Tracy's Story
Tracy Ehlert is an award-winning Early Childhood Educator and Advocate. She owns and operates B2K Learning Center & Consulting. For 13 years, B2K Learning Center operated as a State Registered Child Development Home that had earned NAFCC Accreditation and a 5 out of 5 on the States Quality Rating System (QRS), while also offering coaching, mentoring, training, and consulting services on early care and education topics at a local, state, and national level. In 2020 after Covid and the Derecho Tracy closed the childcare portion of the program (but continued all other services).
Along with being a business owner, Tracy is a Continuing Education Instructor and a State Legislator for Iowa House District 79 (formally House District 70). She works in the Cedar Rapids Community School District and is also a tutor for the Kids on Course program ran by the Zach Johnson Foundation. She sits on a variety of early ed committees some of which include the Iowa AEYC Early Childhood Workforce Advisory Committee which she is the chair of, the State Child Care Advisory Committee, and is a Council Member for the National T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® Alliance.
Tracy's formal education background is in Business, Child Development, and Early Childhood Education, with her graduate level work being focused in Teaching & Diversity. Some of the honors she has received include receiving a 2022 Tribute to be featured in the 2022 Iowa Women's Foundation Ovation Publication, a 2022 AAU Women's Wrestling Women's Empowerment Award, in 2020 she was awarded the Friend of Afterschool award by the Iowa Afterschool Alliance, in 2019 she was named a Changemaker for Children by Save the Children, 2018 Exchange Leader by Exchange Magazine, received a 2018 Leading for Change Innovative Idea Award, was a recipient the 2018 Chris Carman Friend of Children Award, a 2015 Terri Lynne Lokoff/Children's Tylenol National Child Care Teacher Award winner, was named December 2015 Provider of the Month by Child Care Aware of America and was one of three 2016 Michelle Obama Let's Move Initiative Child Care Innovator Award Winners.
Along with early childhood education, Tracy's other passions include volunteering in the community, social justice, animals (she has three rescue dogs) and spending time with her family which includes her husband Justin and sons Bryce and Daythan.
As our Democratic state representative, Tracy will continue to advocate for children and working families.