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Neighborhood Villages in the News
Pool Testing Expanding To Cover More In Early Care Settings
A small pool testing program that caught 37 asymptomatic COVID-19 cases in early education and child care settings in 2021 is about to be expanded substantially through a partnership between the state, Neighborhood Villages and the Biden administration. | State House News Service
Morning Rundown: Expanding Pooled COVID Tests For Child Care Centers; Legislature Talks (Again) On How To Spend Relief $
Good news for child care providers and parents. Neighborhood Villages, a program that runs pooled coronavirus testing at child care centers, is expanding this fall after teaming up with the state. The nonprofit will be able to offer pooled testing every week at 260 centers – covering at least 13,000 children – across Massachusetts. Who's paying for the tests? The state is working with the federal government to cover the costs. | WBUR
COVID-19 Testing Program Dramatically Expanded for Massachusetts Child Care Programs
Following a highly successful program this summer, a first-of-its-kind, free COVID-19 pooled testing program for early education and care programs is being dramatically expanded across the Commonwealth. Massachusetts is the first state to apply the federal government’s Operation Expanded Testing to the child care sector. | Press Release
Will We Ever Solve the Childcare Crisis?
We live in one of the most innovative and progressive regions in the country—not to mention one of the richest. Yet Massachusetts is also the state with the most expensive childcare in the nation, which is crippling families, mostly working moms. Will we ever figure out how to solve the childcare crisis? | Boston Magazine
Opinion: What to do with billions in surplus and federal relief funds
The numbers are in: the Massachusetts state budget that ended last month had a surplus of more than $3 billion (yes, with a "B"). We could find ourselves with another surplus next July. Currently, Beacon Hill is debating what to do with the $5 billion in additional funds coming to the commonwealth from the federal American Rescue Plan. These billions in surplus and relief funds must be used to fix the major fault lines in our social infrastructure. We know exactly where to start. It’s time to fix our broken early education and child care system. We can’t afford not to. | Boston Business Journal
New White Paper: We Have School Districts — Why Not Early Childhood Districts?
What if, as a counterpart to public school districts for children five and under, we had “early childhood districts” adapted to the early childhood context and informed by lessons from the inequities found in the K-12 system? This bold vision may offer a key for unlocking many of the tricky doors blocking our progress towards an effective early childhood system. Policy expert Elliot lays it out in this new white paper for the think tank Capita. | Early Learning Nation
Early Education Non-Profit Promotes Child Tax Credit Awareness Day
Starting July 15, most families will begin receiving a monthly payment of $300 per child under 6 and $250 per child between 6-17 through the end of 2021. Approximately 39 million households will automatically receive the new Child Tax Credit. The payments are another tool that can be used to help all families access early education and care for their children. | Press Release
Pooled COVID testing finally coming to childcare centers
On Thursday, the Department of Early Education and Care and the nonprofit Neighborhood Villages announced that early educators and children will now have access to a…free, weekly pooled testing program. | CommonWealth Magazine
Free pooled COVID testing offered to day cares statewide
Massachusetts is declaring that early educators, families, and children are not on their own when it comes to COVID testing,” said Sarah Muncey, a copresident and cofounder of Neighborhood Villages. Massachusetts is the first state in the nation to establish coordinated testing for child-care facilities, Muncey added. | The Boston Globe
Mass. Launches Weekly Coronavirus Testing For Early Education Field
Early education, child care and after-school programs will soon have access to free, weekly coronavirus testing. Starting in mid-June, the state is funding the pooled testing program for any providers. | WBUR
Comprehensive COVID-19 Testing Program Launched For Early Education and Care Providers Across Massachusetts
In an effort to protect early educators, children, and their families, a new weekly COVID-19 pooled testing program is being offered statewide at no cost to early education and care programs across Massachusetts. This is the first comprehensive pooled testing program for the early education sector to be administered in Massachusetts and is one of the only of its kind in the country. | Press Release
In Crisis? Lemonada Has a Podcast for You
Last winter, Neighborhood Villages, a nonprofit that pushes for early education and care policy reform, approached Lemonada Media about collaborating on a show about the child care crisis. | The New York Times
In bid to end COVID-19 unemployment boost, GOP misses the she-cession
[W]orkers can’t return to the job if the high cost or unavailability of child care can’t justify a paltry paycheck. And we still live in a society that places most of the responsibility of child care on women. As restaurants, hotels, and airports — but not most schools — reopen as Americans are getting vaccinated, that helps explain why men are getting back to work and women are not. And for those with very young children, the cost of child care skyrocketed during the pandemic. | The Boston Globe
Women were pushed out of the workforce by the pandemic. Is it time for universal child care?
In a year that bared systemic flaws in the nation's child care infrastructure, many working moms saw their careers go in the opposite direction or stall out as the pandemic pushed them out of the workforce to fill child care gaps. | The Milford Daily News
Massachusetts, other states need to increase spending for preschools, report says
Massachusetts preschool enrollment increased by fewer than 300 children in 2019-2020, as the pandemic shifted those programs to remote learning in the middle of the school year, according to a national report that found most states don’t provide enough funding to support all-day prekindergarten for all children. | Boston Globe
The Great COVID Child Care Awakening
“Children who [participate in early childhood education programs] do better over their lifespans in terms of education, employment, and health,” said Lauren Kennedy, co-founder of the nonprofit Neighborhood Villages, which aims to improve access to affordable child care. “We have evidence of this; it pays off, and it’s doable.” | Romper
Mass. Advocates Launch Ambitious Campaign for Publicly Funded Early Education
“We need an early education system that works, and the only way that we get to a system that works is if we admit that it takes public money to do it,” said proponent Lauren Birchfield Kennedy, cofounder of Neighborhood Villages. | Boston Globe
Surveillance Pool Testing for COVID-19 Offers New Way to Catch Outbreaks Quickly
Several early childhood education centers in the region have taken part in a saliva-based test pilot run by the advocacy organization Neighborhood Villages. - Boston Globe
State Planning COVID Testing Pilot for Child Care Staff, After Continued Pleas By Providers
When state leaders announced that they would be making widespread pooled coronavirus testing available to public schools, many child care providers and after school program directors were frustrated that they were left out. | WBUR Edify
Day-care Workers Feel Forgotten in State’s Testing Program
Early childhood education providers are furious after the state announced a new coronavirus testing program last week for public schools without including day-care centers and after-school programs, which are still struggling to serve more than 100,000 children almost a year into the pandemic. | Boston Globe