Allyx Schiavone

As the CEO of Friends Center for Children, Allyx Schiavone is the driving force behind Friends Center’s rapid growth and innovation. Under her leadership since 2009, Friends Center for Children has grown from a single-site program into a multi-campus organization serving children and families across New Haven. Through this growth, Friends Center has become a model for what is possible in transforming an underfunded and overburdened early childhood education system.

Allyx is a passionate advocate for access and equity in early care and education, with a strong focus on educator well-being and innovative strategies that increase compensation and stability for the early childhood workforce.

To address the childcare crisis, Allyx has spearheaded the development of initiatives at Friends Center that serve as a model to the early care and education industry nationwide. Under her leadership, the organization has established programs to supplement teacher salaries and provide holistic support to staff, parents, and children. In 2014, Friends Center launched the Emotional Well-being Program which prioritizes the wellbeing of the adults caring for the community’s children, and ensuring the program’s young students are positioned for social-emotional as well as educational success.

In 2020, Allyx launched Friends Center’s innovative rent-free Teacher Housing Initiative, a first-of-its-kind program that addresses one of teachers’ highest expenses: housing. The program has been featured by The New York Times, CBS Mornings, Univision and outlets across Connecticut, and is being replicated through programs in development in Michigan, Missouri, Georgia and Massachusetts.

As an expert in early childhood development and elementary education, Allyx is an experienced author of curricula for preschool, elementary and high school students with an emphasis on multidisciplinary studies. She has served as a teacher and administrator in Connecticut and New York schools.

A third-generation New Haven native, Allyx has 25 years of experience in mixed-use commercial and residential development and management. She has founded six successful businesses and four nonprofit entities, including two summer programs for children in New York.

Allyx serves as chair of Child Care for CT, a non-partisan coalition representing parents, care and education providers, advocates, community leaders and business leaders working collaboratively to advance accessible, affordable, high-quality care for every family in Connecticut. In 2020, she helped launch the now annual Morning Without Child Care across the state, which inspired an annual national Day Without Child Care. In 2025, following the historic passage of Connecticut’s Early Childhood Education Endowment Fund, Allyx was appointed to the Early Childhood Education Endowment Advisory Board. The Fund was established through the leadership of Child Care for CT and the Friends Center, who for years have championed greater investment in Connecticut’s early care and education system.

In 2026, Allyx and Friends Center were awarded the Albertus Magnus St. Dominic Medal as well as the Leviticus Cornerstone award and in 2025, she was named Connecticut’s 2025 Remarkable Woman of the Year, via local affiliate WTNH. Under Allyx’s leadership, Friends Center for Children was recognized with the 2025 Sunspot Innovation Award from the New Haven Chamber of Commerce and 2024 Yale University Seton Elm-Ivy Award. Allyx serves as a member of the Ideal Learning Roundtable, a group of early childhood education experts who work collectively toward equitable expansion of high-quality early learning opportunities for underserved young children, families, and communities; the mayoral-appointed New Haven Early Childhood Council; and the External Stakeholders Steering Committee for the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood (OEC), to which she was appointed by former OEC Commissioner Beth Bye. She is a recipient of the Bank Street College of Education Alumni Association Recognition Award, presented annually to Bank Street graduates honoring outstanding career accomplishments in the field of education that exemplify the spirit and philosophy of Bank Street College; the Southern Black Nurses Association Community Service Award; the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce’s Nonprofit Stars Align Award; the Amity Club Distinguished Italian-American Lifetime Achievement Award; Exchange Magazine’s Master Leader award; the NewAlliance Foundation’s Kim A. Healey Leadership Award; the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence’s Marvin Maurer Spotlight Award; and the Community Champion Award at the 2025 Connecticut Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Day at the Capitol.

Allyx is a member of the National Association for the Education of Young Children and is a former board member of Connecticut Voices for Children; appointee to the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Reading; leader of the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund Community Leadership Program; and co-founder of the Quinnipiac River Community Group. She holds dual Master’s degrees from Bank Street College of Education in Early Childhood Development and Elementary Education and a Bachelor’s degree from Union College.

Allyx is the mother of two amazing adult children and lives in New Haven with her partner and their dog, Tuck.