Photo: Alyssa Haywoode for Strategies for Children

Early education needs your advocacy today!

Please contact your Massachusetts state senator and ask them to support An Act to expand access to high-quality, affordable early education and care (S.2973).

This bill is up for a vote tomorrow!

Based on the Common Start Bill that Strategies for Children supported, the Senate’s bill would strengthen early education and care in many ways, including:

• expanding access to childcare subsidies and prioritizing low-income families

• reimbursing providers based on quarterly enrollment instead of daily attendance, and

• requiring the Department of Early Education and Care to assess the true cost of providing high-quality care

Please also ask you senators to support these key amendments to the bill:

• Senator Becca Rausch’s (D-Needham) affordability amendment, which would ensure that if funding is insufficient to provide subsidies for all families who would become eligible under the bill, families with the greatest need would be given priority

• Senator Susan Moran’s (D- Falmouth) amendment requiring better tracking of demographic data about children who receive subsidies, and

• Senator Moran’s amendment which would ensure that parents who appeal the termination of their child care subsidy can continue to access child care through the appeal process

Deb Fastino, statewide director of the Common Start Coalition, tells the State House News:

“We are glad to see the Senate moving towards passage of legislation that would represent a substantial step toward implementing our full vision of a high-quality early education and child care system that is affordable and accessible for all families.”

The bill, she added, “will start to tackle the ongoing multifaceted child care crisis, aiding educators who are working for inadequate pay, families who are struggling to afford child care, and providers who are working hard to keep their doors open and their programs fully staffed.”

So please take action today by asking your senators for their support!