I have been thinking about Barbara Haxton a great deal lately, and not only because the grief is still fresh. I have been thinking about her because of the moment we are in - because the policy environment surrounding Head Start is uncertain in ways we have not experienced before, and because when I look at how Ohio’s Head Start community is responding to that uncertainty, I see her everywhere. I see her in the relationships she cultivated across decades, in the organizational infrastructure she built so carefully, in the standard she set for how this work is supposed to be done. Barb is not here to navigate this moment with us, but she prepared us for it.What Barb built is exactly what Ohio’s Head Start community needs in this particular moment, because the relationships and the trust and the sense of shared purpose she spent decades cultivating are precisely the kind of foundation that allows programs to face real uncertainty without facing it alone, and as I step further into this role I find myself leaning on that foundation constantly, drawing on relationships she built with state and federal partners long before I ever sat in this chair, and striving every day to be worthy of what she left in my hands.
The June Leadership and Professional Development Conference gave us the opportunity to honor her publicly, and to carry her forward in a way I trust she would appreciate.
The tribute to Barb at Thursday’s luncheon was something I considered carefully. I wanted to honor what she built, and I wanted the people in that room who loved her to feel seen alongside the people who only knew her by reputation. Barb was many things to many people - a mentor, a strategist, an advocate, a presence - and any tribute worthy of her had to make room for that fullness.
Hearing Haxton Leadership Award recipients Christine Malloy, Peg Tazewell, and Stefanie Drew speak about Barb in their own words was exactly the right choice. Their reflections were specific, warm, and true to who she actually was, and they served as testimony from people who worked alongside her and were shaped by her. I am grateful to each of them for the care they brought to that moment.
I have worked at OHSAI for thirty years - for twenty-five of those years I worked beside Barb. She modeled for me, and for so many others, what it looks like to lead a statewide association masterfully, with genuine care for the programs and people it represents, and with a kind of patient persistence that never mistakes urgency for impatience. She had a gift for seeing what mattered most in a complicated situation and for holding the long view even when the short view was pressing. I carry her with me in this work every day, and I always will. I try to lead with that same instinct now, especially in the moments when the easier choice would be to react to whatever is loudest rather than hold the longer view she taught me to protect.When Office of Head Start Director Lizbeth Casco White visited Cincinnati program sites and met with the Ohio Department of Children and Youth on Monday, and then engaged with Head Start Directors at the conference on Tuesday, I thought about how much Barb valued exactly that kind of direct federal relationship - the kind built on genuine presence and genuine listening. She understood that the relationships between programs and federal leadership were part of the infrastructure of Head Start, and she tended to them accordingly. Watching that relationship unfold in real time strengthened my own resolve to keep building those federal connections with the same intention she did, because the work of being known and trusted by the people who set this field’s direction is never-ending.
When the parents gathered to speak with Director White on Tuesday - sharing their gratitude, their worry, and their fierce clarity about what Head Start has meant to their families - I thought about how Barb always insisted that parent voice be centered, not as a programmatic requirement but as a genuine expression of who Head Start exists to serve.
And when I looked out at the participants - staff who carry the weight of multiple systems and multiple needs every day, showing up anyway, bringing their honest experience into every session - I thought about the years Barb spent building a professional development infrastructure in Ohio that took those people seriously, that treated their growth as something the field owed them.
The policy environment is not getting simpler. The people who attended this conference know that, and they are navigating it with a kind of determination that I find both humbling and sustaining. OHSAI’s role is to be the connective tissue for this community: to make sure programs aren’t facing federal uncertainty alone, to bring the right people into relationship with each other, to surface the work being done in Ohio classrooms and homes, and to make sure it is seen by the people with the authority to protect it.
I am fortunate to see this work from a vantage point most people in the field do not get to occupy, engaging in state, regional, and national conversations, and speaking with directors who are wrestling with uncertainties. What I am seeing right now is a field that is more strained than it has been in years, yet more resourceful, with directors finding creative ways to hold their programs together even as the ground keeps shifting beneath them. That combination of strain and resourcefulness is exactly why the connective work Barb built into this organization matters now more than ever.
That is the work Barb gave her career to, and it is the work I am committed to continuing. For me, that means showing up in the rooms where decisions about this field are being made, telling Ohio’s story with the specificity it deserves, and making sure no director feels like they are navigating this moment alone.
I am grateful for the staff who made this conference happen, for the presenters who gave so much of themselves, and for every participant who showed up fully. And I am grateful, still, for Barb - for what she built, for what she modeled, and for the twenty-five years she let me learn alongside her.
The challenges ahead are real - I won’t pretend otherwise - but the conference left me with a clear sense of just how much commitment, resilience and quiet persistence exists in Ohio’s Head Start community right now, and that strength gives me real confidence that whatever comes next in this policy environment, we will face it the way Barb taught us to, together, with our eyes open and our resolve steady.