Boston, MA

May 22, 2025

Toolkit

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Overview

The City of Boston has intentionally designed early learning opportunities throughout the city in a collective effort to create a family-friendly city. Their commitment to early childhood success has stemmed from the role of mayoral and council support in setting the tone to the strategic cross-department collaboration to build lasting systems, while collecting and utilizing research and data to show the impact of investments on families, children and the early childhood sector.

The City of Boston’s commitment to early childhood education centers around three key themes: 

Cross-Departmental Collaboration: Through continuous efforts and open communication, the city has woven a shared vision among city departments on the importance of child care and how supporting early childhood, as small businesses, can lead to a thriving city.
Mayoral and Council Support: With a deep understanding of the impact of high-quality early education and commitment to improving outcomes for children and families through continuous engagement with the community, elected leaders in Boston have played a key role in creating an early childhood system that reflects the needs of the city.
Research and Data: Working with local and national partners, the City of Boston utilizes research and data to advocate for and improve early childhood efforts as they respond to the needs of children, families, and the early childhood workforce.

Cross-Departmental Collaboration

Successful cross-departmental collaboration within a city can fill knowledge and resource gaps, foster efficiency and encourage innovation. The Office of Early Childhood (OEC) within the City of Boston has consistently demonstrated their ability to work across city departments and form lasting partnerships to move their agenda forward on behalf of young children and families.

This culture of collaboration is evident across City Hall and is something that Mayor Michelle Wu (2021 – Present) has prioritized from the top down. This is accomplished, in part, by her senior advisor model, which designated City Directors, such as the Director of the Office Early Childhood, a Senior Advisor title, and provides the opportunity to meet regularly both with the Mayor herself, as well as with Senior Advisors from other departments, allowing for awareness of the work and priorities across city hall and breaking down silos. Additionally, through Mayoral-led events, such as the Mayor’s Coffee Hour, at which staff from city departments are present and available to talk to residents, strengthens the visibility and unity of the city departments.

Within the OEC, the team is constantly looking for opportunities to collaborate with other departments on projects or to solve a problem. The list of departments that OEC collaborates with is extensive, as is the list of projects. Across the city, departments are coming together to seek innovative solutions to support the early childhood sector. For example, the Planning and Development Agency intentionally collaborated with the OEC to tackle barriers that child care providers face around zoning issues, while staff from the Mayor’s Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion included child care applications and consulted OEC as part of the SPACE grant, a program that supports small businesses. Through building and maintaining strategic cross-department relationships, the OEC has deepened buy-in and increased value in supporting their work on behalf of children and families across city departments.

Here’s What They Did:

The Office of Early Childhood brought together staff from multiple city departments, including the Deputy Chief of Policy, as well as the Office of the Green New Deal and the Environment Department, to be part of an extreme heat/early childhood three-part roundtable led by the Center on the Developing Child. In addition to raising awareness on the critical issue of how extreme heat impacts the early childhood population, several action items came out of this roundtable including a survey that went out to all child care providers to gain an understanding of current extreme heat measures in place, the launch of cooling centers across the city and efforts to establish a city-wide extreme heat warning system targeting the early childhood population. Collaborations and projects between these departments on this topic are ongoing and regular follow-up meetings continue to take place.

In 2024, the City of Boston launched their Children’s Council, which brings together team members across city departments on a quarterly basis to share updates and move shared projects that impact the city’s children and families forward that such as the Connect, Learn, Explore program and work around extreme heat and mitigating its impact on children, infants and pregnant people.

Your Next Steps for Getting Started

Complete a department mapping to clarify and document the roles and responsibilities of each department.
Consider whether there are any projects that you have in mind that you would like to bring other departments in on (now or in the future).
Host a kickoff event with staff from across departments (department heads and other relevant staff) to share more about the goals and initiatives of your department and to make the case around how the work of each department connects to supporting thriving children and families.
Send a follow-up email recapping connections and takeaways from the meeting, as well as a calendar invite for the next meeting.

Helpful Tips for Ongoing Success

After the initial kickoff event, the following are helpful tips to maintain the momentum and further build cross-departmental collaboration:

Host regular (e.g. monthly or quarterly) meetings with staff across departments. When meetings can’t occur, send an email note to share what your office is up to and to not lose momentum.
Create and seek opportunities for ongoing relationship building across departments, such as social events, interdepartmental meetings and cross-departmental committees.
Maintain regular communication amongst city departments to ensure that young children and families, as well as opportunities for partnerships, are kept top of mind.
Ensure that there is a point person for projects and partnerships in order to be able to continue to move the work forward.
While formal MOUs may not be necessary when working internally, it is important to write out “rules and responsibilities” for collaboration.

Cross-Departmental Collaboration

Within the OEC, the team is constantly looking for opportunities to collaborate with other departments on projects or to solve a problem. The list of departments that OEC collaborates with is extensive, as is the list of projects. Across the city, departments are coming together to seek innovative solutions to support the early childhood sector. For example, the Planning and Development Agency intentionally collaborated with the OEC to tackle barriers that child care providers face around zoning issues while staff from the Mayor’s Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion included child care applications and consulted OEC as part of the SPACE grant, a program which supports small businesses. Through building and maintaining strategic cross-department relationships, the OEC has deepened buy-in and increased value in supporting their work on behalf of children and families across city departments.

Here’s What They Did:

The Office of Early Childhood brought together staff from multiple city departments, including the Deputy Chief of Policy, as well as the Office of the Green New Deal and the Environment Department to be part of an extreme heat/early childhood three-part roundtable led by the Center on the Developing Child. In addition to raising awareness on the critical issue of how extreme heat impacts the early childhood population, several action items came out of this roundtable including a survey that went out to all child care providers to gain an understanding of current extreme heat measures in place, the launch of cooling centers across the city and efforts to establish a city-wide extreme heat warning system targeting the early childhood population. Collaborations and projects between these departments on this topic are ongoing and regular follow-up meetings continue to take place.

In 2024, the City of Boston launched their Children’s Council, which brings together team members across city departments on a quarterly basis to share updates and move shared projects that impact the city’s children and families forward that such as the Connect, Learn, Explore program and work around extreme heat and mitigating its impact on children, infants and pregnant people.

Your Next Steps for Getting Started

Complete a department mapping to clarify and document the roles and responsibilities of each department.
Consider whether there are any projects that you have in mind that you would like to bring other departments in on (now or in the future).
Host a kickoff event with staff from across departments (department heads and other relevant staff) to share more about the goals and initiatives of your department and to make the case around how the work of each department connects to supporting thriving children and families.
Send a follow-up email recapping connections and takeaways from the meeting, as well as a calendar invite for the next meeting.

Helpful Tips for Ongoing Success

After the initial kickoff event, the following are helpful tips to maintain the momentum and further build cross-departmental collaboration:

Host regular (e.g. monthly or quarterly) meetings with staff across departments. When meetings can’t occur, send an email note to share what your office is up to and to not lose momentum.
Create and seek opportunities for ongoing relationship building across departments, such as social events, interdepartmental meetings and cross-departmental committees.
Maintain regular communication amongst city departments to ensure that young children and families, as well as opportunities for partnerships, are kept top of mind.
Ensure that there is a point person for projects and partnerships in order to be able to continue to move the work forward.

While formal MOUs may not be necessary when working internally, it is important to write out “rules and responsibilities” for collaboration.

Mayoral & Council Support

The City of Boston and its elected leaders have long demonstrated their commitment to early childhood education. This support and the shared belief that children and families are a priority in Boston has resulted in child care having a place in public discourse and being viewed as a public good.

Demonstrating the first major mayoral action on this issue in Boston, in 2005, Mayor Thomas Menino (1993 – 2014) made a commitment to provide preschool access for all 4-year-olds. At the time, no other large city had made such a commitment. That same year he also created the Boston Public Schools Department of Early Childhood Education. Three years later, Menino and the United Way of Massachusetts Bay launched Thrive in 5, a citywide movement to ensure all children were ready for school success. During his tenure, Mayor Menino remained a regular presence in early childhood settings and supported the growth and improvement of prekindergarten in Boston.

Mayor Marty Walsh (2014 – 2021), Menino’s successor, set aside yet more money for pre-K and expanded the program so that private, nonprofit organizations could participate if they met the system’s standards and agreed to operate with oversight from Boston Public Schools. In 2014, Mayor Walsh established the Universal Pre-K Advisory Committee, which was tasked with building on Boston’s UPK efforts and recommending a citywide strategic framework and action plan to increase enrollment of 4-year-olds in high quality, full-day pre-K programs. In 2020, Mayor Walsh established the “quality pre-k” fund, which guaranteed equitable access to free, high-quality pre-k for all 4-year-olds living in Boston within five years.

Mayor Michelle Wu (2021 – Present) has continued Boston’s commitment to universal, affordable, high-quality early education and care for all children under five and has aimed to make Boston the “most family-friendly city in the country.” In 2022, she announced the launch of the City’s Office of Early Childhood (OEC) and appointed a Director of Early Childhood to lead the department, serve as a senior advisor and work in partnership with Boston Public Schools, City Departments and community organizations that serve Boston’s children and families. She has also used her executive power in support of early childhood by updating child care facilitates zoning regulations to in turn create a consistent revenue source for the Office of Early Childhood. Further, she has continued to invest in pre-k such as allocating $7 million of ARPA dollars to support the early childhood workforce.

“Once the ball started rolling in Boston, and with the data showing the impact of a strong early childhood system, each subsequent mayor was able to build upon prior successes and work. It became a given that we were going to invest in it every year.” – Casey Brock-Wilson, Purchasing Agent and Director of Procurement, City of Boston

City of Boston Councilmembers have also played a critical role in Boston’s early childhood success. They have both been integral in pushing each of the above-mentioned Mayors’ agendas forward and passing key funding measures for child care, as well as demonstrating their own support for this issue. An example of this historical commitment is in 2017 when the Council Committee on Healthy Women, Families and Communities hosted a series of policy briefings related to key topics in early education and care and in 2020, when this same committee held a hearing to come up with solutions for the “child care crisis” in Boston.

Here’s What They Did:

In 2021 when there was a mayoral election in Boston, the Birth to Eight Collaborative created mayoral recommendations, such as establishing an Office of Early Childhood and expanding access to early childhood programs. These recommendations were developed by the Collaborative based on the work they had engaged in and what they learned during the pandemic. The recommendations were shared with the campaigns of all six candidates for Mayor of the City of Boston.

Your Next Steps for Getting Started

Map potential champions and decision makers in your community.
Make the case for the importance of investing in young children and families.
Design clear messaging around outcomes and return on investment.
Create opportunities for meaningful engagement with elected officials, including organizing site visits to early learning programs to witness program impact firsthand.

Helpful Tips for Ongoing Success:

Align early childhood initiatives and outcomes to current administration’s priorities and vision.
Utilize data and research to make the continued case for early childhood investments.
Foster collaboration between city departments and community organizations.
Develop and maintain strong relationships with city council members.
Remember that progress often requires patience and strategic timing.

Research & Data

A focus on research and data is ingrained in the history of early childhood in the City of Boston. Utilizing data and research has allowed the early childhood community to illustrate how investments in quality early childhood are working – to mayors, funders, superintendents – and to make the case for the need for continued funding and support. Since the launch of Boston’s universal pre-Kindergarten program (UPK) in 2005, the City of Boston has remained committed to using evidence and ongoing research to continually improve its early childhood efforts. The City takes a multi-faceted data and research approach and works with multiple partners in order to be the most responsive to the needs of children and families.

At the City level, the Office of Early Childhood (OEC) prioritizes parent/caregiver input when determining their priorities and when designing and updating their programming. Examples of how they capture this data includes through their Child Care Census Survey which seeks feedback from all parents and caregivers in Boston about their early education and care needs, as well as parent councils and forums that are held on specific initiatives. OEC also produces an annual Supply and Demand report which helps them to better understand where families’ child care needs are being met and where there are gaps across Boston neighborhoods. Utilizing feedback and data collected, the city has also been able to further support the UPK workforce by changing their financial-based model to one that is more reliable and based on the classroom vs. students, improving compensation and streamlining payment processes.

Boston also has strong external partnerships with research partners who conduct Boston-specific research. One such partnership is the Boston Early Childhood Research Practice Partnership (RPP) which began in 2007 and includes practitioners from Boston Public Schools and researchers from the University of Michigan, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and MDRC, an education and social policy research organization. This research partnership conducts both short-term studies, including looking at student outcome measures and how UPK is implemented and scaled to community-based settings, as well as long term-studies including the impact of UPK on outcomes in early adulthood. As a result of the evidence produced through this partnership, a curriculum fidelity tool was developed, and changes have been made to school curricula up through second grade to promote better alignment. The City of Boston also partners with other local universities, such as Northeastern, where several Boston-specific research projects including a study on early childhood and retirement and how to reimagine public spaces within housing developments for families are underway.

“Boston does a really good job of both implementing a high-quality curriculum and using research to understand the impact it’s having.” – Annie Taylor, Senior Project Manager, Education Policy Initiative at University of Michigan

Within the City of Boston, there are also public/private partnerships, such as the Boston Opportunity Agenda (BOA), and collaboratives, such as the Birth to Eight Collaborative, that OEC partners with around data collection and research projects, including the Supply and Demand Report and the 2024 Early Education and Care Report. The Birth to Eight Collaborative, which is made up of more than 200 representatives including parents, educators, city staff and nonprofit partners, is convened by BOA and the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and has a data committee which meets monthly to share data and discuss data priorities and findings which in turn informs and contributes to OEC’s reports and efforts.

Here’s What They Did

In 2019, the City of Boston established an annual child care survey to gain a better understanding of how families access and experience care for their young children. The survey is accessible with an online and paper version, and it goes out with the annual census in order to ensure that it reaches all households. Further, it is translated into multiple languages with a long response window – from January to September — ensuring enough time for all to complete. The survey itself asks a combination of open and closed-ended questions, and topics range from caregivers’ child care preferences to barriers to care that they face. OEC continues to make improvements on the survey based on feedback they receive, and they also share the collected data back out with the community such as reports (2019 sample report) and by OEC staff presenting data back to staff and at community centers and the library.

Together, Boston Opportunity Agenda and the Office of Early Childhood conducted specific outreach to center directors and family child care educators to share the “MA Early Education Professional Survey,” in an effort to better understand the early education and care workforce. The survey was available between Spring – Fall 2022 and respondents were offered the opportunity to enter a raffle. These collaborative efforts resulted in 653 unique responses and the 2024 Early Education and Care Report, which illuminated critical issues within this sector, as well as identified trends, challenges, and opportunities.

Your Next Steps for Getting Started

Determine what early childhood data is currently being collected and what data is missing.
Learn what data collection and research efforts are already happening locally as well as at the county, state and federal level.
Build relationships across city departments and with local research institutions to discuss mutually beneficial research opportunities.
Seek opportunities for parents, caregivers and providers to be able to give their input about their needs and preferences.
Set up a data collection system with clear objectives, stakeholder collaboration, data integration, privacy, staff training and continuous improvement in mind.

Helpful Tips for Ongoing Success

Provide feedback loops to let respondents know they are being heard, opinions are valued, and encourage community engagement.
Make changes (e.g. to interventions, instructional practices and programming) based on the data and evidence collected.
Pool resources and efforts around data collection and analysis with school districts, community organizations and across city hall departments.
Engage in longitudinal studies that contribute to the early childhood research field and guide effective practices and resource allocation in early childhood education.
Form a committee comprised of data-interested individuals, including city staff, nonprofit partners, and early education professionals to gather and analyze data related to children and families.

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