Staff

Dr. Ashley Williams returns to Brooklyn Kindergarten Society as its Executive Director. She is passionate about providing opportunity and access to young children and their families. Her educational philosophy resonates deeply with Brooklyn Kindergarten Society’s mission – to nurture young learners and diligently work in partnership with families to ensure children reach their highest potential. 

Growing up in the inner city of Atlanta, Dr. Williams became keenly aware in high school of the educational and economic disparities impacting many black and brown communities. That realization influenced her decision to join Teach For America, where she started her career in education as a founding 5th grade teacher at a charter school in Coney Island. Over the last 15 years, Dr. Williams has worked in varying teaching and leadership capacities across K-12 charter, independent, and early childhood settings. From 2020-2023, she served as Brooklyn Kindergarten Society’s Deputy Director of Family and Community Engagement, where she managed the Family Services team across all seven centers, oversaw student enrollment processes, and worked closely with all enrichment and health consultants to best support BKS’ children and families. Most recently, Dr. Williams was a Senior Director for a global strategic fundraising consulting firm, where she helped nonprofits organize and launch multi-million dollar campaigns. 

Dr. Williams received her Bachelor of Social Work from the University of Georgia. She also holds a Master of Special Education from Hunter College and a Doctorate of Education, with a focus in Leadership and Learning in Organizations, from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University.

In her free time, Dr. Williams enjoys spending time with her family and friends, reading, traveling, and partaking in a delicious NYC brunch! She is excited to be back at BKS and looks forward to helping the organization truly fulfill its mission.

Crystal Owens is a native of Boston, MA who recently moved to Queens Village, NY from Camp Springs, MD a few miles outside of Washington, DC. She holds a Bachelors of Arts degree in Economics from University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Masters of Healthcare Administration from Suffolk University. Although new to Early Childhood Administration, she considers herself a veteran in the fundamentals of Business Administration, Operations, and Management. To add to her skills, she is currently pursuing her SHRM designation.

Crystal’s work experience comes from some of the nations top healthcare organizations such as Massachusetts General Hospital, Medstar Health, and London’s National Health Service. She served as the Chair of the Cultural Competence in Healthcare Committee for four years. In her capacity as Chair she ensured that healthcare staff were competent in providing care to patients with diverse values, beliefs, and behaviors, including tailoring of health care delivery to meet patients’ social, cultural, and linguistic needs. She is also a member of Delta Sigma Theta Incorporated in which she has served in several leadership roles, dedicated to providing assistance and support through established programs in communities throughout the world.

Outside of work she is an entrepreneur – a self taught baker & cake artist. She enjoys her time in the kitchen allowing her creative juices to flow by creating her own dishes, tweaking well known recipes, and stepping outside the box to create different cuisines. Give her ingredients and she will mash, blend, boil, roast, slice, and dice you a five star meal. She is also a wanderlust who loves to travel and enjoy time with her family and friends. Crystal currently lives in Queens Village with her fiance, a New York native who she met in Bali, Indonesia as a result of her travels. They welcomed their baby boy in July of 2022.

Crystal looks forward to serving and supporting our children, their families, as well as our BKS staff, for continued success and growth of The Brooklyn Kindergarten Society.

Elena Jaffe obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education and Educational Psychology in 1986 and a Master’s in Educational Psychology in 1995 in the Ukraine. There, she worked as an Educational Director for seven years and Child Psychologist for three years in daycare programs.

Ms. Jaffe migrated to the United States about twenty years ago. She has worked as an Educational Director for four years at St. Andrew’s Community Day Care Center, affiliated with Lutheran Medical Center. She was employed by Brooklyn Kindergarten Society in 2007 as the director of the Sumner Children’s Center. During that time (2007-2014) that site was NAEYC accredited in 2009 and re-accredited in 2014. She also worked as an Educational Director at Nat Azarow Children’s Center from 2016-2018.

Colleen O’ Neill is excited to join the team at BKS. She has been a pediatric occupational therapist for the past 8 years working in Brooklyn, NY. Colleen has worked in many settings including an outpatient sensory gym, schools, homes, and in the community. She specializes in the areas of self-regulation/sensory processing, emotional regulation and management, educating parents and teachers on how to best support children in all environments, behavioral management, fine motor/writing skills, self-advocacy, feeding therapy, gross motor coordination skills/postural stability, and visual processing.

Helen Kogan holds a Master’s degree in Human Resources Management from Touro Graduate School of Business and a SHRM-CP certificate. She has a wealth of experience (over 10 years) working in the HR departments of non-profit organizations in the fields of social services and education. She is a subject matter expert on Recruiting, Total Rewards, Compliance and other HR related areas.

Helen lives with her young daughter, husband, and their cat. She is a huge animal lover and enjoys traveling and the ocean. As someone who has lived in Brooklyn for more than a decade, Helen wants to make a difference in the lives of Brooklyners.

Marcia Thompson has been an Early Childhood Educator for more than 27 years. She taught preschool for almost 10 years and for the past 17 years, Ms. Thompson has worked as a Center Director. Marcia received most of her Early Childhood Education training at City College and gained certification as a Teacher and School Administrator.

Through the years, she has worked on a number of projects with other Early Childhood agencies such as Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, Professional Development Institute and the National Association for the Education of Young Children.