Celebrating early childhood education across our community!

Honoring Our Early Childhood Champions
The annual awards ceremony honors our community’s early childhood educators and legislative champions, highlights their important work, and encourages community engagement in early childhood education. For questions, please contact CORE Network at corenetwork@unitedwaygn.org.

CORE Network believes that early childhood educators should be celebrated and honored in every early education setting where they work to support young children and their families. Help CORE celebrate our community’s early childhood educators in 2026 by honoring a teacher at your site for the Early Childhood Educator of the Year (for educators with 4+ years of experience) and/or the Beginning Beacon Early Educator of the Year (for educators with 1–3 years of experience).

All schools licensed by TDHS or TDOE that serve children from birth to age 5 are eligible to participate—this includes public, private, for-profit, non-profit, center-based, and home-based programs. The reporting timeline for submissions is January 15 – March 2, 2026. Honored teachers will receive a certificate of achievement celebrating their impact and dedication. They will also be recognized, along with their schools, in a press release and on the United Way of Greater Nashville website.

Join us in shining a spotlight on the incredible educators shaping the future of our youngest learners!

Thank you to PNC for generously supporting the 2025 Ignite! Awards and Ignite! Early Childhood Education Conference. Their commitment to early childhood education inspires great futures for children.