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Early educator well-being is increasingly understood as a critical ingredient of high-quality early education and care. The COVID-19 pandemic has threatened educator well-being by exacerbating existing stressors and introducing novel stressors to all aspects of early educators’ lives, and early educators have had differential access to resources to cope with these new circumstances. Using survey data collected between April and June 2020 with a sample of 666 early educators in community-based center, family child care, Head Start, and public school prekindergarten programs across Massachusetts, we document the pandemic's initial influence on educators’ sense of well-being. Adopting an ecological perspective, we consider educator-, program-, and community-level factors that may be associated with reported changes in well-being. Most educators indicated that their mental and financial well-being had been affected. These changes were not systematically associated with most contextual factors, although there was clear evidence of variability in reported impacts by provider type. These findings underscore the need to support educator well-being, as well as to create policy solutions that meet the heterogeneous needs of this essential workforce.

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Over the past two decades, the demographics of the Union, Oklahoma, School District changed dramatically—a school system that had served a predominantly White, well-off student population was charged with educating a racially diverse mix of students body, with many of them hailing from families in poverty. Conventional wisdom would have it that such a change would result in lower graduation rates; in fact, the graduation rate has substantially increased. The district’s success can be attributed to its culture of inclusion—a system designed to deliver tailored support to each student. Union has made science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) a key feature of its curriculum, from kindergarten through high school. It operates community schools in every elementary school, which offer activities ranging from sports to writing, as well as providing healthcare. The district embraces an “everyone participates” philosophy in both the arts and athletics. And it eases the transition to higher education by offering college classes at the high school.