UC Berkeley

Unlike the more standardized K–12 system, the early childhood education (ECE) workforce is highly diverse and reflective of the children it serves (Carver-Thomas et al., 2022), yet systemic inequities and inadequate supports continue to compromise the well-being of ECE educators. This study investigates how early childhood education (ECE) leaders in California's Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK) system conceptualize program quality and implement teacher recruitment and retention practices from their definition of quality across family child care (FCC), Head Start (HS), and transitional kindergarten (TK) settings. Guided by the Inclusive Educational Leadership Framework (Young & Arnold, 2020), this embedded multiple-case study examines six positive outlier sites in the San Francisco Bay Area. Data sources comprise semi-structured interviews with six leaders and six teachers who self-identify as teachers of color, demographic surveys, and analytical memos.Findings show that leaders articulated a shared, holistic vision of quality shaped by their own experiences navigating access and affordability challenges for their children. Across contexts, leaders positioned themselves as creators of quality within systemic gaps, enacting motherhood-informed and culturally responsive leadership. Teacher quality emerged as a central indicator of program quality, while recruitment practices were tailored to each setting’s relational, cultural, and organizational needs. Retention strategies emphasized collaboration, teacher voice, and dignity-centered support for the ECE workforce. Findings suggest that equitable UPK quality depends on culturally grounded leadership and system-level policies that position teacher well-being and relational practice as foundational to program excellence.