Meet Founder & CEO of Kidz Koncierge LLC, Ebonie Hubbard, who brings a nontraditional, lived- experience-informed pathway through Head Start—from Teacher Assistant to regional Training, Technical Assistance, and program management in a large mega-grantee. She now partners with early learning programs to build humane, effective monitoring systems that ensure children and families receive consistent, high-quality, and equitable services. Here she shares:

– Nontraditional pathway into early childhood education, shaped by lived experience with instability, incarceration of a parent, and systems that felt punitive rather than supportive.
– Transformative entry into the field through a community college child development course, which provided language for lived experiences and reframed behavior, development, and environmental safety.
– Discovery of Head Start as a values-aligned system, where community care, family dignity, accountability, and comprehensive services were embedded into practice—not just rhetoric.
– Core personal mission, rooted in lived experience: ensuring children and families receive consistent, comprehensive, equitable services—and building systems that keep their promises.

Ebonie Hubbard shares: “I did not come to early childhood education through a traditional path. I grew up navigating instability, including having a father who was incarcerated, and learning early what it meant to survive in environments where safety, consistency, and protection were not guaranteed. As a young person, I often experienced systems as something you endured rather than something designed to support you. Children were expected to adapt, stay quiet, or figure it out on their own.”

My entry into early childhood accidentally began at a community college. I enrolled in a child development class without fully understanding how much it would change me. That class gave me language for things I had experienced: how children develop, how behavior is communication, and how environments can either protect children or put them at risk. It didn’t just teach me about children, it helped me understand my own story.

That class also made something else clear: I needed to escape my neighborhood and build a different future. So, I did something that still feels surreal when I say it out loud- I stood on a street corner with a sign asking for support so I could get to a four year university. People stopped. People listened. And people gave. Their generosity helped me take the next step toward higher education, and it’s a moment I carry with me because it reminds me that community care can be real and immediate.

When I found Head Start, it was the first time I saw that same value, community care, built into a system. Head Start didn’t just talk about supporting children and families; it operationalized that support through comprehensive services, family partnership, and accountability. It gave structure to what I had come to believe: that children deserve stability, families deserve dignity, and staff deserve clarity and systems that help them succeed.

Head Start also gave me a pathway to grow. I was able to matriculate through Head Start roles over time, starting as a Teacher Assistant, then becoming a teacher, then moving into leadership as a Site Supervisor and Supervisor. As my scope expanded, I moved into monitoring work and deepened my understanding of how systems, quality, compliance, and daily practice intersect. That eventually led to working in Training & Technical Assistance for Region IX Office of Head Start and later serving as a program Manager within a large, “mega-grantee” environment where the stakes were high and the need for clear, sustainable systems was constant.

Across every role, Head Start shaped how I understand monitoring: not as punishment, but as protection, ensuring programs reliably deliver what they promise, children are safe and supported, and staff are not left guessing what matters or what happens next. I’ve seen how fear and confusion decrease when monitoring is clear, humane, and embedded into strong operating systems.

Today, I carry those lessons forward as the Founder & CEO of Kidz Koncierge LLC. I support Head Start and early learning programs in strengthening monitoring systems, building staff capacity, and moving from compliance anxiety to confident, sustainable practice.

At the core of all of this is something deeply personal: ensuring children and families receive what we promised them – high quality services that are consistent, comprehensive, and equitable. That is what I needed as a child. And it has become my life’s work to help build the kinds of systems that promise real.

We are excited to introduce you to Jessica Roenfeldt Harper, M.Ed.  In her career journey three key takeaways rise to the top: 

1. Purpose anchored in values leads to lasting impact -From discovering Head Start in college to choosing roles that aligned with your beliefs, your career decisions were guided by values, not titles. That alignment is what sustained your passion and gave your work deeper meaning over time.

2. Relationships with families were transformative—on both sides
The families you served didn’t just benefit from your work; they fundamentally shaped who you became. Witnessing parents overcome barriers and graduate alongside their children reinforced the power of Head Start and left a permanent imprint on your heart and approach to service.

3. Growth expanded your reach without losing your heart for the work – Moving from the classroom into monitoring wasn’t a departure from teaching—it was an evolution. You carried the faces, stories, and lessons from your early years with you, using them to support even more families and educators while staying deeply connected to the mission.

Here is her Head Start story in her own words:

I started as an Associate EHS Teacher after graduating from college. I learned about Head Start while going to school and felt it aligned well with my personal values. After a couple years as an AT I was promoted to Lead Toddler Teacher (LTT). I will never forget the families I worked with during those years. Many of them enrolled into the program as single parents going to school, working multiple jobs, trying to improve their lives and their child’s life. By the time their child was graduating from Head Start, they were also graduating from school, which felt monumental. After some years, I then moved into the Head Start monitoring world because I wanted to reach and support more families and teachers.

I wish I could tell those families in my early teaching years, how much they impacted my life as Head Start did theirs. What started as a passion for education when I was a child, was truly set on fire by the families I met in my early years as a Head Start teacher. I see their faces in all the families I meet year after year. Though I only spent a year with them at a time, the memories and experiences I had with them will live in my heart forever. I am extremely grateful, and feel so humbled, and blessed each day that I am able to continue my work.