The Implementation Team

The Implementation Team is responsible for analyzing child care and early education best practices, strategies, and trends; communicating and engaging with the public about the Fund; participating in listening sessions and meeting with other stakeholders, such as providers, parents, businesses, and community partners; developing a draft three-year strategic plan detailing how best to use these funds immediately as well as how to build a sustainable system for our families; bringing forward an ordinance to the Anchorage Assembly that lays out the Board’s responsibilities, composition, and operations; and supporting the Accountability Board as it is seated.

Members of the Implementation Team bring a range of experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds, supporting the goal of effectively advancing and supporting a more sustainable child care and early education system in Anchorage.

While the Implementation Team plays a critical role in shaping the Anchorage Child Care and Early Education Fund, engagement with providers, parents, businesses, and our broader community is just as important. The Implementation Team and its contractor have been engaging extensively with stakeholders, including individual meetings, presentations, listening sessions, and participation in larger conversations with others also working to solve our community’s child care and early education challenges. This broad engagement will enable the IT - and eventually the Accountability Board and the Municipality of Anchorage - to put together a program that meets immediate child care and early education needs in our community while also building a more sustainable system for years to come. A list of past and upcoming meetings and events, including notes from past events, can be found on our Get Involved page.

  • Katrina Ahlfield

    Executive Director of Kid’s Corps, Inc., a Head Start federal program that promotes school readiness for low-income children ages birth-five

  • Anna Brawley

    Anchorage Assembly member

  • Branwen Collier

    Director & Owner, Early Learning for Everyone

  • Eric Croft

    Proposition 14 campaign team member and former Representative in the State of Alaska House of Representatives. Croft is also a former Anchorage Assembly and Anchorage School Board member.

  • Jade Hayden

    Founder, Hmoob Cultural Center of Alaska

  • Carl Jacobs

    Vice President, Anchorage School Board

  • Nora Matell

    Parent

  • Kathleen McArdle

    President/CEO of the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce

  • Melinda Myers

    Chief Operating Officer at thread, Alaska’s child care resource and referral organization

  • Kameron Perez-Verdia

    Anchorage Assembly member

  • Ethan Pettigrew

    Executive Director, Cook Inlet Native Head Start

  • Kimberly Rash

    Anchorage Health Department Acting Director

  • Dawn Skeete

    Child Care Licensing Program Supervisor at the Anchorage Health Department

  • Jessica Simonsen

    Parent

  • Ivy Spohnholz

    Proposition 14 campaign team member and former Representative in the State of Alaska House of Representatives

  • Trevor Storrs

    Proposition 14 campaign team member and President & CEO of Alaska Children’s Trust

  • Heather Weafer

    JBER representative, U.S. Air Force,
    Flight Chief, Child and Youth Programs