KEYNOTES, WORKSHOPS, FACILITATED EXPERIENCES

Bring DeEtte Thomas to Your Stage, Team, or Event.

DeEtte Thomas is an Early Childhood Education Leader, Speaker, Facilitator, Coach and Founder of The ECE Pivot with more than 30 years of experience across Education, Leadership, Operations, Professional Development, organizational growth, and the real work of Early Childhood Education.

Through engaging Keynotes, Interactive Workshops, Professional Learning Experiences, Leadership Sessions, and Facilitated conversations, DeEtte helps audiences think more deeply about the work in front of them, challenge assumptions, strengthen practice, and identify practical next moves.

Available for In-Person and Virtual Engagements

Invite DeEtte to Speak

Ways to work with DeEtte

From the Main Stage to the Working Session.

Every room is different. The format should fit what you want the audience to experience, understand, practice, and carry forward.

Keynotes

Thought-provoking, engaging presentations designed to challenge assumptions, connect ideas, tell meaningful stories, and leave audiences seeing the work from a different perspective.

Interactive Workshops

Hands-on professional learning experiences that move participants beyond listening into reflection, conversation, participation, application, and practical next steps.

Leadership and Team Sessions

Customized experiences for leadership teams, organizations, staff groups, directors, owners, emerging leaders, and mixed-role teams working to strengthen people, practice, culture, or organizational capacity

Facilitated Conversations and Panels

Moderated discussions, panels, roundtables, fireside conversations, and cross-role experiences designed to bring meaningful perspectives into the same room.

FEATURED SIGNATURE TOPICS

The Leading Five

Five conversations. Different parts of the work. One commitment to helping early childhood education think more deeply about what we are building.

Excellence Has to Be Sustainable

Leadership • Systems • Capacity • Organizational Excellence

Excellence cannot depend on one extraordinary day, one exceptional leader, or one person carrying everything. This conversation challenges audiences to examine what sustainable excellence actually requires—and what changes when strong people are supported by strong systems, clear expectations, intentional leadership, and the capacity to make excellence repeatable.

Fun Is Not Fluff: Building Teams People Want to Be Part Of

Team Building • Culture • Connection • Engagement

Fun will not repair unhealthy leadership or replace strong systems—but that does not make it unimportant. This highly engaging conversation explores the role that laughter, connection, celebration, recognition, shared experiences, and intentional moments of joy can play in building team culture, strengthening relationships, and creating workplaces people want to be part of.

When Classroom Chaos Isn’t Really About the Children

Classroom Management • Environment • Routines • Adult Practice

When a classroom feels chaotic, children are often the first place we look. But what if the behavior we can see is only part of what is happening? This session helps educators and leaders examine routines, transitions, expectations, environments, adult responses, classroom systems, and other conditions that may be contributing to what they are experiencing.

Milestones, Meaning & Magic: Making Learning Fun With Intention

Child Development • Curriculum • Engagement • Teaching Practice

Developmentally appropriate learning should be intentional—but it does not have to feel like a checklist. This session explores how educators can connect developmental milestones with meaningful, playful, engaging experiences that help children learn while preserving the curiosity, creativity, movement, and fun that make early childhood magical.

The Building Is Talking: What Your Environment Says About Safety, Care & Excellence

Facilities • Safety • Compliance • Environment • Organizational Experience

Before a family meets the director, before a child settles into the classroom, and before an employee hears the organization’s values, the environment is already communicating. This conversation challenges participants to look beyond whether a building is simply clean or attractive and consider what classrooms, common spaces, maintenance practices, safety routines, and physical environments communicate about care, readiness, expectations, and excellence.

Looking for something different?

DeEtte also develops customized keynotes, workshops, and professional learning experiences around the needs of the audience, organization, conference theme, or event.