EEC details phased reprocurement of Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative; teachers and communities say program is boosting inclusion and workforce

At the Department of Early Education and Care's May board meeting, agency staff presented a redesigned, phased approach to the Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative (CPPI) and described a reprocurement that would prioritize sustaining current grantees, create options for expansion and preserve planning opportunities as funding allows.

"CPPI is funding that really is designed to support the infrastructure building and the creation of the connective tissue that is essential if you want to work as a community to build a collaborative effort across the mixed delivery system to plan around expanded access to high quality preschool," said Jocelyn, a lead on the CPPI team at EEC. The team described three core priorities for grantees: expanding affordable access, aligning high-quality curriculum across community partners, and improving equitable access to special education and inclusion through itinerant services.

Public comments and local results Public testimony at the meeting reinforced the program's local effects. Laura Fragomeni of Northampton described classroom coaching and on-site special education consultations as "making an enormous difference" in inclusion and teacher capacity, and said instructional practice scores and child progress indicators in Northampton were improving. Suzanne Stillinger, a teacher and accessibility advocate from New Village in Northampton, told the board, "Those roots are all because of CPPI," describing new community connections, on-site speech therapy and coaching that let educators meet children's needs without removing children from classrooms.

Will Lair, director of policy at United Way of Massachusetts Bay, urged the board to keep CPPI a high priority. "CPPI provides critical funding to build and strengthen partnerships between public school districts and community based organizations," he said, noting CPPI's role in coordinating mixed-delivery preschool services and supporting family engagement.

Phased structure and program details EEC staff said the new scope will use a phased, multi-year design: an initial three-year grant period followed by two two-year renewal periods (a seven-year runway overall). The agency outlined three implementation levels: planning (eligible for new communities), early implementation (initial operations and partnerships), mid implementation (classrooms operational, coaches and itinerant services in place) and advanced implementation (broader enrollment systems, single-point family access and scaling to serve all 4-year-olds and more 3-year-olds).

CPPI staff highlighted expectations and supports: a strategic leadership team for planning, an operational management team for day-to-day implementation, grant coordinators, family outreach staff, coaches and itinerant special-education teams for community partners. Staff said those leadership and program roles may be organized differently by community: in some places line staff will wear multiple hats; in others, municipalities or school districts will contribute additional capacity.

Examples from the field EEC staff and witnesses cited several community models: - Somerville: a centralized family access hub (Somerville Partnership for Young Children) that integrates early childhood partners and itinerant special education staff; - Northampton: an itinerant special-education team paired with cultural coaching and shared professional development to align IEP goals with classroom routines; - Sandwich: significant engagement of family childcare providers within the CPPI partnership; 12 of 21 community-based centers and 6 of 12 family childcare providers are part of the partnership; - Haverhill and Lowell: community expos and curriculum-alignment efforts to expand public awareness and educator degree attainment; Boston: staged partnerships and targeted funding for 3-year-olds.

Budget and scale caveats EEC staff said CPPI's future expansion is tied to the FY26 budget outcome. "At this funding level," staff said referring to the House's $10,000,000 figure, "it would make it a bit difficult to sustain current grants at the FY25 level and eliminates the possibility of issuing new planning grants to communities." The team also emphasized the in-kind and municipal contributions that grantees currently provide and warned that some operational tasks (data collection, leadership meetings and invoicing) were not fully captured in CPPI budgets.

Next steps EEC said it had posted a notice of intent to reprocure the grant and will begin a phased launch that first secures sustenance for existing grantees and then, pending appropriation, offers expansion options and new planning opportunities. The agency plans continued technical assistance for communities and to emphasize supports for family childcare and out-of-school-time providers as CPPI grows.