Meet The Team

DeEtte

Founder

Leadership, Culture, Organizational Excellence Coach

Perspective:
Leadership • Organizational Excellence • Systems • People Development • Operations • Growth • Cross-Role Strategy

DeEtte M. Thomas is the Founder of The ECE Pivot and brings more than 30 years of experience across Early Childhood Education, Leadership Development, School Operations, Coaching, Training, Organizational Growth, and Program Building.

Her experience spans the classroom through Multi-site Leadership, including serving as a Teacher, Director, Coach, Trainer, District Leader, Regional Leader, and Founder and Operator of Educational and Performing Arts Programs.

Throughout her career, DeEtte has worked across the realities that shape Early Childhood Organizations. Staffing, enrollment, licensing and compliance, family communication, facilities, culture, classroom quality, leadership development, team morale, operations, organizational transitions, and growth.

That breadth of experience shapes one of the central ideas behind The ECE Pivot, the visible problem is not always the root problem.

Through The ECE Pivot, DeEtte helps people, programs, and organizations look more deeply at the challenges in front of them, understand what those challenges may be connected to, and make intentional pivots that strengthen people, practices, systems, leadership, and culture.

Excellence must be more than impressive in the moment. DeEtte helps us understand, Excellence must be built to be repeated, protected, strengthened, and sustained.

Jimmy

Co-Founder

Facilities, Preventive Maintenance, Safety and Security Coach

Perspective:
Facilities • Maintenance • Security • Physical Environment • Operational Readiness • Safety

Jimmy Thomas is Co-Founder of The ECE Pivot and brings more than 10 years of experience in facilities, safety compliance, and school security across early childhood education centers as well as elementary, middle, and high school environments.

His background brings a practical perspective to one of the most visible and sometimes overlooked parts of program excellence: the physical environment.

Families notice the environment.
Staff notice the environment.
Licensing and regulatory professionals notice the environment.
Children experience the environment every day.

Jimmy's experience includes facility awareness, environment readiness, safety standards, school security practices, maintenance considerations, and the operational follow-through required to keep educational environments safe, functional, and ready to serve.

Within The ECE Pivot, his perspective helps broaden the conversation beyond classrooms and leadership offices to include the spaces, infrastructure, safety systems, and operational conditions that influence the experience of children, families, and staff.

Jimmy helps us see the environment is not decoration. It is safety, compliance, brand, and care in visible form.

Jasmine

VP of Operations

Curriculum, Classroom Excellence, and Teaching Coach

Perspective: Teaching Practice • Curriculum • Classroom & Learning Environments • Program Quality • Educator Development

Jasmine Mitchell brings 10 years of experience across Early Childhood and Elementary Education, with expertise in classroom instruction, curriculum implementation, teacher development, learning environments, and program quality.

She holds both a bachelor's and master's degree in the field of Education and has served as a teacher, center director, and ECE trainer. Her classroom experience spans the full early childhood age continuum, infants, toddlers, two-year-olds, three-year-olds, four-year-olds, and school-age children and later expanded into elementary education, including kindergarten, first grade, and fourth grade.

Her experience in both teaching and center leadership gives her insight into what happens when organizational decisions reach the classroom.

Jasmine understands that program excellence is not built only in an office. It is built in the way educators plan, engage, observe, respond, communicate, design environments, and create meaningful experiences for children.

Within The ECE Pivot, Jasmine brings the educator perspective into the larger conversation. Helping ensure that discussions about leadership, systems, operations, and organizational excellence remain connected to what teachers experience and what children need.

Jasmine strongest lens has always remained that of the educator.

Hannah

VP of Business Performance & Strategy

Business Performance, Labor & Financial Strategy Coach

Perspective: Business Performance • Financial Analysis • Labor Strategy • Enrollment Economics • Profitability • Operational Efficiency • Regulatory Insight

Hannah Baker brings 19 years of experience across Early Childhood Education, Business Operations, Organizational Performance, and Multi-site Leadership, with particular expertise in Labor Analysis, Enrollment, Profitability, Operational Efficiency, and EBITDA.

Her ability to see the story behind the numbers began long before her professional career. Growing up in India, Hannah was drawn to algebra, geometry, and solving complex problems. She developed an early ability to identify patterns, break difficult problems into smaller pieces, and continue working until the answer became clear.

After moving to the United States in 2006, Hannah opened her own child care facility just five months later. The business became profitable quickly, supported by the strong systems, processes, consistency, and accountability she established from the beginning. She later expanded her experience through the management and operation of Early Learning Academies and Multi-site Organizations, working closely with owners and leadership teams to strengthen business performance.

Throughout her career, Hannah has helped organizations reduce labor costs, grow enrollment, improve profit margins, strengthen operational performance, and build more efficient and accountable teams. Her approach goes beyond reviewing a spreadsheet. She examines the systems, processes, people, and operational decisions behind the numbers to better understand what is creating the result.

Within The ECE Pivot, Hannah brings the business performance perspective into the larger conversation. Helping leaders understand what their numbers are revealing, identify financial and operational leaks, connect enrollment and labor to sustainability, and make stronger decisions grounded in both data and the realities of Early Childhood Education.

The numbers tell a story. Hannah helps leaders understand what that story is saying.

THE INVITATION

Let's Make the Next Pivot

Whether you are strengthening a team, examining an organizational challenge, developing leaders, improving classroom practice, preparing your environment, or working through something that simply is not producing the results you need, The ECE Pivot can help you look more deeply at what is happening.

You do not have to arrive with the answer.

Bring the challenge. Bring the questions. Bring what you are seeing.

Together, we can challenge the first answer, look for what may be connected, and determine the next intentional move.