For years, early childhood leaders have been asked to solve structural problems with predictable answers: improve quality. Expand access. Support families. Retain educators. Strengthen transitions to kindergarten.
All of this matters, but none of it can be fully achieved with our fragmented system, in which Head Start, child care, public preschool, special education, and K-12 are all separately funded, separately governed, and separately managed.
On their own, these programs do not always correspond to the needs and realities faced by many families with young children.
That’s why in rural Skowhegan, Maine – a community facing significant challenges, including poverty, transportation barriers, and lack of care options – we decided not to work around this fragmentation but to address it. Following the national Educare model, we intentionally engaged in a combination of cross-sector partnerships and public policy changes as a local effort.
The result is a broad solution: A new public school for kindergarten through fifth grade that brings together infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and elementary school students on a single campus.
Related: Young children have unique needs and providing the right care can be a challenge. Our free early childhood education newsletter tracks issues.
In Skowhegan, we didn’t just want to build a school; We wanted to advocate for a new path forward that shows what high-quality early childhood education can look like in practice when systems align. Skowhegan and Educare educators knew from the beginning that one strong school would never be enough. That’s why we sought to create a replicable structure where children could learn in inclusive settings and where families could access support through a more connected system.
In our rural state, Educare wanted to influence the broader conditions that shape the quality of children and families in communities. This meant starting with partnerships and increasing commitments to early childhood care and education from all stakeholders, including the region’s future workforce.
Such partnerships build trust, and deepening that trust has made greater change possible. Thanks to our Educare Maine Laboratory School and Learning Hub, we have partnered with in-home and center-based child care providers in Skowhegan. (Educare Maine was formerly known as Educare Central Maine.)
Educare did not approach this work as outside experts providing answers. Educare coaches worked alongside local providers to strengthen quality, stabilize programs and build a more cohesive early childhood ecosystem. And our work together has surfaced evidence from other communities. With the University of Maine, we have brought together data showing that providers were more likely to sustain their businesses and improve quality when they had coordinated support.
This local pilot program became the basis for statewide legislation: Premier4ME, a model designed to help communities collaborate around early childhood care and education rather than competing within a fragmented system.
As Skowhegan planned a new elementary school, local leaders stepped up, choosing not to replicate the traditional model and align the building with Educare Maine’s research model of child development and family needs, professional development and community partnerships.
Because there were already infant and toddler classes on the district’s campus, the superintendent made a compelling case to the state that our youngest learners should be included in the future of this school.
It helped persuade the Maine Department of Education to do something it had never done before: include space for infants and toddlers in a new school construction project, a fundamental policy change signaling that care and education need not exist in separate silos.
Families cannot travel long distances across five disconnected systems with limited transportation and few available providers. Programs cannot maintain quality without shared infrastructure. And communities cannot thrive when early childhood is treated as a private challenge rather than a public priority.
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What happened in Skowhegan was not accidental. It was built step by step and helped to redefine what public education can be.
But the fragmentation in our region is not limited to the provision of preschool education. Too often, early childhood policy discussions focus on isolated interventions: a grant here, a pilot there, a program expansion elsewhere. But families don’t know the policies and systems in pieces. They perceive them as connected or disconnected, accessible or tedious, responsive or impossible to navigate.
If we want systems in other districts that work, we need to build them like we did in Skowhegan. Educare Maine is now continuing this work across the state, helping communities recognize opportunities for local and broader solutions.
What began as a local necessity in Skowhegan now offers a scalable model for a nation drowning in the wilderness of child care and fragmented systems. By following Maine’s lead – pooling cross-sector funds and rewriting state building policies to include infants – other states can stop applying temporary Band-Aids to early childhood education. Integrating child care from early childhood through fifth grade directly into public school infrastructure transforms a private family burden into a shared public good, proving that the best way to solve a national crisis is to stop building systems in pieces and finally build them whole.
Tracye Fortin is Educare Maine’s Chief Impact Officer and former COO of KVCAP Child & Family Services and Educare Maine in Waterville.
Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.
This story about public school for infants and toddlers was produced by The Hechinger reportan independent, nonprofit news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Register with Hechinger weekly newsletter.
The article OPINION: How a small town in rural Maine built a public school that serves an entire community, including infants and toddlers, appeared first in the Hechinger Report.
