About Sally
Sally Skelding has been molding the minds of both young adults and children for more than 30 years. Sally’s long career started in Youngstown, Ohio, where she was the Director of the Youngstown Civic Children's Theatre. During those years, she and her students entertained children with puppetry and children's theatre performances. In time, she returned to her roots and moved to the West Coast with her husband.
After moving to Portland in the late 60's, Sally continued her involvement in the world of children's theatre: she taught an acting class and directed a play for the Civic Theatre Children's Theatre Program, and started a production company called “Puppet Playhouse”. She also taught puppetry classes for young children at the Friendly House Community Center. Within a few years after moving to Portland, she and her husband had a son. In the mid 70’s Sally agreed to fill in for a departing preschool teacher at Linton Community Center and thus began a second career. There she got her feet wet running a small school with a limited budget, and also teaching young children between the ages of 3 and 5, while holding the hands of caring parents.
In the mid 1970's, Sally was hired to be the Teacher/Director of Mock’s Crest Cooperative Preschool in North Portland. The school was located in the basement of a church, teaching children from the ages of 3 to 5 in 3 rooms. For several years, she taught at Mock's Crest and touched the lives of many children and their families. Simultaneously she began teaching young adults enrolled in the Early Childhood program at Mt. Hood Community College. She held this part-time position for 13 years.
In the late 1980's Sally was offered a chance to move to a new school and become the Director of Marylhurst Early Childhood Center. There, in a school of more than 100 students, Sally earned responsibilities in fund raising, management, and supervision and direction of the teaching staff. One of her life-long dreams could finally be fulfilled, and she enjoyed her time there.
The calling to move to a new experience came in the early 1990's. Sally went from directing a preschool in a Portland suburb to once again sharing her ideas and experience with other teachers, young adults and parents. Following the death of her husband, she took a position as an Early Childhood Specialist for Region X (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska). This position placed her at Portland State University as part of the Early Childhood Training Center.
After a few years as an Early Childhood Specialist for Region X, Sally worked with Head Start to become an Early Childhood Coordinator for Region X's disability program; Head Start’s Course Access Project. Sally’s positon with the Head Start community allowed her to travel back and forth between Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska for several years. This gave her the opportunity to experience many different people and cultures, embracing memorable experiences like dog-sledding, and bush pilot excursions over caribou. Sally does not regret all the air miles, airport, motels, hotels and room service dinners; happy to get the opportunity to develop her skills, she prepared presentations and engaged in conversations and debates with others over the many important issues facing early childhood.
When the opportunity presented itself for her to once again become an Instructor of Early Childhood Education at Mt. Hood Community College, she took it. Travel had been wonderful; now was the time to develop other skills and participate in theatre activities with the North End Players. Currently Sally is a retired faculty member at Mt. Hood Community College, in the Department of Early Childhood Education.
Sally’s other accomplishments include:
- Sally was co-creator of Conference Childcare, providing high quality childcare for conferences and public events in the Portland area.
- Sally also was a creative force behind The Early Childhood Speaker’s Bureau.
- She has written many articles for print, and created and published her own book on puppetry called ”Tell It With Puppets”.
- As a member of the task force for Early Worlds, a Child Care Commission activity, she wrote a second version of “Read Aloud Ideas” for their fusion workshops.
- Today sally is a member of many nationally-recognized organizations whose main goals are to create the very best child care environments for the young children of America. As an advisor to Parent Child Preschools of Oregon, she continues to be involved in helping couples and individuals parent effectively.
- Sally’s personal life takes her in many directions as well, as she manages a local community theatre group called “The North End Players” and is an active member of the local chapter of the International Beatrix Potter Society.