Opening safely should be a top priority
While public school educators and school systems are still debating how to safely return (or not) to classrooms, early education programs were allowed to open in July, and if subsidized by the commonwealth were required to open by the end of July to be eligible for continued payment to care for and educate the state’s most at risk, low income children. This allows working parents who have no option of remote work to continue to provide for their families and support our local economy.
On July 8, Community Teamwork opened our doors and safely phased in up to 50% of our previous enrollment by the end of July. This past Friday we were informed by the Department of Early Education and Care that we could increase our classroom group size to 100% capacity, from 10 to 20 children. We have seen no data or public health information which supports this increase.
With the benefit of only one month of reopening data, flu season on the way, and a projected spike sometime in the fall of Covid-19 virus cases, we feel this is premature and dangerous to our staff, children and their families — especially as schools are determining in some cities that even 25% of enrollment is not safe.
Looking at this new directive with a racial equity lens is even more disturbing. Our staff represent our population. There are a majority of people of color who are already hit harder by this virus, as are our students and their families. The commonwealth and the federal govern
We were informed by the Department of Early Education and Care that we could increase our classroom group size to 100% capacity, from 10 to 20 children. We have seen no data or public health information which supports this increase.
ment that subsidize our programs for low income and at-risk children and families have a responsibility to ensure the safety and sustainability of our programs. Without our high-quality early education and care programs, the achievement gap will grow even higher.
Parents, businesses, and our economy need us. We have long talked about the important role of early education and child care in children’s academic success, and we have long recognized the role child care plays in the economy. Parents cannot work without safe, affordable, high quality programs. Many essential workers and single parents working in nursing homes, hospitals, supermarkets, restaurants shelter, group homes, and child care centers are lowwage workers who depend on state and federally funded subsidized programs to care for and educate their children.
The subsidized system of the state’s Department of Early Education and Care was fragile prior to Covid, with state rates as much as 30% lower than private rates. Across the state, our programs are currently looking at when to close down classrooms, lay off staff, and even close entire centers.
Stable, adequate funding must be made available so that our programs are still here when it is safe to reopen to capacity. This is a critical time which will determine the future of our field and parents’ access to affordable, quality education and care for their infants through school age children.
Just last week mobile, rapid Covid testing was made available to public schools (not yet open.) We applaud this initiative but ask why this has not been made available to our programs, which have been open since July.
Across the sate, some early education programs are waiting up to 10 days for test results and several days to even get appointments for testing. It is crucial that mobile rapid testing for staff, children and their families be made available to programs already operating and serving infants through school age children in the commonwealth.
Improving educational outcomes for children and achieving racial equity in our communities starts with quality early education. And supporting families working hard at essential jobs to provide food, housing and opportunity to their families is essential to our economy.
We call on the commonwealth and federal government to adequately and stably fund Early Education Programs and to provide essential resources such as testing to ensure their future existence and to ensure our economy can fully recover.