She has led La Crèche Early Childhood Center since 1997
Forty years of service in a field that one is passionate about is typically a path to excellence. Phyllis Sloan has been an example of this by the impact that she has had on children and families and by bringing a Northside cornerstone in early childhood education back from the brink of closure.
Her interest in child care began in Chicago while attending North Park University studying pre-law. “It just kind of felt…like it [law] wasn’t capturing any passion,” she says. But an off-campus job at an early childhood center did. “I loved it,” she says. “I loved the kids, the planning for the children, watching them discover their first areas of interest [and] connecting with the parents.”
She switched her major to elementary education and English literature with an early childhood sequence. At the time, the school didn’t offer an early education major.
Sloan moved from her birthplace of Des Moines, Iowa when she was five. She claims Minneapolis as her home. “I am a graduate of North Community High School, bicentennial class of ‘76,” she says.
Though the North Side is often cast in a bad light by the media, “From the life experience that I have, it has always been good people, caring people, hard-working people…living the best life that they can.”
She started at La Crèche Early Childhood Center on February 10, 1997, with an already established career. She worked at Northstar as a classroom teacher, at Phyllis Wheatley’s Mary T. Welcome Child Development Center as a director, and as interim executive director at Phyllis Wheatley for a year before going to Minneapolis Way to Grow as associate director.
Sloan says La Crèche is one of the few early childhood cornerstones in North Minneapolis. She credits this to its forward-thinking founder Ruby Hughes, who recognized the need for a space in the community where children could grow and thrive. After the sudden death of the founder, Sloan was charged with reviving the center.
Near the time of Hughes’ death, an infant had been shaken to death, allegedly by a parent’s boyfriend, and a teacher’s child was killed when he stuck his head out of a moving Minneapolis public school bus. “What I and the board were concerned about were the families that left the center because they felt there was a gray cloud over La Crèche,” she says.
Between the two sites, La Crèche had a capacity for 132 children. When Sloan came as executive director, they had approximately 25. She and the board initiated a series of steps to reassure parents, beginning with a call to the community in the form of a letter published in the MSR. “[We were] saying that we’re here, we’re open. This space is for the children within our community. We love you, [and] we want you to return.”
Community leaders devastated by Hughes’ sudden death were allowed a chance to grieve and heal. “So, people like Elder Atum [Azzahir] and Cora McCorvey, [we] let them privately come through the space and deal with their own grief issues as well as to bless the space for the children.”
They went to Councilmember Jackie Cherryholmes asking if they could rename the frontage road that La Crèche sits on for Hughes. Community leaders in child care like Ella Mahmoud, Sharon Henry-Blythe, Sloan, and others looked to Hughes for guidance, many coming to the early childhood field through connections with Hughes.
Though renaming the street wasn’t something Hughes would have asked for, “This is more about…acknowledging within the community that we have elders who have gone on to be ancestors of ours who did a great job, and we’re standing on their shoulders,” Sloan says. “Many of the institutions that may still exist within our community are because of their hard strategic work.”
It took a law to create Ruby Hughes Boulevard because frontage roads are state alleys, not city streets. Hughes’ family was able to return for the renaming ceremony.
Currently, Sloan is on boards of directors in the community gathering or sharing information helpful to children and families. She tries to identify resources to support families through trying times. She has gone to court with parents and ensured that children get resources like screening and assessment, eyeglasses, or developmental support.
As a result of her work, she has adults who attended La Crèche as children now returning with their own children, but she doesn’t feel that she needs recognition. “I’ve got some really hardworking, talented, committed teaching staff,” she says. “Certainly, the schools get recognized, but early childhood often doesn’t,” she says.
With the current workforce, it is hard to find the right people, especially considering that COVID hit the childcare field harder than most. “It would be great to retire from this field knowing that it’s so much better than when I came into the field, but we still have so much work to do.”
It is essential to acknowledge how important early childhood teachers are to the fabric of the community by offering professional development opportunities with wages and benefits that adequately compensate them for the work they do. Also, “giving classroom teachers their credit, their kudos, for knowing the children, learning them the way that someone needs to in order to know if everything is alright,” Sloan says.
“The family can feel as though the beauty of their child is going to shine, perhaps even if they had not had the best educational experience themselves.”
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