional Association (TECPA) was founded in 2003 by Mary Beth Claus Tobin as a way to support professional growth for early childhood educators. Nineteen years later TECPA has grown beyond its Natick birthplace, now offering high quality professional development programs for early childhood educators, afterschool teachers, early elementary educators, family childcare providers, and administrators all across New England. Currently offering twice monthly evening programs via Zoom, TECPA seeks out important topics for this population and presents speakers from across the country sharing their expertise. With an email distribution list of over 800, TECPA is seeing an explosion in its growth in recent years.

Tobin Family of Schools’ faculty are invited to attend any of these TECPA programs as a paid benefit of employment. It’s a great way to keep our educators up-to-date on topics and to build a shared learning experience. This school year alone, Tobin educators have attended, and are enrolled to attend, the following programs:

  • The Nurtured Heart with Sam Healy, LICSW
  • Sensory Processing: The Art of Understanding Behavior with Jamie Chaves
  • You’re NOT My Friend! Understanding, Addressing and Preventing Bullying Behavior with Cheryl Turner
  • Time Management for ECE Professionals with Tracy Cheney
  • Fine Motor Skills–Out of the Box with Dr. Marianne Gibbs
  • Neurological Processing Disorders: Assisting Diverse Students with Maria Sargent
  • Mindfulness and Self-Care Strategies for Early Childhood Professionals with Deanna Tavares & Maggie Sky
  • Teaching Self-Regulation Strategies & Using Effective Communication to Reduce Power Struggles with Shannon Fisher
  • Discovering & Uncovering: Observation, Documentation and Planning with Infants & Toddlers with Carrie Becker
  • Anxiety in Early Childhood with Dr. Larry Cohen
  • Elevating Afterschool Programs with Science with Science is Elementary
  • Perfect Partners: Science & Literacy in Preschool with Science is Elementary
  • Mindfulness in the Early Childhood Classroom with Deanna Tavares & Maggie Sky
  • Make Way for Dramatic Play with Kathleen Rudinsky
  • Learning in a Natural Environment with Nicole Urmston

To learn more about TECPA programs, check out their website at www.tecpa.org. Feel free to ask our Program Directors for more information about how Tobin supports our educators in their professional growth.

Leaders in Early Childhood Education