Dr. Diane Neighbors welcomes conference participants to the third annual Early Childhood Summit: Building Early Learning Foundations Together on Thursday morning. More than 700 stakeholders in the state's pre-K initiative convened at the Sheraton Music City for the two-day conference.

The third annual Early Childhood Summit provided wonderful opportunities for networking with pre-K stakeholders from across the state.

Conference attendees discuss pre-K curricula.

Summit participants peruse the curriculum fair. The fair featured 23 different vendors, all exhibiting pre-K curricula aligned with Tennessee Early Learning Standards.

Janet Coscarelli, director, of Tennessee's Head Start State Collaboration Office, models a plastic construction hat given to all participants at check-in. The hats tied in to the Summit's "Building Early Learning Foundations Together" theme.

Dr. Sam Meisels, president of the Erikson Institute, Graduate School in Child Development, spoke to conference attendees about the complexity and importance of assessing early childhood readiness. Additional keynote speakers included Dr. Matthew Murray, professor of economics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Dr. Mary Louise Hemmeter, associate professor of special education at Vanderbilt University; and David L. Kirp, professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley.

David L. Kirp, public policy professor and author of Sand Box Investment: The Preschool Movement and Kids-First Politics, spoke with Melissa Penry, a reporter at local Nashville TV station WKRN, during Thursday's luncheon. During the interview-style presentation, Kirp described how he became interested in the preschool movement and his hopes and dreams for the future of pre-K.

Summit participants line up at Davis-Kidd's booth to purchase David Kirp's best seller. Kirp autographed copies of the book following his luncheon presentation.