Governor Patrick reads to Head Start
Date: 5/26/2010
May 26, 2010Gov. Deval Patrick visited the Holyoke Chicopee Springfield Head Start Daycare Center on Wilbraham Road on Thursday to read to some of the center's students.
Patrick said he made the stop to call attention to the importance of early childhood education and to thank federal officials who have supplied the state with funding that has helped to make up the difference in cuts the state has been forced to make.
He also thanked private donors who have supported "this center and others like it."
He said the state has supported early childhood education "the best we can" in the current economic conditions.
"There's no doubt as the revenues return in the Commonwealth, we want to do better for early education and care, but we have been doing as well as we can and everything we can under the circumstances," he said.
Patrick said he had promised Janis Santos, the executive director of Holyoke Chicopee Springfield Head Start, he would visit the center to see the kind of educational work being done.
Patrick said that he saw some "marvelously engaged young people."
"There are a lot of good things happening here," he added.
"Early childhood education is transformative to young kids. We want our children to get the very best and the very most out of school," Patrick said.
