Eva C. Phillips is an Early Learning Consultant with 40 years working with and supporting those that work with young children. In 2017, Dr. Phillips retired from the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School System in Winston-Salem, NC where she served as the Program Manager for Ready Schools.  Her role was to provide support, resources and professional development for the school district’s prekindergarten and kindergarten teachers, elementary school administrators and central office staff as they worked to establish schools and classrooms that are more “ready” for the children and families who walk through their doors each year. 

 

Prior to this role, she was an Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator for the Birth through Kindergarten Education Program at Winston-Salem State University.  Previous to that, she was the state-level Education Consultant in the Office of Early Learning at the NC Department of Public Instruction serving for 8 years as Title 1 Preschool and Kindergarten consultant.  In both of those roles, she worked hard to be the voice of young children in various arenas within and outside of the University setting and the state education agency.  One of the most rewarding aspects of her role as consultant was the opportunity to connect with and provide professional development for teachers and administrators working in Prekindergarten through Grade 3 across the state.

 

Before joining the NC Department of Public Instruction, she was a kindergarten teacher leader in Johnston County, NC for 18 years after spending her first year teaching in Lenoir County, NC.  Her life’s work has been focused on providing and helping others to provide effective and developmentally appropriate experiences for young children and their families.

 

Along with serving on numerous national, state and local task forces and committees in the early childhood education field, she also served as the President of the NC Association for the Education of Young Children from 2009 - 2013. In addition, she has enjoyed her recent opportunities to provide professional development for teachers and administrators across the nation who are implementing full-day kindergartens in their states. She also is energized by the time she has spent with PreK and Kindergarten teachers across the state as they navigate the world of early childhood education in these changing times.

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Dr. Phillips is the co-author of the NAEYC Basics of Developmentally Appropriate Practice: An Introduction for Teachers of Kindergartners and has contributed to the development of numerous state level documents, including NC Foundations for Early Learning and Development, The NC Guide for the Early Years, Transition Planning for the 21st  Century, Resource Manual for Administrators and Principals Supervising and Evaluating Teachers of Young Children, The Power of Play in Kindergarten, and the Power of K state position paper on high quality kindergarten programs in North Carolina. She is also the co-creator and co-facilitator of the Power of K Teacher Leader Initiative, a highly successful 4 year state level professional development initiative designed to develop a cadre of kindergarten teacher leaders within the state. She also implemented a successful local Power of K teacher leader initiative within the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School district. 

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Dr. Phillips received her bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education from Appalachian State University, her Master’s degree in Elementary Education from East Carolina University and her Doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.