DEL Restructures Leadership

As of August 19, the Washington State Department of Early Learning (DEL) has implemented a department-wide organization plan to maximize partnerships and accelerate their work. 

Dr. Bette Hyde

“We have many new and important assignments as part of the Early Start Act as well as the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) reauthorization,” said DEL Director, Dr. Bette Hyde. “In order to get this considerable workload moving forward, we are setting up an organizational structure that encourages work across all programs and individuals.  By pulling together, we can achieve our goals for early learning in Washington.”

Dr. Hyde has assigned three directors to lead early learning programs moving forward (this is in addition to the leadership and guidance of DEL's Deputy Director, Heather Moss and Dr. Bette Hyde):

Luba Bezborodnikova

• The Assistant Director for the Early Start Act, Luba Bezborodnikova, is now also the Assistant Director for Licensing.  Luba will work closely with Mary Kay Quinlan, the current Statewide Licensing Administrator. 

“By combining Early Start Act initiatives and licensing, we mean to emphasize that licensing is paramount in all this exciting and important work.  The regional administrators and licensing supervisors will continue to report to the Statewide Licensing Administrator,” said Dr. Hyde.

Nicole Rose

• Nicole Rose (former PreK-3/ ECEAP Administrator) is now acting Assistant Director for Quality Practice & Professional Growth (QPPG), and will lead the Early Start Act work on preschool initiatives.  This will include closer partnerships with ECEAP (state-funded preschool) and Head Start (federally funded preschool) as well as working to develop pathways with child care providers to become ECEAP providers or Early Head Start providers. This position will work closely with the Seattle Schools and their preschool implementation and will be our primary contact with OSPI for WAKIDS and other P-3 initiatives. 



Greg Williamson

• The Assistant Director for Partnerships & Collaboration, Greg Williamson, will continue his leadership in emphasizing the importance of the very crucial infant and toddler years.  He will continue to serve as our lead for the Healthiest Next Generation, Essentials for Childhood, ACE’s Public Private Initiative (APPI), Developmental Screenings, and Frontiers of Innovation. 

“We want to emphasize providing quality professional development for our DEL staff,” said Dr. Hyde. “This is something that we need to do better.  All of our work is done under the umbrella or ‘roof’ of the Early Start Act and CCDF reauthorization.  The peak of this roof and the peak of all that we are looking for is the highest quality for children and families.”

Dr. Hyde is set to retire on August 31, 2015. DEL’s new director will be named and announced in the coming weeks.