Frances Carlson has a Bachelor’s Degree in English from the University of North Georgia and a Master’s Degree in early childhood education from Concordia University – St. Paul. For twenty years, she worked as the center administrator for childcare programs in Oklahoma, Italy, and in Atlanta, Georgia. She has successfully led four childcare programs through the NAEYC Accreditation of Early Learning Programs process.
From Center Administration, she transitioned to a career as a college instructor at Chattahoochee Technical College in Georgia where she taught Early Childhood Care & Education for fourteen years, six of those years as Lead Instructor for the Department. While serving as Lead Instructor, she successfully led their Associate of Applied Science in ECCE degree through the NAEYC Higher Education Accreditation process, becoming the first nationally accredited Associate Degree in ECE/ECCE in the state of Georgia.
Carlson has been recognized for excellence in teaching by the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD) and by the Lighthouse Institute. She authored the NAEYC books, Essential Touch: Meeting the Needs of Young Children (2006) and Big Body Play (2011), and directed and produced the DVD, Expect Male Involvement: Recruiting & Retaining Men in ECE (2009) and An Afternoon with the Experts: Gartrell on Guidance (2014). She currently serves as an Associate Dean at Chattahoochee Technical College in Marietta, Georgia.
