S 3214

SENATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . No. 3214
Senate, July 23, 2026 -- Text of amendment (194) (offered by Senator Howard) to the Ways and
Means amendment (Senate, No. 3178) to the House Bill relative to economic development in the
commonwealth.
  The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
  _______________
  In the One Hundred and Ninety-Fourth General Court
  (2025-2026)
  _______________
1by adding the following:-
2SECTION XXXX. Chapter 15D of the general laws, as appearing in the 2024 official
3 edition, is hereby amended by inserting after section 13 the following section:-
4Section 13A. (a) The department of early education and care, in consultation with the
5 department of elementary and secondary education, shall develop and administer the High
6 Quality Pre-Kindergarten Expansion grant program to support the phased development of high
7 quality, district-wide, full-day pre-kindergarten programs for children between the ages of 2
8 years and 9 months and the age a child becomes eligible for kindergarten in the school district
9 where he or she resides. The grants shall be used to bring to scale a high quality, mixed delivery
10 early education system in order to reduce the achievement gap and improve third grade reading
11 scores.
12(b) The departments shall establish requirements for grant applicants which shall include,
13 but not be limited to the following: (1) a tracking system for preschool students in the program
14 using the state student identifier system; (2) a child to instructor ratio of no more than 10 to 1; (3)
15 tactics to engage families in the enrollment process and implementation of the plan required
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16 under subsection (c), and methods to ensure a high level of enrollment by families with 3 and 4
17 year olds; (4) teacher qualification and evaluation system requirements, and on-going
18 professional development requirements; (5) a full school-day program ; (6) a class size of no
19 more than 20 preschool students; (7) inclusion of children with disabilities; (8) instructional staff
20 salaries and benefits comparable to the corresponding district salaries and benefits for
21 kindergarten to high school staff; (9) developmentally and linguistically appropriate instruction;
22 (10) evidenced based curricula; (11) a learning environment aligned with the state early learning
23 and development standards; (12) on-site access to comprehensive services for children, or
24 convenient access to such services off site; (13) partnership with, and promotion of, community
25 service providers for families to support children’s learning and development; (14) evidenced
26 based health and safety standards; (15) a timetable for phasing-in of facilities, staff
27 development, and other systems to achieve district-wide implementation; (16) program
28 evaluation and data collection systems to ensure continuous improvement; (17) a description of
29 the physical structures for the education of the students; (18) a plan to improve or sustain, as
30 appropriate, the development of literacy skills from preschool through third grade.
31Among proposals satisfying the requirements of this subsection, priority in grant awards
32 shall be given first to districts that have received grants through the department’s commonwealth
33 preschool partnership or the federal preschool expansion grants initiative. The department shall
34 also develop and publish a metric for prioritizing the awarding of grants to qualified applicants
35 based on: their accountability level as determined by the department of elementary and
36 secondary education; their third grade reading proficiency scores; and their percentage of
37 students qualifying as economically disadvantaged. Nothing herein shall require the department
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38 to award a grant to a district, regardless of priority status, that it has determined does not meet
39 one or more of the requirements of this subsection.
40(c) Each recipient of the grant shall establish a plan to implement the requirements set
41 forth in subsection (b) and any other requirements as may be prescribed by the board of early
42 education and care. Each superintendent shall appoint a local governing council to implement
43 and oversee all aspects of the plan; provided however, that the superintendent may utilize a pre-
44 existing council for this purpose. Districts shall provide on a quarterly basis reports to the
45 department of early education and care on all aspects of the plan. The district and the local
46 council shall implement the plan as approved within the period of time approved by the
47 department. Failure to satisfactorily implement the plan within the approved period of time shall
48 result in the termination of the plan and reversion of the grant funds to the department.
49(d) The board of early education and care shall promulgate regulations to implement the
50 provisions of this act within six months of the effective date including guidelines for membership
51 to local governing councils in each recipient district and evaluation criteria required in the
52 quarterly reports. A grant awarded pursuant to this subsection shall require that recipients
53 undertake ongoing evaluations of the implementation of the plan and all its aspects.
54The department of early education and care shall, subject to appropriation, establish a
55 dedicated team to provide support, technical assistance, and oversight of programs established
56 under this section. The department shall annually evaluate the effectiveness of programs
57 established under this section, both for feedback and accountability for grant recipients and to
58 inform the replication of such programs throughout the commonwealth.
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59SECTION XXXX. Chapter 70 of the general laws, as appearing in the 2024 official
60 edition, is hereby amended by adding after Section 2 the following section:-
61“Section 2A. (a) As used in this section, the following words shall, unless the context
62 clearly requires otherwise, have the following meanings:-
63“Boards”, the board of elementary and secondary education and the board of early
64 education and care.
65“Departments”, the department of elementary and secondary education and the
66 department of early education and care.
67“Early education”, full-day education and care programming for pre-school and
68 kindergarten-aged students.
69(b) School districts in the Commonwealth may, by December 31, 2027, submit to the
70 departments a plan to provide for ongoing access to age-appropriate early education for all
71 students residing within the district. Such a plan shall include, where relevant and feasible, the
72 use, expansion, and quality improvement of any previously existing public and private early
73 education delivery systems, including those programs developed and implemented pursuant to
74 section 13A of chapter 15D. No plan submitted to the departments pursuant to this section shall
75 include user fees for attendance.
76The Departments shall promulgate joint regulations to provide for the process of
77 submission, review, and approval of such plans. The departments shall also promulgate joint
78 regulations to provide for monitoring of quality and fidelity of implementation of a district’s plan
79 and a process of probationary status and potential revocation of approval in the event of poor
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80 implementation. The departments shall provide notice of said regulations to the clerks of the
81 House and Senate, the chairs of the joint committee on education, and the chairs of the joint
82 committee on ways and means, at least 90 days before approval by the boards.
83Districts who do not submit such a plan by the aforementioned date may submit a plan
84 after said date. However, any such district may be prioritized after districts whose plans were
85 received by said date.
86(c) For all districts whose plan has been approved by the department, the following
87 definition shall replace the corresponding definition in section 2 of this chapter, while all non-
88 corresponding definitions in said section 2 shall continue to apply:-
89“Pre-school enrollment”, the number of students enrolled in pre-school programs;
90 provided, however, that in any district in which pre-school students funded by the district attend
91 school for a full day, the foundation pre-school enrollment used to calculate the foundation
92 enrollment, staff, and budget amounts described in this section shall be two times the number
93 that would be otherwise used for said calculations.
94SECTION 3. Section 2 of said chapter 70, as so appearing, is hereby further amended by
95 inserting after the word “students”, in line 425, the following words:- “, to the extent that
96 kindergarten and pre-school students in a district are attending a half-day program. If a district is
97 operating approved full-day pre-school or kindergarten programs, students in such full-day
98 programs shall be counted at one hundred percent of the preceding year’s actual number of low-
99 income kindergarten and pre-school students.”
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