The state’s early education commissioner plans to resign next month after about two and a half years on the job.
Samantha Aigner-Treworgy, who stepped into her role in August 2019 and has led the Department of Early Education and Care through the COVID-19 pandemic including the early closures of programs and implementation of new health protocols during their reopening, plans to leave March 8. The Board of Early Education and Care meets that day and is expected to name an acting commissioner.
“Leading EEC at a time when child care has played such a critical role for the Commonwealth has been challenging and extremely rewarding, from the first moments of the pandemic when we opened emergency child care for the families of first-responders, medical personnel, and other essential workers, so children could safely remain in care,” Aigner-Treworgy, who earns an annual salary of $218,052, said in a statement.
Aigner-Treworgy’s departure comes as child care needs undergo close examination and as Massachusetts is also about to embark on a search for its next commissioner of higher education, with Carlos Santiago planning to leave that post at the end of June.
A commission examining early education funding faces a March deadline to produce its report. Sen. Jason Lewis, who chairs that panel with Rep. Alice Peisch, said that the Education Committee plans to use that report as a basis for a bill he hopes to bring to the Senate that will “strengthen our early education and child care, as well as out-of-school-time system in Massachusetts.”
The next early and higher education commissioners will be working under a new education secretary in 2022 when a new administration takes office.
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