Bobby Cagle had been commissioner of the state Department of Early Care and Learning about two months when Gov. Nathan Deal declared major changes had to be made to ensure the long-term survival of Georgia’s pre-kindergarten program.
Deal recommended the popular lottery-funded program, which serves 84,000 4-year-olds, go from full time to part time. Child advocates and providers looked to Cagle to help broker an alternative.
“He had to be a very fast learner, and he was,” said Susan Adams, assistant commissioner for the state’s pre-k.
Cagle’s appointment had been met with some skepticism. DECAL had only been around since 2004, and Cagle was already its third commissioner. Also, Cagle’s background was in child welfare, not child care or early childhood learning.
“I think he really had to prove to people in the early childhood advocate community that he was going to embrace all their values,” said Pat Willis, executive director of the advocacy group Voices for Georgia’s Children.
Deal ultimately wound up doing an about-face on pre-k. The program still took a major hit, but instead of being reduced to half-days, there were 20 fewer days in the pre-k school year that just ended.
Still, pre-k teachers fled in record numbers. This year, with little fanfare, Deal and lawmakers restored 10 of the 20 days.
Before being tapped by Deal for his current job, Cagle, a native of North Carolina, worked largely in probation and social services. But as Capitol lobbyist at the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services, he gained recognition for turning around a sour relationship between DFACS and child advocates with his inclusive style.
Cagle, 44, said he was surprised when the governor asked him to run the Department of Early Care and Learning, with oversight of pre-k, Head Start, the summer nutrition program and roughly 10,000 day care centers.
“My career ambition has always been to lead a state agency that serves family and children,” he said. “So my first thought was, this is wonderful, this is what I worked for many years,” Cagle said.
As commissioner, Cagle has had to defend the agency’s response to quality and safety concerns, the majority of which did not occur on his watch. They include a series of investigative reports by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution documenting 57 cases over five years in which day care workers left children in vacant cars and showing that nearly 2,500 day care programs failed to meet the state’s standards for children’s health and safety at least once in the past four years.
Mathew Nasrallah, a Marietta attorney specializing in day care abuse and neglect cases, said the agency seems to do a relatively thorough job in its twice-yearly announced day care center visits. Where it falls down, Nasrallah said, is in its follow-up and enforcement.
Cagle said centers that are noncomplaint for more than two consecutive years have been put on notice the agency’s previous approach is changing.
“I just felt it was fair to the providers since they had been led to believe they could go noncompliant just the way the system has operated,” he said. “I put them on notice it’s a new day.”
He’s also used a new state law at least four times to close day care centers on an emergency basis, including after a child’s death.
Cagle promises that by summer 2013, parents will be able to access a rating system to determine whether a day care center meets standards that go beyond the minimum requirements for licensing.
Some question how effective the ratings will be since participation will be voluntary. But Cagle said day care providers will have financial incentives to sign up, as well as public pressure.
He’s gotten commitments of $2 million from private donors for the program.
Carolyn Salvador, executive director of the Georgia Child Care Association, said Cagle won over advocates early in his administration when he asked for a lunch with them.
“He said, ‘I really like to involve stakeholders and have a variety of voices.’ And he’s been true to his word,” Salvador said. “We might not always see eye to eye, but he’s been very responsive. And that’s been a real 180.”
Like many of the children he encountered as a social worker, Cagle never knew his birth parents. He spent 10 months in an orphanage before being adopted by Bobby Cagle Jr. and Lois Jenkins Cagle.
The Cagles still talk lovingly of the boy they raised in tiny Robbinsville, N.C., where Lois Cagle worked for 25 years with an agency that provided services for low-income families and Bobby Cagle Jr., now retired, is mayor.
“He never once gave us any trouble,” Cagle’s dad said.
Both parents are quick to rattle off his accomplishments — high school athlete and valedictorian and winner of trophies still on display at their home.
Cagle’s mother finished eighth grade, and his father 11th grade. But the expectation set by his mother was that he’d go to college and get his master’s degree.
His mother, he said, also instilled in him a desire to give back.
In meetings with child advocates, Cagle sometimes talks about starting out in an orphanage and his good fortune at having been raised by the Cagles.
“I don’t think he says it to curry any kind of special favor or sympathy,” advocate Willis said, but rather “to say this stuff is really in his blood.”
--------------------
Agency at a glance
The Department of Early Care and Learning is responsible for:
● Administering Georgia’s pre-k program
● Licensing and monitoring child care facilities (about 10,000)
● Overseeing the federal Child and Adult Care Food Program and Summer Food Service Program
● Housing the Head Start State Collaboration Office
● Funding and partnering with resource and referral agencies that provide services to child care providers at the local level
● Administering the federal Child Care Development Block Grant (effective July 2012)
● Providing technical help, training and support to those who care for children with special needs
● Collaborating with Head Start, Family Connection, the Department of Human Resources Family and Children Services, the Division of Public Health and Smart Start Georgia to blend federal, state and private money to enhance early care and education
--------------------
THE BOBBY D. CAGLE FILE
● Title: Commissioner of Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning
● Appointed by: Gov. Nathan Deal in January 2011
● Responsibilities: Oversight of a $513 million annual budget and programs focusing on licensing, nutrition, quality and pre-k
● Background: Director of legislative and external affairs for the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services; DFACS family services director; deputy director of youth and family services, Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services, Charlotte; director, Graham County Department of Social Services, Robbinsville, N.C.; judicial district manager, North Carolina Department of Correction; social worker; probation officer.
● Education: Bachelor of arts in political science and sociology and master of social work, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
● Other service: Member of the Board of Advisors, Barton Child Law and Policy Center, Emory University School of Law; member, Board of Advisors for UNC-Chapel Hill, Graduate School of Social Work; former co-chair, North Carolina Daycare Committee, North Georgia Association of County Directors of Social Services; founding member, HAVEN Child Advocacy Center.
● Honors: 2010 Higher Directions Award, Georgia EmpowerMEnt; 1997 North Carolina probation/parole officer of the year.
● Personal: 44 and single
About the Author
