In the wake of President Biden’s push for a free universal pre-kindergarten program, some states have been scrambling to implement systems that allow three and four-year-olds a seat in schools.
Colorado is one of those states.
In the wake of the passage of Biden’s 2021 Build Back Better Plan, the state ratified and established a new wing of the Colorado Dept. of Education, the Dept. of Early Childhood.
At the time the national bill was enacted, 46% of the nation’s three and four-year-olds were in some sort of preschool, according to 24/7 Wall Street.
In 2022, the new department in Colorado was tasked with implementing universal pre-K across the state for the 2023-24 school year. In governmental terms, that time frame to ramp up a new program is blisteringly quick.
“There has been a real need for support and dollars and an incredible opportunity for our youngest,” said Dawn Odean, the state’s pre-k director.
“But, yes, this has been a lot of change for folks, quickly.”
At least in what is called Universal Preschool Colorado, the term “Universal” is, in some ways, different from what it implies, though not to any detriment. Not all schools that offer pre-K programs are bound to opt-in to be members of the state program. On the flipside, some schools which did not offer pre-K programs in the past find the new subsidy from the state an easy lane to begin such classes.
Two programs that have quickly latched onto the state’s plan are the Staenberg-Loup JCC in Denver, and the Boulder JCC.
“A lot of our families came to us and asked if we were going to participate,” said Lauren Steele, director of admissions at the Denver JCC, which has 30 pre-K students. “It could help lower the cost of tuition for their pre-k students.”
Steele said that the JCC, families in the coming year had the option of receiving state funding for a portion of their tuition, or all of it.
“Had we not participated, we might have seen a little bit more of a drop in families enrolling who really did need the extra funding,” said Steele. “They probably would have gone to a public school or to another school that was participating.”
Attaching the state pre-K program to private schools in the area has, in some cases, been problematic. Many private schools charge much more per student than what the state provides for in tuition.
The average subsidy in the state for a half-day (15 hours a week) preschooler in Colorado for 2023-24 is $6,044.37.
Some Jewish private schools appear not ready to jump in immediately, or ever, to the universal program.
“We are not able to provide information on this, yet,” said Rabbi Yisroel Goldbaum, principal of Hillel Academy.
“We are not currently considering a pre-K program,” said Lisa Stroll, head of school at Denver Academy of Torah.
“We do recognize that we have providers that maybe pay their staff a higher rate than our rate is equal to reach,” said Odean. “We know we have work to do in the whole early childhood ecosystem.
“We did take some steps toward better pay when we created this rate formula, but we know we can do better.
“One of the things that we are considering is, is it OK not to be all in? I think we had to give it a go this year and make sure we had enough seats for the families that came to us and get a better understanding of what the impacts there might be.”
For the 2023-24 school year, in a 15 hour-a-week program, the state has funded for 58,000 available pre-K seats via 2,033 providers. There are currently 30,000 enrollees. Odean says that from US Census data the Colorado department projects about 63,000 children eligible for the state’s program.
The split of providers between public and private schools, according to Dept. of Early Childhood spokesperson Hope Shuler, “is about 50-50.”
“Especially for programs who’ve never participated in state funding, there’s a lot of change and change means very real work,” said Odean.
“When we first started asking providers to join us, the program wasn’t fully defined, so there were a lot of unknowns.
“There’s a level of risk and that’s very fair to contemplate as a business owner who has a certain level of standard or expectation for themselves and for their staff.
“There was a lot of consideration around our rate in what providers were actually able to operate under, in not receiving state funds.
“No one has it quite like Colorado. There are different states who have similar types of programs with universal access, but are not able to serve a total population, or they only do it through a school district-managed process.
“We’re approaching it in a mixed delivery setting.”
In the wake of the pre-K rollout, a challenge has emerged in the private school realm. The Alliance Defending Freedom filed a federal lawsuit against the state in June representing Darren Patterson Christian Academy in Buena Vista, challenging the state program for “forcing the school to surrender its religious character and beliefs to participate” in the preschool program.
The lawsuit alleges, “The Colorado Department of Early Childhood is mandating that, for the school to participate in the program and receive critical state funding, it must hire employees who do not share its faith and alter internal rules and policies that are based on the school’s religious beliefs about sexuality and gender.
“Colorado officials are unconstitutionally forcing Darren Patterson Christian Academy to make the untenable choice of adhering to its religious beliefs and forfeiting participation in an otherwise generally available public program or surrendering its beliefs to participate equally with other preschools in the state.”
Odean, unable to comment specifically on the lawsuit because of the ongoing litigation, said:
“Because we’ve approached this in mixed delivery system and are respectful of a family’s choice, we anticipated that there would be some complexities there that would arise or some challenges that we would have to work through.
“I think that’s good for us to contemplate and consider and really be thoughtful about it.”
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