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MALDEN — Governor Maura Healey today laid out her administration’s agenda to make early education and child care more affordable and accessible for all families across Massachusetts. The Governor will highlight these programs in her State of the Commonwealth address tomorrow and propose the funding in her Fiscal Year 2025 budget next week.
The “Gateway to Pre-K” agenda includes four key components:
- Delivering universal, high-quality preschool access for four-year-olds in all Gateway Cities by the end of 2026. Every family of a 4-year-old in these 26 communities will have the opportunity – at a low or no cost — to enroll their child in a high-quality preschool program that prepares them for kindergarten.
- Increasing Child Fare Financial Assistance (CCFA) eligibility from 50 percent of the state median income (SMI) to 85 percent SMI to help an additional 4,000 low-and moderate-income families afford care.
- Continuing Commonwealth Cares for Children (C3) grants in FY25, providing stable funding for programs to improve quality, pay facility costs, and hire more staff, thereby creating more classrooms where families can enroll their children in affordable child care.
- Signing an executive order to recognize the essential role child care plays in driving the state’s economy and competitiveness forward and directing the Healey-Driscoll administration to take a whole-of-government approach to ensuring affordable, high-quality child care.