One important way to welcome more people into the field of early education is through apprenticeships programs. An article in The 74—”Apprenticeships Aimed at Boosting Child Care Careers Have Been Flourishing”—explains how these programs work, including one sponsored by Boston-based, early childhood, nonprofit Neighborhood Villages.
As the article explains, apprenticeship programs have “long been successful in industries such as construction and health care, over the past decade or so policymakers, educators and industry have focused on how such apprenticeships can be reimagined for careers such as child care.”
One example is Temple Beth Shalom in Needham, Mass., which is part of Neighborhood Villages’ Registered Apprenticeship Program. As the article notes, the Temple Beth Shalom Children’s Center, “has had eight apprentices in the past two years, all of them entry level workers who wanted to pursue licensing to allow them advance their careers.”
Launched in 2023, Neighborhood Villages’ apprenticeship program provides on-site job coaching, mentoring, and salary increases as apprentices’ skills increase. More than 200 early educators and directors have made progress: including teachers who have pursued their Child Development Associate and others who have become administrators and leaders through the Early Childhood Emerging Leaders (ECEL) program.
“We want to professionalize the field. We want to ensure that we have high quality educators and that they’re supported,” Neighborhood Villages’ Executive Director Binal Patel, says in the article. “However, to require degrees without providing the support that goes with it to employees who are making poverty-level wages and often working two [or] three jobs to do so is pushing people out of the field.”
Federal dollars are a key base of support for these efforts. Unfortunately some states are losing this funding.
Fortunately, however, Governor Maura Healey and Lt. Governor Kim Driscoll announced earlier this month that “the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development’s Division of Apprentice Standards (DAS) has been awarded more than $6 million from the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) to support Registered Apprenticeship and early childhood educator apprenticeships.”
“The Division was awarded two grants, a formula grant for $1,008,964 to support the Registered Apprenticeship program and a competitive grant for $5 million to support 275 early childhood educator apprenticeships. The competitive grant is the largest grant the apprenticeship program has received to date.”
To learn more about apprenticeships, check out the article in The 74.