U.S. Sen. Warnock to Keynote UCC Conference in Worcester

WORCESTER — U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., will deliver the keynote address at the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ’s annual meeting Sept. 26 at the DCU Center, conference organizers announced.

Doors open at 3:30 p.m. for the 4 p.m. keynote, which will also be available via livestream. Tickets for the general public cost $35 and include either in-person admission or the livestream link, available at sneucc.org/warnock-tickets. Warnock will preach at a separate worship service the next morning at 10 a.m., which is free but requires advance registration due to limited space.

Warnock, senior pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, became Georgia’s first Black senator after winning a January 2021 special election and was reelected to a full term in 2022. He grew up in public housing in Savannah as the 11th of 12 children and has served on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, where he helped shape provisions in the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act addressing housing supply and affordability.

Rev. Darrell L. Goodwin, the conference’s executive minister, said the moment calls for reflecting on shared responsibility and the future communities are working to build together.

The Southern New England Conference includes 556 churches and more than 100,000 members across Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Image Courtesy of the office of Sen. Warnock

Worcester Arts Council Opens FY27 Grant Application

WORCESTER — The Worcester Arts Council opened applications Wednesday, September 9, for its fiscal year 2027 grant cycle, offering more than $250,000 to local artists and cultural organizations ahead of an Oct. 15 deadline.

Applications must be submitted online by 11:59 p.m. that day, and late submissions will not be accepted, the city said. Grant guidelines and application instructions are posted at the city’s Arts & Culture Grants webpage. The council plans to review applications from November through December, with funding decisions announced by late January 2027. A virtual grant workshop for prospective applicants, aimed especially at first-time applicants, will be held over Zoom; details are being shared through the council’s Instagram account.

Based on feedback from the council’s annual funding priorities survey, the city said this year’s review will favor applications tied to arts education, public art and musical performances for all ages; projects that elevate historically marginalized groups through a diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility lens; and projects benefiting historically underserved parts of the city.

The council offers two grant types. Project Grants support arts, humanities, and interpretive-science programs that benefit Worcester residents, and require applicants to hold a residential, commercial, or studio address in Worcester County, with funded projects taking place in Worcester. Fellowship Grants support individual artists developing work outside a specific project, and require applicants to be based in Worcester.

“Supporting artists is essential to a vibrant and life-giving culture,” Worcester Arts Council Chair Chris Michelotti said in a statement, adding that the grants are among several resources the council offers Worcester’s arts community.

“When we fund the arts, we invest in the people and ideas that give our city its character, tell our stories, and bring our communities together,” said Cultural Development Officer Fabian Barracks. “Sustained investment in creativity is essential to ensuring Worcester continues to grow as a vibrant arts city where bold ideas can take root and thrive.”

The council’s most recent cycle awarded 54 grants totaling roughly $250,000 to Worcester artists and organizations, following a review of 163 applications.

The council operates as one of 329 Local Cultural Councils that the Massachusetts Cultural Council funds across every city and town in the state, together forming what the state agency describes as the largest grassroots cultural funding network in the country. This year, the state is providing Worcester’s council with $244,500, up from $236,500 the previous two years. The Greater Worcester Community Foundation is contributing another $15,000 toward fellowship grants, an increase from the $10,000 it has given in recent years.

City View Discovery School Awarded $2.73 Million for Heating System

WORCESTER — The city announced Wednesday that City View Discovery School has been awarded a $2.73 million state grant to overhaul its heating system, the largest energy-efficiency grant Worcester has received for a single school building.

The award comes through the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center’s Green School Works program, which distributed $19 million in May across nine school districts statewide to modernize aging school infrastructure. The program is funded by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Worcester’s grant, awarded jointly to Worcester Public Schools and the city’s Department of Sustainability and Resilience, will fund a phased project replacing City View’s original 1991 heating system with an electric air-water heat pump system, along with insulation and airflow upgrades. Existing gas boilers will stay in place as backup during extreme cold. The project is expected to wrap up by the end of 2027.

“This project will make a real difference for the students, teachers, and staff at City View Discovery School — giving them a healthier, more comfortable place to learn and work every day,” said City Manager Eric D. Batista. “This is the first project of its kind for Worcester and serves as an example of how we can modernize our schools with the right support.”

“We are grateful for the substantial and continuous support of our local and state partners to provide this energy efficiency upgrade at City View Discovery School,” said Brian E. Allen, Superintendent of Worcester Public Schools. “This project helps meet our district’s strategic plan priority of modernized and safe facilities to benefit our students and staff.”

The city said the pre-K through sixth-grade school serves an environmental justice community with an asthma rate among students above the state average, a figure that could not be independently verified. City officials said the heating and air-quality upgrades are expected to reduce classroom disruptions and improve conditions for community programming held in the building after school hours.

The Police Reform Plan Worcester Government Refuses to Produce

On Tuesday, Sept. 8, the Worcester City Council will vote to accept the recommendation of City Manager Eric Batista’s administration and decline to establish a civilian review board (CRB) as an independent oversight mechanism for misconduct at the Worcester Police Deparment.

The vote to accept the administration’s recommendation will probably fail by a significant margin. Based on previous public statements, At-Large Councilor Khrystian King and District Councilors Robert Bilotta, and Louis Ojeda are expected to vote in favor of a CRB.

Mayor Joe Petty and At-Large Councilors Morris Bergman, Satya Mitra, Gary Rosen, and Kate Toomey, and District Councilors Tony Economou, John Fresolo, and Jose A. Rivera are expected to vote against establishing a civilian review board.

None of those expected to vote against a CRB have provided any alternative suggestions.

That vote will probably mark the end of what was never a serious effort at police reform in the city. An effort to undermine the two-year U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) pattern or practice investigation of the Worcester Police Department began hours before the release of the DOJ findings report.

The Trump administration abandoned the DOJ’s investigations of police departments across the country since the beginning of its second term. Even with the Trump administration’s extremely low effort, it applied more scrutiny to Worcester than other cities.

The DOJ released a report on the Mount Vernon, New York Police Department on Dec. 12, 2024, just three days after the DOJ released its report on the WPD. In May 2025, the Trump DOJ rescinded the findings in the reports in Mount Vernon and five other cities, ending the federal processes there. Worcester was not one of those cities.

Instead, the Trump DOJ says it reviewed policy changes and incident reports and closed the investigation. The DOJ did not rescind its findings report on the Worcester Police Department.

Even the weak-on-civil-and-constitutional-rights Trump administration treated Worcester differently than nearly any other department in the country.

The biggest lie of this campaign to undermine police reform in Worcester is by omission. City officials continue to suggest that the WPD has complied with the recommendations in the report, so the job is done, despite some of those items remaining incomplete. They do this knowing that one criticism of the report upon its release was those same remedial recommendations.

In reality, the release of the report is just the second of a four-part process used by the DOJ since its first investigation in 1996 until the end of the Bided administration. After the DOJ issues its findings report, the third part of the process is a negotiation between the DOJ and the police department it investigated. Once the DOJ and the department reach an agreement reforms, the DOJ frequently brought that agreement to a federal court, which led to court ordered oversight of the fourth part of the process, implementation.

The implementation process often takes many years, ranging from five years to, in the case of the Oakland, CA Police Department, 20 years.

Once the Trump administration had clearly abandoned the process, city officials suddenly started promoting the same remedial recommendations they initially criticized as the holy grail.

A responsible government that valued the individual constitutional rights of those who live in, work in, or visit Worcester would have looked to past agreements between the DOJ and police departments across the country and evaluated what applies to Worcester.

Neither the city administration nor the eight-member majority of the city council will do that. They are insistent on preventing meaningful oversight and prohibiting any independent review.

Since the city government refuses to do the work, I did.

I produced a proposal for the city council that spans 30 pages and includes 45 provisions. The vast majority of those provisions were sourced from past agreements between the DOJ and the departments which it departments it previously investigated and implemented reforms within.

I didn’t reinvent the wheel. I simply looked at past DOJ practices and applied when relevant. It wasn’t very hard, it just took effort.

See the full proposal here.  

I will petition the city council to take up this proposal during its Sept. 15 meeting, but they will never take it up. Instead, they’ll continue to hide behind a selective interpretation of the rules, as they can’t be bothered with residents. It will never make the agenda based on some spurious reason that really just means the mayor doesn’t want it, because his majority has cowardly prioritized running from tough votes whenever possible.

I’m sure everything in this proposal isn’t perfect; maybe some of it is dead wrong. That said, here’s the scoreboard for reform proposals produced:

• Idiot with a computer and a news website (me): 1
• Mayor Petty’s eight-councilor majority coalition: 0

Here is a selection of provisions included in the proposal.

Use of Force and De-escalation

• Canine deployment beyond crowd control. Policy 400’s canine restriction currently reaches only crowd-control deployments. WPD shall extend bite-ratio and contact tracking to all canine deployments, consistent with the Albuquerque Police Department’s settlement agreement, and report canine-contact incidents in the same annual summary Policy 400 § O.6 already requires for other force types.
• Duty-to-intervene discipline parity. Policy 400’s duty-to-intervene provision requires an officer able to safely do so to stop another officer’s excessive force, but leaves the consequence of failing to do so at the same general “up to and including termination” range that applies to most misconduct. WPD shall amend Policy 400 so an officer who fails to intervene is disciplined at the same severity as the underlying use of force, not assessed independently under the general range — modeled on Minneapolis’s 2025 Consent Decree ¶ 33. Under the § 5.9 disciplinary matrix, a sustained failure-to-intervene finding is assessed at the underlying violation’s severity category, not a separate, generally lower one.

Officer Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Assault Investigations

• A sustained finding of officer sexual misconduct involving a member of the public carries a presumption of termination, rebuttable only by the City Manager in a written, public determination stating the reasons for departure from the presumption.
• WPD shall remove any policy or practice — including any requirement that a complainant provide identifying information as a precondition to investigation — that discourages a victim of officer sexual misconduct from reporting, consistent with DOJ’s remedial measure 10.

Department Response to Reports of Sexual Assault

• WPD shall adopt a trauma-informed sexual-assault investigation policy applicable to patrol officers, Bureau of Professional Standards investigators, and Sexual Assault Unit detectives alike, with trauma-informed interviewing training for every officer in each role. Consistent with Baltimore’s 2016 consent decree § XI, the policy shall at minimum require:

Bias-Free Policing and Racial Equity

• Stop, search, and citation data. WPD shall expand the disaggregated data-collection and public-reporting model Policy 400 now applies to use-of-force incidents to cover all investigatory stops, searches, and citations, including stops that do not result in an arrest or citation — consistent with DOJ’s remedial measure 12 and modeled on Newark’s 2016 consent decree stop-data compliance-review cycle. WPD shall publish, within one hundred eighty days of Council adoption, an interim methodology for collecting and reporting this data using existing records systems ahead of the Hexagon system’s deployment, consistent with the forcing function § 2.4 already establishes for use-of-force data.
  
• Juvenile arrest policy. WPD’s juvenile arrest policy, nineteen years old as of the 2024 audit and lacking juvenile-privacy protections, shall be revised within one year of Council adoption of this proposal.

Accountability

• Evidentiary standard for sustained findings. WPD Policy 500 defines a “Sustained” disposition only as “sufficient evidence to clearly prove the allegations,” naming no recognized legal standard. WPD shall amend Policy 500 to require the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard for a Sustained disposition — consistent with Baltimore, Chicago, Louisville, Cleveland, and New Orleans, and with WPD’s own Policy 211, which already names an explicit “clear and convincing evidence” standard for POST decertification proceedings. 
• Investigation regardless of complainant cooperation. A complaint of serious misconduct shall be investigated to completion regardless of whether the complainant continues to cooperate, consistent with DOJ’s remedial measure 16.

Supervision

• Specialized-unit eligibility and audit. WPD shall establish written eligibility criteria for assignment to specialized units, including the vice/undercover unit implicated in Article III’s Finding B, and shall audit specialized-unit assignments and conduct on a regular cadence — consistent with DOJ’s remedial measure 19 and modeled on the Early Intervention System structures in Baltimore’s and Chicago’s consent decrees, configured per those decrees to flag units for elevated risk, not only individual officers.
• Supervisory span of control. WPD’s FY27 staffing includes 59 budgeted sergeant positions against 366 budgeted patrol officer positions. The Commanding Officer’s office shall review this span-of-control ratio at least annually to confirm patrol supervisors retain the capacity to conduct the use-of-force, BWC, and complaint reviews this proposal and Policy 400 already require of them. Where the review finds a unit or shift’s ratio is impairing timely review under Article II or Article V, WPD shall report that finding, and any staffing request needed to correct it, to the City Manager as part of the ordinary budget process.

Mass. State Police Select Monitor For Academy Reforms

FRAMINGHAM — The Massachusetts State Police announced Friday that PFM Group Consulting LLC will serve as an independent evaluator overseeing reforms at the department’s training academy, clearing the way for the next recruit class to begin next month.

The firm will spend five years tracking the department’s progress on 103 recommendations issued in May by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, publishing its findings in annual public reports. With that oversight structure in place, the department said it plans to start its 93rd Recruit Training Troop on Oct. 26.

The reform effort follows the September 2024 death of 25-year-old recruit Enrique Delgado-Garcia of Worcester, who died at a hospital two days after becoming unresponsive during an unauthorized, unsupervised sparring session at the academy in New Braintree.

A special statewide grand jury indicted Sgt. Jennifer Penton and Troopers Edwin Rodriguez, David Montanez and Casey LaMonte on charges of involuntary manslaughter and causing serious bodily injury to a trainee. Penton, who supervised the unit, also faces a perjury charge tied to her grand jury testimony.

All four have pleaded not guilty.

Col. Geoffrey Noble, the department’s superintendent, said the Academy’s curriculum and instructional approach have been reshaped around national best practices identified through the IACP assessment and visits to other training academies. “Public safety depends on the Massachusetts State Police Academy’s ability to train the next generation of Troopers and prepare them for a fulfilling career in law enforcement,” Noble said in a statement.

Noble formed a 10-member working group of sworn and professional staff after the IACP assessment, prioritizing 31 of its recommendations. Of those, 22 must be completed before the new recruit class begins, addressing day-to-day training practices, while work must be underway on the remaining nine, which focus on longer-term changes to leadership, trainee wellness and institutional oversight

Webster Man Pleds Guilty to Selling 3-D Printed Firearms

WORCESTER — A local man pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to illegally dealing firearms and possessing a machinegun,

Anthony “AJ” Pietrowski, 24, of Webster, pleaded guilty to one count of dealing firearms without a license and one count of possessing a machinegun, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.

Prosecutors said Pietrowski sold privately made firearms and firearm parts during four transactions in Webster between August and October 2025, including a 3D-printed Glock-style pistol, several 3D-printed pistol frames and a device designed to convert a Glock-style pistol into a machinegun. He had not applied for or received a federal license to manufacture or sell firearms.

According to court filings, Pietrowski described one weapon as a custom build with a 3D-printed frame and explained how he obtained parts and assembled the guns. He later sold additional frames along with another privately made pistol, then paired a pistol with the conversion device in August 2025. In October, he sold six more 3D-printed frames.

Pietrowski was arrested and charged in January and released on conditions after a detention hearing.U.S. District Judge Margaret Guzman set sentencing for Dec. 7.

The charge of unlawful dealing in firearms without a license provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000.

The charge of unlawful possession of a machinegun provides for a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000.

Sixth Human Case of West Nile Virus Announced in Mass.

BOSTON — Massachusetts health officials on Thursday, Sept. 3, announced the sixth human case of West Nile virus in the state this year, in a man in his 70s likely exposed in Suffolk County outside Boston, and raised risk levels in four additional communities.

The Department of Public Health (DPH) said the new case pushed the high-risk designation to 11 municipalities: Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Newton, Revere, Somerville, Watertown and Winthrop. Another 250 cities and towns across 13 counties carry a moderate risk rating.

Public Health Commissioner Robbie Goldstein urged residents heading into the holiday weekend to stay alert to mosquitoes even amid backyard gatherings and cookouts. He recommended wearing repellent, covering exposed skin and clearing standing water around homes to cut down on breeding sites.

State officials reported 273 mosquito samples testing positive for West Nile virus so far this season, drawn from 13 counties including Barnstable, Middlesex, Worcester, and Suffolk. The first positive samples turned up June 16. Separately, 13 samples have tested positive for Eastern equine encephalitis, though no human or animal cases of that disease have surfaced this year.

Ways to Protect Your Family and Pets

Avoid Mosquito Bites

Apply Insect Repellent when Outdoors.Use a repellent with an EPA-registered ingredient, such as DEET (N,N-diethyl-m-toluamide), permethrin, picaridin (KBR 3023), or oil of lemon eucalyptus (p-menthane-3,8-diol (PMD) or IR3535) according to the instructions on the product label. DEET products should not be used on infants under two months of age and should be used in concentrations of 30 percent or less on older children. Oil of lemon eucalyptus should not be used on children under three years of age.

Be Aware of Peak Mosquito Hours.The hours from dusk to dawn are peak biting times for many mosquitoes. Consider rescheduling outdoor activities that occur during evening or early morning in areas of high risk.

Clothing Can Help Reduce Mosquito Bites.Wearing long sleeves, long pants and socks when outdoors will help keep mosquitoes away from your skin.

Mosquito-Proof Your Home

Drain Standing Water.Mosquitoes lay their eggs in standing water. Limit the number of places around your home for mosquitoes to breed by draining or discarding items that hold water. Check rain gutters and drains. Empty unused flowerpots and wading pools and change the water in birdbaths frequently.

Install or Repair Screens.Keep mosquitoes outside by having tightly fitting screens on all windows and doors.

Protect Your Animals

Animal owners should reduce potential mosquito breeding sites on their property by eliminating standing water from containers such as buckets, tires, and wading pools – especially after heavy rains. Water troughs provide excellent mosquito breeding habitats and should be flushed out to reduce mosquitoes near paddock areas. Horse owners should keep horses in indoor stalls at night to reduce their risk of exposure to mosquitoes. Owners should also speak with their veterinarian about mosquito repellents approved for use in animals and vaccinations to prevent West Nile virus (WNV) and EEE. If an animal is suspected of having WNV or EEE, owners are required to report to the Department of Agricultural Resources, Division of Animal Health by calling 617-626-1795, and to the Department of Public Health by calling 617-983-6800.

The department updates its arbovirus surveillance dashboard, including a downloadable risk-level file by city and town, and can be reached with questions through its Division of Epidemiology at 617-983-6800.

Get Help Sealing Past Eviction Records in Worcester

WORCESTER — Worcester Community Action Council (WCAC) will offer on-site help for residents seeking to seal past eviction records at two upcoming Community Day events.

The service, provided in partnership with the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center, will be available Sept. 14 at 18 Chestnut St. and Oct. 8 at 219 Everett St., both from 11 AM to 1 PM. Trained staff and legal partners will meet one-on-one with eligible residents to review their eviction records and begin court petitions on site.

Registration is required, and residents are encouraged to bring photo identification, though court documents are not necessary. Interpretation services will be provided.

A 2025 state law allows eligible tenants to petition courts to seal eviction records, regardless of the outcome of the case. According to the WCAC, such records could remain publicly searchable indefinitely and follow tenants through future housing applications.

“An eviction record can follow a family for years, long after the circumstances that caused it are behind them,” WCAC CEO Marybeth Campbell said in a statement, adding that the goal is to open the door to stable housing and the stability it brings, including steady employment and a settled home for children.

Vineeth Hemavathi, executive director of the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center, said in a statement that his organization has repeatedly seen court records block people from housing even after cases were dismissed or judgments paid.

The record-sealing service is part of WCAC’s broader Community Day series, which also connects residents with financial coaching, energy assistance and youth programming in a single visit. WCAC serves 43 communities in and around Worcester.

Worcester’s Green Electricity Program Announces Rate Cut

The City of Worcester announced price changes in its Green Worcester ElectriCITY program that reduce program prices from its current level starting in December. The new rates are guaranteed for the next 24 months.

The pricing changes for the program’s two options are:

Worcester Standard Green: 16.31 cents/kWh (reduced 0.602 from 16.912 cents/kWh)
Worcester 100% Green: 17.73 cents/kWh (reduced 1.033 from 18.763 cents/kWh)

Most households in Worcester range from 477 kWh to 963 kWh of electricity usage per month. That equals savings of around $3 to $6 per month on the standard plan, and around $5 and $10 per month on the 100% plan compared to current prices.

Residents in Worcester are automatically enrolled in the Worcester Standard Green plan and may opt-out for National Grid‘s Basic Service. National Grid’s 9-month winter residential price, which takes effect Nov. 1 and is guaranteed through July 2024, is 18.213 cents/kWh.

Future savings with the Green Worcester ElectriCITY program compared to National Grid pricing cannot be guaranteed when National Grid prices change in August 2024. However, those enrolled in either Green Worcester plan can leave at any time with no exit charge.

The new Standard Green plan includes 40 percent more renewable electricity than the state minimum, an increase of 10 percent over the minimum from last year. The Standard Green plan sources a total of 64 percent from renewable sources in starting in 2024.

Green Worcester ElectriCITY has saved participants more than $12 million since the program’s launch in 2020 and helped the community to avoid more than 155 million pounds of CO2 emissions, according to the City of Worcester. This is equivalent to the emissions associated with 15,645 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles for a year.

Both Green Worcester ElectriCITY prices include a $0.001/kWh operational fee that will support aggregation program management and energy initiatives in the City.

Residents currently enrolled have to do nothing to continue in the same option they previously selected through their December 2023 meter read with the new price on January 2024 National Grid electric bills. The supplier will be listed as “Green Worc Electricity Aggregation Prog.” You can change the program option or leave the program before before December with no penalty or fee.

Green Worcester ElectriCITY is a group electricity purchasing program from the City of Worcester for Worcester residents and businesses. Massachusetts state law allows cities and towns to choose the electricity supplier for their electricity customers rather than have the local electric utility, which is National Grid for Worcester, buy their electricity.

To enroll, make changes to enrollment, or get more information, visit GreenWorcesterElectriCITY.com or contact customer support with Worcester’s program consultants at (833) 926-1207.

The Two Years Between Early Intervention and Kindergarten

by Saaya Daga, CommonWealth Beacon

Prince Lacroix’s mother, Eva Santiago, knew there was something different about her son early on. He was late to walk, late to babble, and he played with toys differently than other kids his age. She was a first-time mother at the time, staying in a shelter, and when she asked her pediatrician for support, he referred her to Early Intervention (EI), a federal-state partnership program aimed at supporting infants and toddlers at risk of or with developmental delays. A team from Bay Cove, one of the state’s Early Intervention providers, came out to evaluate him and at around two years old, Prince was enrolled.

Early Intervention became a one hour per week part of both Santiago and Prince’s life. An occupational therapist came to their home, worked with Prince directly, and spent time teaching Santiago activities and strategies she could use between visits to support his development. Slowly, Santiago began to notice a change: Prince started building with Legos, went on playdates through the program, and learned a few songs.

When Prince turned three, in mid-February, his Early Intervention services stopped, as they do for every child in Massachusetts, regardless of how much progress they have made or how much support they still need. It took about another six months, until that September, before he began special education services through Boston Public Schools. In the meantime, there was no developmental support.

Once Prince started preschool, the services were comprehensive, Santiago said. But the months in between left an impact. “I believe that changing the end mark of EI from three years old to when kids step foot into public school, would be really beneficial,” she said, arguing that her son lost valuable learning time waiting for his special education services to begin.

Prince’s diagnoses qualified him for special education services through his school district after he was no longer eligible for Early Intervention. For him, there was developmental support waiting in the distance. But for many children across the state who do not qualify for those services, what happens after they turn three can look very different.

“There are many kids that, when their services are dropped, are lost temporarily for two years. Parents will come in [to the office] and be frustrated about finding an affordable, accessible preschool to support their child’s development,” said Dr. Theresa Callahan, a Leominster-based pediatrician. “Those are the kids that fall behind, and the ones that do not start with their toes on the starting line for kindergarten.”

Early Intervention, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Public Health (DPH) in Massachusetts, is designed to identify children at risk of developmental delays early and broadly. A child can qualify because of a measurable developmental delay, a diagnosed condition like autism, or a range of social and environmental circumstances that put a child at risk, from homelessness to lead exposure. The program is free, and services are delivered in a home or community setting rather than in a clinic.

Special education, which is overseen by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), takes over once a child turns three and works differently. To qualify for an Individualized Education Program (IEP) and receive special education services, a child must fall into one of 13 federally recognized disability categories, and, most importantly, that disability has to interfere with the child’s ability to learn in a school setting. It is a higher, differently shaped bar than the developmental-delay standard Early Intervention uses.

“In the school system, they are looking at academics [and] is this child going to be able to participate in a regular school setting,” said Maura Buglione, director of development at Thom Child & Family Services, an Early Intervention provider that works with more than 10,000 infants, toddlers, and families statewide. “Whereas in EI, some of the things that we are working on are social, emotional, and behavioral. … There is such a close focus in EI on the parent-child relationship and supporting healthy relationships existing within the home.”

For students who exit Early Intervention at 3 and do not meet the bar for an IEP, there exists a two-year period — roughly ages three to five — between Early Intervention services and public kindergarten during which many parents and caregivers are left to figure out how to pay for developmental support options.

“Oftentimes, because the criteria to qualify for an IEP is a little bit different than the criteria to qualify for EI, you will have kids who did meet the criteria for EI but do not meet the disability status that is required to get an IEP,” said Buglione. Children with milder speech or language issues, borderline autism traits, or subtle sensory or motor delays often fall into that space, she said. “Their needs are not considered profound enough to qualify for an IEP.”

Planning a family’s transition out of Early Intervention is built into the program. Federal law requires that every child receiving services have a transition plan in place at the latest 90 days before their third birthday. If a child is eligible for special education, that transition plan also notifies the family’s local school district and hosts a “transition conference,” bringing together the family, the Early Intervention team, and school representatives to discuss what comes next before the services end.

IEP evaluations are conducted by local school districts and if a child qualifies, the IEP must be fully developed and in effect by their third birthday. If that birthday falls during the summer, the child’s IEP team, including parents, work together to determine the date when services under the IEP start.

Regardless of whether that child ultimately qualifies for an IEP, “we still work on a full-blown transition plan to whatever the next steps are,” said Buglione.

Some choose to continue pursuing development support through private insurance or out-of-pocket pay. Others enroll in private preschools. Massachusetts has no universal, publicly funded pre-K program for children whose families are unable to afford either. The closest thing, Head Start, only accepts children based on federal income guidelines or who are homeless, in foster care, or receiving public assistance.

The clearest snapshot of the transition comes from state data on the roughly 19,000 children who exited Early Intervention statewide between July 2022 and June 2023. About 40 percent were found eligible for special education services. Another 13 percent completed their Early Intervention services before turning three. Close to 10 percent of exiting children were determined not eligible for special education.  The remaining children either did not have their eligibility for special education determined, were withdrawn from early intervention services, or did not respond to the survey.

There is no state count of how many of those children went on to find support elsewhere and how many did not. The DPH collects data inside Early Intervention programs and DESE tracks whether eligible children referred from EI have an IEP implemented by their third birthday. Neither system looks at what happens to a child who exits EI without a referral, or is evaluated and found ineligible, once they leave.

A handful of newer state initiatives addresses the edges of this gap, though none of them address the gap itself. A section of the new state budget calls for automatically referring children entering shelters to Early Intervention.

Separately, DESE launched a pilot during the 2025-2026 school year called the Preschool Itinerant Team Initiative. It offers roughly $250,000 in grants to help school districts build “traveling teams” of special educators and therapists to deliver IEP services directly inside community preschools, rather than requiring separate public-preschool enrollment. Districts that fall short of state benchmarks for transitioning children from Early Intervention into special education are given priority for the funding.

There also exists a federal program, called the Part C Extension Option, that would give states the option to extend Early Intervention services for students who qualify for an IEP up to age five instead of cutting them off at three. That would allow them to continue with the same EI structure rather than moving to a preschool setting. Several states, including Connecticut, Maryland, and Colorado, have adopted it. Massachusetts has not, in part, because doing so would require substantial new investment both from the state and from private insurers.

“There would be a lot of people interested in that extension,” said Buglione. “It probably has not been discussed in a super meaningful way at this point here in Massachusetts because we know that the mechanism is not there for us to be able to do it. But I do think if the option was there to apply for this program, a lot of the Early Intervention vendors in Massachusetts would go for it.”

This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.