As Omicron Variant Continues, Reminder Issued About Free Covid-19 Testing Program Available To Early Education And Care Providers Across State

BOSTON, MA (December 22, 2021) - As schools and communities continue to confront the realities of the Omicron variant, an advisory is being issued to remind Massachusetts Early Education and Care Centers that free COVID-19 testing is available for teachers, staff, and children across the state.

The testing program is administered by Neighborhood Villages, a Boston-based nonprofit that advocates for solutions to the greatest challenges faced by the early education sector, with funding and support from the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC). The program offers free weekly COVID-19 pooled testing to early education and care educators, staff, and children.  It is one of the only testing programs of its kind in the country, and is available to all licensed programs in the state, including center-based, family child care, and out-of-school-time programs.

Providers who have yet to sign up but would like to join the program can learn more and register here.

“Our child care providers are some of the heroes of this pandemic,” said Neighborhood Villages Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer Sarah Muncey. “As we continue to confront the realities of the Omicron variant, this testing program is essential to keeping our educators, children, and families safe - and allowing our parents to continue to work.  We urge any provider who wants testing to contact us quickly so we can set up this testing program for you and your families.”

Since September, the program has tested more than 42,431 teachers, staff, and students, with 33 positive results, a .077% positivity rate. The weekly number of tests administered has increased each week, and the number of early education and care programs participating in the program has also increased, with 230 facilities currently testing. The program has the capacity to conduct up to 13,000 tests of children and staff at child care facilities each week across Massachusetts. 

Testing is administered as part of Operation Expanded Testing (OET), a federally funded program that offers no-cost, “click and go” COVID-19 surveillance testing to schools and community organizations. OET uses PCR tests, the gold standard for COVID-19 detection, and a pooled testing system that allows for results to be typically returned within 24 hours.

Since February 2021, state-funded pooled testing has been offered at K-12 schools across the Commonwealth. This program for early education and care is a critical addition to that effort, with the CDC identifying providers in childcare settings as one of the groups that should be prioritized for COVID-19 screening. Nationally, the early education and childcare workforce is 92% female and 41% people of color. 

Establishing a regular testing protocol for the early education and care sector is key to keeping children and educators safe. Routine screening can help (1) identify and isolate positive cases, (2) curb transmission, and (3) reassure and protect the health and well-being of childcare providers and parents.

In pooled testing, samples are gathered from multiple people in one early education and care program and mixed into pools. This process tests the pool of samples. If the pool tests negative, then all the individuals in the pool are negative. If the pool tests positive, then individual samples from that pool are re-tested to see which person tested positive. The provider can then implement contact tracing and other protocols to immediately address the individual case or cases, which can help avoid the need to close an entire facility. The whole process, start to finish, takes about 36 hours. 

Early education programs across the state can now test all staff, educators, and children (2 years and older) weekly. For more information, visit the website: https://www.maearlyedtesting.com/

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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, visithttps://www.neighborhoodvillages.org/our-work.