Temporary suspension of ECE programs extended through June 29
At his daily briefing yesterday on the COVID-19 pandemic in Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker announced that all ECE programs in the Commonwealth, except for designated emergency childcare providers, must remain closed through June 29 (The full text of Baker’s comments on the extension are below.)
EEC Commissioner Samantha Aigner-Treworgy, who joined Baker at the briefing, emphasized that the extension was in the best “public health interest” of the Commonwealth’s families and frontline workforce, in addition to providing time to look ahead “and align the reopening of childcare with the reopening of employment across the state.” (Read the full text of Aigner-Treworgy remarks at the end of this post.)
As the shutdown continues and plans to reopen are made, the Baker administration announced a suite of resources aimed at supporting the early care and education workforce as well as young families. Most notably, the Commonwealth is facilitating opportunities for early educators to provide childcare to the children of essential workers in a non-group-care setting. EEC has partnered with Care.com to create care.com/mass, which connects essential workers seeking in-home childcare to eligible EEC-licensed, certified, or approved educators who are currently out of work and can provide skilled in-home care. Massachusetts essential workforce will receive a 90-day free subscription to Care.com to use the service.
Early educators interested in providing this care must sign up here. The process takes about 10 minutes, during which you’ll create a free Care.com profile and complete a standard safety screening.
The Commonwealth is also seeking to support ECE business owners through a new partnership with the Children’s Investment Fund to create resources to assist them in accessing business opportunities and state and federal relief programs so that they are prepared to re-open.
Additionally, the administration will launch a local resource directory that will assist parents in obtaining childcare necessities like diapers and baby food.
Finally, the Commonwealth will also launch a partnership with WGBH and The Basics to provide parents with recommendations for at-home education activities.
Text of Gov. Baker’s remarks on the extension of the order closing ECE programs:
Maintaining this structure is the best way to keep our kids and our providers safe from the spread of this insidious disease. In the coming months, we’ll be working toward slowly restoring childcare capacity for both family childcare and center-based programs once it can be done safely.
In the meantime, EEC is developing a partnership with Care.com to help unemployed childcare workers provide in-home care for essential workers and to support families with children who have children with special needs. The department’s also launching a partnership with WGBH to build on efforts to provide resources and activities for parents that they can do with their young children.
I want to thank the team at the Department of Early Education and especially all those early educators and childcare providers for stepping up during these extremely difficult times. They’re making it possible for our front-line workers to get to work to keep us healthy and safe.”
Text of Commissioner Samantha Aigner-Treworgy’s remarks on current EEC planning:
Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you [Department of Elementary and Secondary Education] Commissioner [Jeffrey] Riley and Governor Baker. I want to echo our state’s thank you to our state’s early educators, our childcare providers, the staff, the program leaders and everyone who’s been working to keep our children, families, and educators safe during this crisis. The providers across the Commonwealth have stepped up to serve our essential workers and their commitment to children and families has really been the backbone of the essential workforce as we navigate this complicated time.
Today’s announcement to extend the childcare closure helps the Department of Early Education and Care continue to keep the best public health interest of our families and our workforce at the forefront. It also gives us time to look ahead and align the reopening of childcare with the reopening of employment across the state.
We know that reopening childcare won’t be as simple as flipping a switch, which is why the department has begun working with stakeholders, with advocates, with providers, families, and employers to make sure that we are addressing a multiphase plan that ensures that we are taking the best advice of the public health world as well as the needs of business. Parents can not go back to work if their children are not safely cared for. Educators cannot go back to work if proper preparations and protocols aren’t in place and programs cannot reopen if meaningful policies guidance and support is not there for them. And businesses cannot reopen if their employees don’t have safe, high-quality childcare to send their children to.
This phased approach we are developing will address these challenges head-on and ensure that there is the availability of this care for parents when the time comes to reopen the Commonwealth. In the interim, as the governor mentioned, we are launching a suite of support for our communities.
For educators, today you can log on to mass.care.com to connect with the front line families in need of childcare...to provide non-group care settings...for children, particularly those with special needs, or other opportunities that educators who are in our closed programs are uniquely qualified for. Massachusetts essential workers and families are offered free subscriptions to be able to find these educators to support their needs during the closure.
For families and children, we will be providing a local resource directory to allow you to find the specific needs that families have during the closure—things like diapers, food, and other things that families with very young children need. As well, we’ll be launching a partnership with WGBH and The Basics where we are building these engaging opportunities for families to help with ideas of things to do with their children while they’re home with them.
And for sustaining our programs we are at launching a partnership with the Children’s Investment Fund, creating resources that apply the business opportunities and support that the federal government and the state are providing—helping translate those to the childcare field so our field is prepared to reopen as we look forward. You can find all these resources on mass.gov/eec and we’ll continue to communicate about the reopening plan in the next few weeks aligned with the broader Commonwealth goals.”