Neighborhood Villages and Strategies for Children Urge Prioritization of Operations Grants for Early Ed Sector

During panel event, stakeholders discussed critical need to make direct-to-provider operations grants a permanent funding vehicle for early ed sector

BOSTON, MA (February 10, 2023) - Highlighting the many benefits of the direct-to-program operations grants for early education and care providers, Neighborhood Villages and Strategies for Children are urging policymakers to make these grants a permanent funding vehicle for the early education and care sector.

Neighborhood Villages and Strategies for Children hosted a virtual panel event on Thursday with Rep. Alice Peisch and Sen. Jason Lewis, Co-Chairs of the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Education, and providers from across the state to discuss the Massachusetts Commonwealth Cares for Children (C3) Stabilization Grant program as a key budget priority for families, educators, and providers. More than 300 child care providers, legislative staff, and advocates tuned into the event.

Evidence from the C3 grant program demonstrates that these grants have had a critical impact on preserving family access to care, raising educator wages, and promoting affordability for families.

“The C3 grants are the future of child care financing and have been essential to maintaining access to care and raising educator wages,” said Lauren Kennedy, co-president of Neighborhood Villages. “These grants really are a win for everyone — for educators, families, children, and even the economy — and we urge policymakers to make them a permanent funding vehicle to stabilize and sustain the early education and care sector in Massachusetts.”

“I’m committed to expanding access to high quality child care for all those children in Massachusetts who need it,” said Rep. Peisch. “It’s critical for economic development because people can't go to work if their kids aren’t taken care of, and for the ability of children to be successful when they get into the K-12 system. The C3 grants have proven to be an effective way to address issues in the current child care system and I’m confident that this funding will continue.”

“It’s critical for our society, for our children, and for our families that we work toward a vision of universal access to early education that is high quality, accessible, and affordable,” said Sen. Lewis. “Right now, providers cannot afford to sustainably operate and pay the wages and benefits that our educators deserve. To remedy this, we must provide more funding for C3 grants in the current budget and then work to make operations grants a permanent part of our financing system for early education and care.”

“We know that many states are facing big cliffs when federal funding designed to stabilize our child care systems stops,” said Amy O’Leary, executive director of Strategies for Children. “These C3 grants will help sustain and grow the sector by improving parent affordability, supporting our early education workforce, and enhancing the quality of education in the state.”

The provider panelists were Melanie Asaro, Preschool Director at the Elizabeth Peabody House (EPH) in Somerville; Kate Barrand, President & CEO of Horizons for Homeless Children in Roxbury; and Ellen Dietrick, senior director of learning and engagement at Temple Beth Shalom in Needham. They provided firsthand accounts of why these grant funds are so critical.

“EPH, like so many providers, has struggled to recruit and retain staff,” said Asaro. “The C3 funding enabled us to invest in staffing – creating new teacher positions, offering competitive salaries for new hires, and raising the salaries of teachers, group leaders, and program directors. We cannot expect early educators to remain in these critical roles without paying them a living wage, and these funds have helped move us closer.”

“With the field losing educators by the day, retaining qualified early educators is our top priority,” said Dietrick. “The C3 grants have enabled us to raise faculty salaries to move closer towards paying market rates. While salaries remain far from competitive, seeing progress helps educators know we are working on improvements and allows them to stick with us.”

“The greatest challenges facing the field today are teacher scarcity and adequate access for children eligible for care,” said Barrand. “Horizons used its C3 funding to significantly increase teacher’s salaries to reflect their skills and training as educators as well to pay for the business infrastructure required to support childcare. Only with this kind of support for the infrastructure required to deliver high quality early education will providers be able to expand capacity and or enter the field.”  

In 2021, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' Department of Early Education and Care launched the Commonwealth Cares for Children (C3) Stabilization Grant Program, which provides operations grants directly to licensed early education and care centers, Family Child Care (FCC) providers, and out-of-school-time programs. The C3 Stabilization Grant Program had nearly instantaneous impact, helping to prevent program closures and promote badly needed investments in teacher salaries.

Over the last year and a half, the C3 grant program has supported more than 7,100 early education and care programs across the Commonwealth – including 4,500 FCC providers and 2,600 center-based providers. These direct-to-provider operations grants have been highly effective: data from more than 6,000 grant recipients demonstrate the foundational role that operations grants have played – and will continue to play – in sustaining Massachusetts’ early education and care sector. Making these grants a permanent funding vehicle is vital to the sector’s ability to protect against regression and embark on a path towards improving access, increasing teacher compensation, and growing system capacity.

Some data from grant recipients includes:

• 751 providers (more than 12% of all providers in MA), inclusive of 556 FCC providers, reported that they would have to close if operations grants ceased.

• As a result of receiving grants funds, 83% of center-based providers and 41% of FCC providers allocated grant funds to staff compensation.

• With the help of C3 funds, more than 25% of all providers were able to defer planned tuition increases.

To learn more, see our brief, fact sheet and blog on the C3 stabilization grants.

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About Neighborhood Villages
Neighborhood Villages, founded in 2017 by Lauren Kennedy and Sarah Muncey, is a Boston-based systems-change non-profit that advocates for early education and care policy reform and implements scalable solutions that address the biggest challenges facing providers and the families who rely on them. For more information, visit https://www.neighborhoodvillages.org/our-work.