Erin Amador has been selected as Mehlville School District’s new Director of Early Childhood. She replaces Tiffany Schwaegel, who will take the role of the district’s assistant superintendent of student services. Both Schwaegel and Amador will start their new positions on July 1 as they head into the 2026-2027 school year.

“I’ll be able to step in on July 1 and learn, but I’m also ready to hit the ground running,” Amador said. “We’ve laid a really great foundation, and we have some really positive momentum.”

Amador is no stranger to Mehlville. For the past five years, she has served as the district’s Parents as Teachers and Early Childhood Coordinator, working as “second-in-command” under Schwaegel for three years. She says she’s been able to watch the behind-the-scenes, logistical components of the position. Before that, Amador spent seven years as an early childhood special education teacher at the district’s John Cary Early Childhood Center. 

As she prepares for her new role, Amador is pulling on those past experiences. She says that her time as a classroom teacher gave her experience with the in-school setting and curriculum, but her most recent coordinating experience has taught her about family support and involvement.

“In the Parents as Teachers role, I get to see both sides of a student,” Amador said. “I’ve seen the school-based side, when they’re in the classroom, but in Parents as Teachers, you’re inside their home. You’re really trusting parents to be the expert on their child.”

She added, “Getting to see the home side of what early childhood is has allowed me to understand what it looks like in school, and to have that bridge, that home life and what families are going through in our community.”

Increasing access to early childhood education is one of Amador’s main goals, she says. Amador did not get an early childhood education when she was young due to her family’s own resource restraints, and she says she could see the difference in her peers who had access to that education.

“For me, it became a passion early on because you can see students start so much stronger in kindergarten and in life when they have (an early childhood education),” Amador said. “Ninety percent of brain development is before five years old, so it’s our window to have the biggest influence on our population.”

In order to increase access within the district, Amador hopes to utilize her background in grant writing and licensure as Mehlville’s early childhood education program receives funding through a grant from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Amador will be working with that grant, as well as looking at the effects of Bierbaum Elementary School’s new full-day programming approach, to see how to draw more students into early childhood. 

But Amador knows that increasing access to early childhood education isn’t just about the money — she says each home, and each family, may need different resources or support.

“What would it look like to have all the students in Mehlville get access to early childhood (education)?” she said. “Having a lens of what home looks like helps me think through that differently.”