Governor Maura Healey visited the Boys and Girls Club in Fall River, Massachusetts, on February 5, 2024, to discuss several key state initiatives and challenges. She highlighted the state's significant focus on education, detailing historic funding proposals for child care, universal pre-kindergarten access for every four-year-old, the literacy launch program, and continued investments in K-12 schools, vocational schools, and free community colleges for individuals over 25. The Governor also addressed a question regarding a bipartisan federal immigration bill, expressing optimism that Congress would pass the compromise legislation to fix the broken immigration system, secure the border, improve the asylum process, and grant work permits. Locally, she acknowledged the Fall River school department's challenges in hiring personnel and outlined state efforts to address broader workforce issues through easier degree access, free community college, and support for educators and teacher training programs. Finally, Governor Healey underscored the vital importance of after-school programs, like the Boys and Girls Clubs, for children's holistic development and as a crucial support for families.
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we've got a big focus on education you know how do we invest in education how do we invest in our young people that starts with historic levels of funding we proposed for child care and now ensuring that every four-year-old in Massachusetts has access to to Universal prek um it moves from there onto our literacy launch which is making sure that all kids are taught to read and read early using the very best materials
0:26available the the best evidence and approaches to teaching reading and and then the huge Investments we continue to make in funding our schools K through 12 and Beyond you know through heavy investments in vocational schools our community colleges which we've made free for anyone over 25 so you know these are the Investments that we need to make that I'm I'm proud We supported this past year in our budget and I look
0:48forward to supporting this year in uh in our new budget Governor is there any reason to be optimistic the House and Senate will pass this compromise bill that was reached last night I sure hope so you know this is a bip partisan bill um that will fix our broken immigration system it will secure the border which is important it will change and improve the Asylum process and it will grant
1:10work permits um all of this is so important Congress needs to act uh stop playing politics and get it done you know um in terms of you know here in Fall River um the the school department has money to hire a lot of personnel and they're having a tough time meeting you know those benchmarks of getting person in the schools is there anything that the state can do to help yeah I mean one
1:33of the things we're really focused on is Workforce whether you're talking education or you're looking at healthc care I mean across so many Industries we have real Workforce challenges so you know what do we do about that one we make it easier uh for people to get degrees you know with the right training with the right materials it's why we've made Community College free to people 25
1:53years and older so that they can come back and maybe new career or new start on things um we've got to just continue to show support for our Educators and for our school districts by fully funding as we have the student Opportunity Act using money from the ctax to make sure that those Investments are made in education uh supporting teacher training programs as well um you know this is it's a bunch of different
2:18things that we need to do but you know Massachusetts we're we're number one in the country when it comes to education but the fact of the matter is not everyone's feeling it and not every student is is seeing the Saints ESS or same results so our job every day is to make sure that we are doing everything that we can to support all 351 cities and towns and the young people can get
2:39there and you mentioned about prek and k212 you here so an after school program here how important is this to also that that well-rounded student education oh it's so important you know um I was raised by a single mom she had five of us and you know we needed to be occupied in the afternoon with sports and with other activities and you know that's the case for so many families kids need a
3:01place to go after school so the after school programs are so important they're so important for emotional and mental and physical development uh they're important for for teamwork and and social emotional learning and uh they're a safe place for kids to be and to continue to grow throughout the day so we're big fans of the Boys and Girls Clubs and organizations like that who are you know such a such important
3:27points in our community providing so much both to young people and also to their families and to their to their parents