About Maria Estela Edward

An early childhood education trainer and speech pathologist based in Florida, Maria Estella Edward has dedicated her career to assisting children with special needs. Possessing over two decades of experience in the field, Ms. Edward oversees Mee Professional Development Corp. in Lake Worth, which she founded in 2007. Additionally, she maintains a commitment to continuous improvement based on the belief that education facilitates life-long success, a philosophy that she also applies to her work as an early education trainer and observer.

Most of her professional pursuits involve training ECE instructors and personnel, as well as ensuring the quality of the programs. Since 2008, she has taught childcare training courses for the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) as an ECE professor at Palm Beach State College, and she participates in various ECE-related standardization projects as a Pearson examiner. A Child Development Associate (CDA), she also serves as a CDA Professional Development Specialist with the Council for Professional Recognition and conducts evaluations of CDA-credentials candidates. Previously, she was the director of the Ismaelillo Learning Center in West Palm Beach for 10 years. In addition, Ms. Edward served as a professor at East Central University in the Dominican Republic, where she taught a postgraduate course on speech therapy. She possesses a master of science in speech and language pathology and audiology from Enrique Jose Varona Higher Pedagogy Institute in Cuba.

Committed to professional growth, Ms. Edward has engaged in professional-development programs and acquired certifications beyond the CDA. For instance, she has been an Infant and Toddler Development Specialist since 2005, at which time she also obtained her Advanced Childcare Director Credential from the DCF. In 2019, she became a CDA Gold Standard Specialist and completed Training Source One’s Train-the-Trainer Program a year later. In addition to these designations, Ms. Edward belongs to the Early Childhood Registry of Palm Beach County. She also attends the annual conference of the Council for Professional Recognition.