Vivian on Education.

I am deeply committed to working with school committees, superintendents, principals, teachers, and families; to dramatically increase state aid to all public schools. As someone who broke out of childhood poverty through education, and as a mother of two young girls in the Acton-Boxborough Public schools, care deeply about the quality of the public schools in the 14 th Middlesex district, and across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

While I deeply appreciate the work by the Legislature to pass the Student Opportunity Act of 2019, to invest over $1.5 billion over 6 years in our K-12 public schools, one of the main reasons I am running for State Representative is to further increase state investments in the children of our state. I will fight to increase state education aid in several key areas:

 
 

I feel the Massachusetts Legislature should enact a $100 per student per year bonus to the schools for the next 2 years in response to the impact made on education by the pandemic. Schools need the financial boost to offset the costs related to social distance protocols, masks, and more intense cleaning protocols.

 

All schools, including regional schools, should have 100% of their transportation costs paid. This would fulfill a promise made by the state in 1949 to fully fund regional school transportation and it is well past time for that promise to be realized.

 

The Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) should re-establish the universal pre-kindergarten grant program, providing grants between $250,000-$1,000,000 for start-up costs for school districts seeking to create free, full-day kindergarten. Every Massachusetts family should have access to universal kindergarten, and with just around 30 school districts that do not yet have free full-day kindergarten, the EEC could help increase the likelihood this would occur, by providing one-time state grants to school districts to get them to the final stage

 

I strongly support dramatically increasing the Special Education Circuit Breaker, by lowering the trigger for the state paying out-of-district special education costs from the current 4 to 3. If every school district is truly committed to ensuring that every child, regardless of their needs or initial abilities gets a great education, then the state must ensure that often unstable special education costs for school districts are steadied by the Legislature's increased funding for the circuit breaker program.

 

Massachusetts needs to create a path to universal early childcare in every community. Studies show that children who attend preschool are not only better prepared for K-12 education, but those learning disabilities and other challenges are detected at a younger age. I fully support the Common Start bill [H.605 filed by Representatives Gordon and Madaro and S.362 filed by Senators Lewis and Moran], to create a clear path of establishing universal early education over a five-year timeline. If only middle-class families can afford pre-K, then working families, children whose first language is not English, and children with learning disabilities are at an automatic disadvantage.

 
 

Education, guaranteed as a right in the Massachusetts Constitution, deserves the state investments necessary to ensure that all children in every school district have the best education. Most families who live in the 14th Middlesex District moved to or stayed in the district, because of its excellent public schools. That does not happen without a dedicated community committed to education. I support the Fair Share Amendment as a mechanism for raising the revenue we need to fully fund the schools of Acton, Carlisle, Chelmsford, and Concord. Middlesex 14 citizens rightfully expect an excellent educational system and our children deserve it.