Chalkbeat

Cost savings, first-day jitters, payment delays: NYC launches 2-K for 2,000 toddlers

2026-09-10T21:15:10+00:00

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As her 2-year-old son bounded into his brightly colored Brooklyn preschool classroom on Thursday morning, Mirlene Casimir lingered on the outskirts of the room with other parents.

It was a bittersweet moment for Casimir, a nurse and the daughter of Haitian immigrants.

Her son was part of the inaugural class of New York City’s new childcare program for 2-year-olds. The free 2-K program at the Friends of Crown Heights center in East Flatbush, which runs from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. year-round, would save her money she could spend on her mortgage and student loans, she said. It would allow her to cut back on overtime shifts. She hoped it would also help her son, who doesn’t speak much English at home, with his language skills.

Mirlene Casimir after dropping her son off at 2-K.

Across four boroughs, roughly 2,000 toddlers began the school year Thursday as part of the 2-K program that Mayor Zohran Mamdani has made a centerpiece of his affordability agenda. Mamdani is betting big that the program, which opened in every borough except Staten Island, can make a dent in the often crushing costs of childcare for city families and keep some from leaving the city. He plans to expand the program to 12,000 kids by next fall, and bring it citywide by the end of his first term.

“While this morning has brought a new kind of stress to thousands of young families across the city, it is the stress of excitement and new beginnings, not the stress of wondering whether they can afford to be here at all,” Mamdani said Thursday morning at a press conference in Washington Heights with Gov. Kathy Hochul and schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels.

Hochul, who has pledged state funding for the program next year, but not after that, said she was optimistic that the state would find a way to continue supporting it.

“We’ll keep it going,” she said. “You don’t start something this incredible and stop it.”

Casimir had previously relied on her parents to watch her son, so Thursday was the first time sending him outside of the house for childcare. She was having a hard time saying goodbye.

“I’m very nervous, but I’m trusting the teachers here,” she said.

Soon, a staffer announced it was time for caregivers to depart.

“Detach, detach — come on, mommies, daddies!” family worker Lisa Joseph-Mayers bellowed.

Payment delay problems loom

Reminders of the challenges still dogging the 2-K program weren’t far away. The Dominican Women’s Development Center, the organization that runs the 2-K program Mamdani and Hochul visited Thursday morning, is still waiting for contracts with the city Education Department to be finalized and for a city-issued loan to arrive, Executive Director Marielys Divanne said.

“Community-based organizations simply cannot deliver without the payments necessary to pay our staff and keep our doors open,” she said.

Typically, programs contracting with the city Education Department get a chunk of their funding in advance of the school year to help with startup costs. But many providers were still waiting for their contracts to be approved by the Education Department in the weeks leading up to the school year, pushing some to the brink of closure, the New York Times found.

Providers were still waiting for payments on Thursday, with some even delaying opening their programs because of a lack of funds, according to reports Thursday.

Delays in the Education Department’s system for approving early childhood education contracts are longstanding, and grew worse because of steep staffing cuts in the Division of Early Childhood Education, officials said. That office shrunk from nearly 1,200 staffers at the beginning of 2022 to fewer than 500 in August, 2024, according to the Education Department.

Mamdani announced a new effort last week to speed up contract reviews and loan applications and bolster the staff in the Education Department’s Division of Early Childhood Education. Officials also announced earlier this week a new deputy chancellor to oversee that division.

The Education Department has approved more than 500 contracts and issued more than 300 loans, Mamdani said. Programs applying for a new loan will receive their funds within five business days, he added.

Divanne said that the recent efforts to speed up the contract and loan process seem to be bearing fruit.

“We are beginning to see movement and greater intentionality around contracting, and that is encouraging,” she said.

Triana Nuñez, a staffer at one of the programs run by the Dominican Women’s Development Center, said she was excited to welcome a new group of 2-year-olds, including her younger sister, Jayilani.

“It’s going to help us a lot financially,” she said, allowing their dad to get to work earlier and their stepmom to resume working full time at a daycare.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

2-K, contract delays, pay parity: Mamdani taps new early childhood education head at critical moment

2026-09-08T17:15:00+00:00

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With just two days until the start of the new school year and a preschool payment crisis still simmering, Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday named a new leader for the beleaguered office in charge of executing his ambitious childcare agenda.

Erica Phillips, a nonprofit leader with a history of supporting family childcare providers, will take over as deputy chancellor for the Education Department’s Division of Early Childhood Education at a critical juncture.

The inaugural year of Mamdani’s signature free childcare program for 2-year-olds is set to start Thursday, along with city-funded 3-K and pre-K programs for tens of thousands of 3 and 4-year-olds.

But the division is still digging out of a severe contract backlog that pushed some providers to the brink of closure. A Mamdani spokesperson last week called the delays “unacceptable,” and officials launched an “all government” effort to rush payments to providers before the start of school.

Phillips’ appointment will thrust her into a highly visible and challenging position managing the sprawling and disjointed childcare system. How she shepherds the division over the coming months will play a critical role in how effectively Mamdani delivers on perhaps his most high-profile policy pledge. The 2-K program launching this year for 2,000 toddlers is expected to grow sixfold by next fall, enrolling 12,000 kids. Mamdani has promised it will be available to every 2-year-old in the city who wants a spot by the end of his first term, though Gov. Kathy Hochul has only committed funding for the first two years.

Erica Phillips, the new Deputy Chancellor for Early Childhood Education. Courtesy of Erica Phillips

Phillips is beginning her preparations this week and will officially take over in mid-September, she said.

“I’m eager to get started,” Phillips told Chalkbeat. “What the city is doing is ambitious and exciting, and there is a lot of work and opportunities here.”

She added that she is “confident in the plan” Mamdani and schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels have put forward to ensure providers have what they need to start the school year.

“In the weeks, months and years ahead, Deputy Chancellor Phillips and Chancellor Samuels will show New Yorkers what it looks like when government works for every family,” Mamdani said in a statement.

Getting there will require a massive operational push in the Division of Early Childhood Education, which oversees publicly funded programs for some 150,000 kids under age 5.

Taking over a division that has been battered

Phillips steps into the leadership role of a division that has been battered by years of staff cuts and turmoil.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio ramped up the division’s headcount and responsibility when he rolled out his universal prekindergarten initiative starting in 2014. By the time he left office in 2022, the division had roughly 1,170 employees, according to an Education Department spokesperson.

De Blasio’s successor, Eric Adams, scaled back de Blasio’s promise to make 3-K universal, emphasizing the need to fill the thousands of vacant pre-K and 3-K seats that emerged following the COVID-19 pandemic. He proposed hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to the system, many of which were ultimately reversed.

Many of the key staffers who built up the division during the de Blasio years left when Adams took office, and former Chancellor David Banks and former division head Kara Ahmed reassigned hundreds of other division staffers as part of a broader reorganization.

By August 2024, the division had 495 employees — less than half of the number just two and a half years earlier.

Current and former staffers and people who work closely with the division say the deep staffing cuts have affected every aspect of the office’s work — from its capacity to monitor and support providers, to its ability to quickly respond to logistical and financial questions, to the speed at which the division can approve new contracts.

“It’s quite staggering,” said Nora Moran, the policy director for United Neighborhood Houses, an umbrella organization that represents childcare providers. “It’s going to take a long time to rebuild what was there.”

There are currently about 560 employees in the division, and 86 vacant positions that the Education Department is trying to fill, a spokesperson said. On top of that, Mamdani last week pledged a $43 million investment to hire an additional 200 staffers.

Phillips said rebuilding staffing is a “huge priority” and added that she’s “deeply appreciative of staff who have held together the division.” She said she doesn’t have a final headcount goal in mind yet, but said she hopes to “have a division that looks more like it did before the reductions.”

Phillips’ appointment reflects key role for family childcare

The July announcement that former early childhood chief Simone Hawkins was departing sent shockwaves through the early childhood sector. Hawkins, a longtime government employee in both the Education and Health Departments with expertise in the complex budget and contract processes that hold up the early childhood system, had served in the role since summer 2024.

Some advocates said Hawkins had made positive changes, including loosening a curriculum mandate imposed by her predecessor. Phillips told Chalkbeat that she supported continuing to give providers flexibility in their curriculum choices.

Other parent leaders expressed concerns about the departure of the only Black woman serving as a deputy chancellor in the Education Department. Phillips, like Hawkins, is a Black woman.

Phillips will work alongside Emmy Liss, the executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Childcare and Early Childhood Education — an office created by Adams and expanded by Mamdani to coordinate childcare efforts across city agencies.

Phillips most recently served as the director of the National Association for Family Child Care, an organization that does policy advocacy and support for home-based childcare providers. Before that, Phillips served as president of All Our Kin, another national nonprofit dedicated to supporting family childcare providers, and she founded multiple networks that help family childcare providers contract with the city government.

Phillips acknowledged she hasn’t worked directly in city government, but said she has a “deep understanding of the full early childhood landscape.”

Her appointment reflects the key role that family childcare providers, who often run small programs and operate on razor-thin margins, will play in the 2-K rollout and any later efforts to expand free childcare to babies and infants.

Many of those providers were largely left out of the previous 3-K and pre-K expansions. Some have bristled at the requirement to join a network that provides additional oversight, monitoring, and contracting support. And even with city funding, many home-based providers are just scraping by, earning an average of just $6 an hour, a recent report found.

Phillips said it’s “unacceptable” for home-based providers to earn so little, and it will be a “priority” to “really tackle what pay parity means to make sure that family child care providers and all early child providers are receiving compensation for the work that they’re doing.”

But she pledged to continue expanding the system, even as she works to shore up the foundation.

“We have to do both,” she said. “Fix those longstanding issues but also continue to work towards this vision of universal childcare.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Mamdani pledges $43 million to fix NYC childcare payment delays before school starts

2026-08-31T18:47:31+00:00

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Monday pledged to address payment delays that are threatening the rollout of his signature free childcare program for 2-year-olds and pushing some providers to the brink of closure ahead of the Sept. 10 school opening.

Mamdani, who made the expansion of free childcare a major plank of his mayoral campaign, pledged to invest $43 million to rebuild depleted staffing at the Education Department’s Division of Early Childhood Education. He also vowed to reassign staffers from other parts of city government to help speed up the registration of new contracts and expedite interest-free loans to providers whose contracts haven’t been approved.

“We are bringing every resource to bear to get providers paid, get classrooms open and make sure families have the care they were promised,” Mamdani said in a statement.

At an unrelated press conference Monday, Mamdani said the Education Department has reached out to every childcare provider and tripled the number of staffers working on contracts. Providers who applied for a loan by Monday will have it processed by the end of the week, he added.

The inaugural year of free 2-K is set to enroll roughly 2,000 toddlers across five school districts. But some 2-K providers, as well as those contracting with the city to care for 3- and 4-year-olds, have been waiting weeks or months for money they need to pay staff, cover their electric bills, and purchase supplies.

“That puts a stress on providers, not knowing when you’re going to get paid,” said Doris Irrizary, a childcare provider in the Bronx and co-founder of the group ECE on The Move, which advocates on behalf of home-based providers. “Most of us live check to check.”

To provide subsidized childcare for about 150,000 kids under age 5, New York City’s Education Department relies on a sprawling system of private daycare operators like Irrizary who win contracts from the city to provide programs that are free to families.

Contract and payment delays have bedeviled that system for more than a decade. When former Mayor Bill de Blasio launched his Universal Prekindergarten program for 4-year-olds in 2014, roughly two-thirds of the new contracts were delayed by the start of school in September, the comptroller at the time said. In the years that followed, the early childhood department gradually built up the personnel and expertise to help mitigate those delays, former staffers recalled.

But when Mayor Eric Adams took office in 2022, the Division of Early Childhood Education faced a rocky transition. Some longtime staffers left, and the city reassigned hundreds of others as part of a reorganization, including 200 instructional coordinators who worked directly with providers.

Payment delays to providers again grew so acute that some organizations closed their doors for good. That prompted former Chancellor David Banks to deploy a “rapid response team” to speed up payments.

City officials say the staffing reductions from the Adams administration continue to hamstring the early childhood division. An Education Department spokesperson didn’t share the division’s current headcount and how it compares to past years. But Mamdani has pledged to hire 200 new staffers to expand the contracting and outreach teams and ensure there are more staffers providing direct support to programs.

Mamdani’s administration has already faced some operational complexity in recruiting providers — particularly the small, home-based providers who have largely been left out of past childcare expansions — and getting the word out about the program. The program is set to expand to 12,000 2-year-olds next year, and Mamdani has promised it will grow to cover any family who needs care by the end of his first term.

In July, Simone Hawkins, the deputy chancellor overseeing the Division of Early Childhood Education, announced her departure — a worrying sign for some advocates who said Hawkins was making long-needed changes. Mamdani and schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels have not yet named a replacement.

Some longtime providers are hopeful that the latest efforts can speed up payments, but wary after seeing similar reforms come and go over the past decade.

“To me, they keep on reinventing the wheel,” said Irrizary. The pressure to quickly open 2-K seats put further strain on a system already dealing with existing issues, such as low pay for providers, a long waitlist for state-funded childcare vouchers, and thousands of unfilled seats, she said.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado’s preschool program is reaching lots of kids but needs to focus on quality, new evaluation says

2026-07-30T23:05:29+00:00

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Colorado’s free preschool program has been popular with families since it launched three years ago, but state leaders need to raise the bar on quality.

That finding from a state-mandated evaluation of the $349 million program echoes concerns long raised by advocates that universal preschool started with minimal standards on class size, curriculum, and teacher training, among other things.

The evaluation, conducted by Child Trends and released in early July, provides the first comprehensive look at what’s gone well and what hasn’t in the universal preschool program’s initial two years. One of Gov. Jared Polis’ signature initiatives, the program provides 10 to 30 hours a week of tuition-free preschool to about 70% of the state’s 4-year-olds.

State officials rushed to roll out the preschool program in 2023, shortly after the state’s new Department of Early Childhood was created. The tight timeline meant more than 40,000 children were soon getting half- or full-day preschool for free — a relief for many families. But the fast pace contributed to some initial problems cited by the evaluation.

Those include confusion about enrollment processes, frustration over how state officials communicated about the program, and concern that the state didn’t prioritize quality.

The evaluation says the concern about quality is exacerbated by a report from the National Institute for Early Education Research showing that Colorado’s universal preschool program meets only two of 10 benchmarks meant to promote preschool quality.

“The optics of it are not good,” said Heather Tritten, president and CEO of the Colorado Children’s Campaign, a Denver-based advocacy group. “You see the two out of 10, and you think, ‘Oh my gosh, that must not be a good program.’”

But the reality is more complicated, she said. That’s because some of the research institute’s benchmarks may not attainable or desirable in Colorado — for example, one that requires a bachelor’s degree for lead preschool teachers.

Other benchmarks include class size caps of 20 students, teacher-student ratios of 1 to 10, and a requirement that assistant teachers have a widely recognized credential called a Child Development Associate or the equivalent.

Tritten said state officials should spell out the quality standards they strive to hit.

“Without having our own set of standards or defining it within (the research institute’s) standards, we’re not communicating why our universal pre-K program is high quality,” she said. “I think that might be the biggest problem.”

Dawn Odean, Colorado’s universal preschool director, said the state is focusing on preschool quality, with several changes set to take effect in the next couple years.

They include requirements that universal preschool providers use either a state-vetted curriculum or an approach that meets certain state standards. They’ll also have to use an observation-based assessment to monitor preschool students’ skills and progress.

State officials will begin piloting a tool this coming year that will assess teacher-student relationships and interactions during in-person visits, Odean said.

Alma Wiley, who runs an in-home child care business in El Paso County and participates in universal preschool, likes that idea.

“From centers to family child care homes to school districts, having those relationships is what children thrive on,” she said. “If we don’t have those bonding relationships in the first five years, we’re just not building the foundation for them.”

But Wiley, who cares for nine children including two children in the state-funded preschool program, thinks the program should require lower class sizes and teacher-student ratios. She unsuccessfully pushed for that as a member of a state council that advises the Colorado Department of Early Childhood.

Under state rules, universal preschool classrooms can have up to 22 students and a teacher-student ratio of 1 to 11 if providers have a Level 1 or Level 2 rating, the lowest two of five state ratings in the state’s Colorado Shine’s system. Providers with higher ratings can have up to 24 preschoolers and teacher student ratios of 1 to 12.

“They need one-on-one with the caregiver … to build those relationships, to build that foundation,” said Wiley, whom the children call Miss Alma. “So, having 12 kids in one classroom to a teacher, I don’t think is beneficial to a child at this age level.”

Of the more than 2,000 preschool providers in the state-funded program, 54% have the lowest two state ratings, according to the evaluation.

Odean said the state will unveil a five-year strategic plan for universal preschool in November.

“We have to show child outcomes,” she said. “That’s the point of this program. It isn’t just a subsidy,”

Odean said she expects the state’s preschool program to meet several of the 10 benchmarks recommended by the National Institute for Early Education Research in the coming years.

“Are we specifically, intentionally trying to hit a 10?” she said. “Not necessarily.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Eric Adams mandated NYC preschools adopt a single curriculum. Under Mamdani, they’re getting more choice.

2026-07-29T20:27:20+00:00

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New York City Education Department officials in recent months quietly relaxed a controversial curriculum mandate for early childhood education programs, Chalkbeat has learned.

The 2023 mandate, part of former Mayor Eric Adams’ sweeping NYC Reads curriculum overhaul, required all classrooms in the city’s publicly funded early childhood education system to adopt The Creative Curriculum, a nationally-used program created by the Washington, D.C.-based Teaching Strategies. It applied to some 140,000 kids ages 5 and under in the city’s free infant and toddler, 3-K, and prekindergarten classrooms, whether in home-based programs, community-run facilities, or public schools.

The move drew backlash from some educators and early childhood education experts who argued it burdened teachers with bureaucratic busywork and diminished their ability to tailor lessons to their students’ specific needs and backgrounds.

But in guidance released late this spring, city officials gave providers a new option: They can now apply to use a different curriculum. Applications must include parent and teacher input and select a curriculum from the city’s pre-approved list of eight curricula.

“Every early care and education program serves a unique community that they know best,” said Education Department spokesperson Dominique Ellison. The new approach “gives educators and programs leaders the flexibility to make informed choices, backed by data and quality assurance, rather than a one-size-fits-all mandate.”

Education Department officials didn’t say how many providers applied or were approved to switch curriculums. City officials also left in place what educators have described as the mandate’s most controversial element: Providers must still use a data-heavy assessment system called GOLD, which accompanies The Creative Curriculum, even if they switch curriculums. GOLD asks teachers to regularly evaluate students on dozens of objectives in areas like math, language, and social emotional development.

Still, loosening the early childhood mandate marks perhaps the most significant step so far under Mayor Zohran Mamdani to dial back curriculum mandates imposed under Adams.

“It is a big shift,” said Shael Polakow-Suranksy, president of Bank Street College of Education and a former deputy chancellor in the city Education Department. “And it’s very responsive to what the field has been asking for over the last few years.”

A sweeping change draws backlash

The early childhood mandate got less public attention than the city’s math and literacy overhauls for K-12 schools, but it was no less sweeping.

Before 2023, many programs used Units of Study, a curriculum developed by city teachers during former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s pre-K expansion. Others used more specialized approaches like Reggio Emilia or Montessori, educators said.

But by spring 2024, roughly 90% of early childhood programs had switched to The Creative Curriculum and its accompanying assessment system, former Deputy Chancellor for Early Childhood Education Kara Ahmed said at the time.

“I can take you to a school in Staten Island, and I can take you to a school in Brooklyn, or Queens on the same day, and all the early childhood kids are all working from the same playbook,” former Chancellor David Banks said in 2024, calling the shift “absolutely amazing.”

The Creative Curriculum has been around for decades, and is structured around broad topics such as balls and trees, with activities that allow kids to explore and investigate.

City officials argued that standardization would make it easier to monitor programs and guarantee quality across the city. The mandate also included training for teachers.

But People’s Early Childhood Education, an advocacy group of providers, Education Department staffers, and others, began organizing opposition to the mandate.

Some educators highlighted the contrast between The Creative Curriculum and Units of Study. The latter was translated into 11 languages and included New York City-specific lessons, such as a transportation unit covering subways and buses and a housing unit that highlighted apartments. The Creative Curriculum, meanwhile, is only available in English and Spanish, and educators said its units often felt generic.

“It doesn’t feel authentic,” said one longtime early childhood educator at a 2024 forum organized by Bank Street. “It just didn’t represent my kids.”

Educators noted that the pre-K Creative Curriculum repeated the same unit topics as the 3-K edition, leaving some kids disengaged.

Assessment system sparks ongoing concerns

Some educators who have used the curriculum for years said it became more regimented and less engaging after a private equity firm purchased Teaching Strategies.

The city Education Department has paid Teaching Strategies nearly $33 million since summer 2023, according to Checkbook NYC.

Particularly concerning for many teachers was the GOLD assessment system designed to accompany the curriculum. GOLD requires teachers to evaluate each child across dozens of different metrics three times a year and include evidence, such as observational notes, photos, or work samples, for each score. That could amount to over 1,000 entries every three months for a single class of 18, pre-K teacher Helen Frazier wrote for Chalkbeat in 2023. The system then automatically generates lesson plans and small-group activities based on those assessment results, several educators said.

“It was the antithesis of everything that is so positive about education,” said Alice Mulligan, the director of Our Saviours Lutheran Preschool in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Mulligan, a longtime contractor with the city Education Department, said she refused to comply with the city’s mandate, even after officials told her that her contract could be terminated.

An Education Department spokesperson said the agency is maintaining the requirement to use GOLD, regardless of which curriculum a program chooses, to keep a standardized way of measuring students’ progress across the city.

The list of other pre-approved curriculum options includes Units of Study, as well as Explorations, Let’s Play, and Connections, all created by the Education Department for younger kids, according to a document obtained by Chalkbeat. HighScope and Tools of the Mind, two other nationally-used curriculums, are also options, along with more specialized programs for kids learning English and kids with disabilities.

Montessori schools, which were previously required to use the Creative Curriculum, can also apply to switch back to the Montessori curriculum.

The curriculum mandate change moves the early childhood system in a different direction than K-12 schools, where Chancellor Kamar Samuels not only has kept existing literacy and math curriculum mandates in elementary and high schools, but has expanded them to new grades.

While a small number of high-performing elementary and high schools have received waivers from the literacy and math curriculum mandates, there’s no formal process for schools to apply or clear criteria by which the waivers are awarded.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Hochul delays plan to tighten childcare voucher rules, averting shockwaves for thousands of NYC families

2026-06-25T21:38:35+00:00

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Gov. Kathy Hochul is delaying a plan that would have caused major disruptions to tens of thousands of New York City families who receive childcare vouchers.

Under New York regulations, parents who receive the vouchers through a popular state-funded program are only supposed to get the benefit for hours when they’re working or in school. Historically, however, that rule has not been enforced for New York City families. In recent months, officials from the state’s Office of Children and Family Services warned city officials that they would need to begin complying with the regulations — sparking panic from officials, providers, and advocates. They warned the change could send shockwaves through the system, leaving families without care and causing providers to shut down.

On Thursday, Hochul announced that the state is giving the city two more years to comply with the regulations governing the Child Care Assistance Program vouchers, which pays an average $300 a week to cover kids’ childcare expenses.

“This waiver will help ensure that families who are currently receiving support in New York City don’t have their coverage reduced and providers don’t suffer costly disruptions while we work towards full implementation of the program,” Hochul said in a statement.

In New York City more than 100,000 kids currently receive vouchers and another 26,000 are on the waitlist.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has worked with Hochul to make the expansion of free childcare in New York City a major political priority, praised the postponement.

“For a parent picking up an extra shift to make ends meet, or a parent whose work schedule changes week to week, access to flexible child care is truly essential,” Mamdani said in a statement.

Over the past few years, the voucher program has become a critical piece of the city’s childcare landscape.

After Hochul raised the value of the voucher in 2024 and expanded the income eligibility requirements to allow more people to participate, the program exploded in popularity in the five boroughs and hasn’t been able to keep up with the demand, even as funding keeps growing.

Most other counties across the state follow the policy limiting vouchers to work and school hours, known as “coupling,” by submitting data to a state attendance system, a Hochul spokesperson said. But New York City does not use that system, the spokesperson said.

Some advocates, lawmakers, and city officials say the regulations are impractical and disruptive, making it difficult for parents who are working part-time to find consistent care and for childcare operators to count on consistent enrollment and revenue.

“How can a childcare center that has a hundred kids have a different policy of what hours every … kid is coming in?” said Brooklyn Council member Lincoln Restler at a hearing last month. “You can’t hire teachers that way. We will see enormous, enormous disruption to our childcare system.”

Officials from the city’s Administration for Children’s Services, which oversees the voucher program in the city, said they have been lobbying state officials to change the regulations.

It’s unclear how many families in the city would be affected by stricter enforcement of the coupling regulations.

A Hochul spokesperson said the state is asking the city to submit more data in the coming years to give a clearer picture, and said the state is rolling out new technology to improve enforcement of the regulations.

Advocates for kids in other parts of the state are taking notice of the carveout for New York City.

Dede Hill, the vice president of policy at the Schuyler Center, a statewide child advocacy organization, said now that the state officials have found a way to grant New York City a reprieve from enforcement of the coupling regulations without changing state law, her organization will push the state to extend the same benefit to other parts of the state.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

New Jersey invests record money in preschool, but serving multilingual learners is another story

2026-06-23T11:00:00+00:00

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Peter Rosario has spent years watching his teachers help Spanish-speaking preschoolers sound out English words at La Casa de Don Pedro, a Newark-based nonprofit organization that offers support for immigrant families and contracts with Newark Public Schools to provide state-funded preschool.

But Rosario says the state’s investment in programs like his hasn’t turned into clear and consistent support for the city’s youngest English learners.

“We have to beef up the infrastructure to support them,” Rosario said.

For young students learning English, the early years matter more than any other. Research shows that young multilingual learners who start preschool without having learned English can lose months of learning before they catch up unless classes are designed to teach in multiple languages at once. But while state laws mandate that New Jersey districts provide language support services to students, those services are implemented differently from district to district, with no real way to track their impact on preschool-aged multilingual learners.

Experts say that’s a problem requiring a more targeted approach to boost the quality of instruction, fund programs, and determine what students actually need to learn English.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill proposed a record $1.4 billion for preschool education this budget cycle, which would add more than 1,440 additional seats to the state’s preschool program. But it wasn’t until 2023 that New Jersey formally updated its codes to include preschoolers as multilingual learners. Before that, identification and language support policies primarily focused on K-12 students.

State leaders say they’re working to boost preschool offerings for young multilingual learners. Michael Yaple, spokesperson for the education department, said the state is revising the Preschool Teaching and Learning Standards to better align with the revised New Jersey Student Learning Standards for English Language Arts. Yaple did not provide specifics about what those changes would do but said in an email that the proposed revisions will “provide stronger, more intentional support for preschool multilingual learners by integrating evidence-based literacy practices with language development.”

But as the number of multilingual learners grows nationally, so does the demand for more services. In New Jersey, 282,000, or 47%, of young children ages 0 to 5, are multilingual learners, according to the Migration Policy Institute. In the 2025-26 school year, more than 11,300 students enrolled in preschool were identified as multilingual learners, according to state enrollment data. Across the state, multilingual learners made up more than 152,000 pre-K through 12th grade students enrolled in New Jersey’s public schools in the same year.

New Jersey is among the states with the strongest preschool policies for multilingual learners, earning eight out of 10 benchmarks measuring things like bilingual instruction, teacher qualifications, and family engagement, according to a 2026 policy brief from the National Institute for Early Education Research, or NIEER.

But the state isn’t tracking support for its youngest English learners, according to NIEER experts. While the 2023 state preschool update required districts to identify preschool-aged multilingual learners, the state has no way to verify whether that support is reaching students.

That’s a concern Alexandra Figueras-Daniel, a bilingual early childhood education senior policy specialist at the NIEER, raised during a June 10 conversation about the state of bilingual education in New Jersey, hosted by the Rutgers University Newark Joseph C. Cornwall Center.

According to Figueras-Daniel and other researchers, knowing how many multilingual children are enrolled in preschool and what type of support they are actually receiving is critical to closing language gaps before they become reading gaps and ensuring students are getting what they need before moving to kindergarten.

The state needs better data on programs that provide bilingual preschool programs to immigrant families through contracts with the local school district, such as Rosario’s, to understand where support for multilingual learners is reaching classrooms and where it isn’t, Figueras-Daniel said.

“I think we need ways to identify where implementation is strong, where gaps exist, and then where we can really put targeted supports in places,” Figueras-Daniel said.

The gap between policy and data shows up in classrooms too, said Vanessa Colon, a bilingual intervention teacher and community support advocate for multilingual learners who also spoke on the panel.

“Sometimes there’s a lot of disagreement between what we say and what we do in a district,” said Colon during the panel discussion. “We’ll say we support bilingualism, we support biliteracy, but then in the classroom, we make other choices.”

Those choices aren’t for a lack of standards, Figueras-Daniel said, but for a lack of consistency in how districts apply them.

“It could be that every district is calling their program or implementing it slightly differently,” she added.

Programs labeled “bilingual” are what researchers call transitional bilingual, which uses a student’s native language as a bridge into English, Figueras-Daniel said. She described one district where multilingual learners receive 30 or 40 minutes of English as a second language instruction a day, but students are having trouble exiting the multilingual status. That model is different from full-immersion programs that teach subjects like social studies and math in both languages throughout the school day.

A true language immersion program is built around a roughly even split between native English speakers and native speakers of other languages, but in heavily immigrant communities like Passaic, Figueras-Daniel said, there often aren’t enough native English-speaking students to make that balance possible.

Betiana Caprioli, a Morristown High School teacher who also participated on the Rutgers panel, said El Primer Paso, a similar organization with a bilingual preschool program in Dover, helped her own children learn English. That model is the “gold standard” that allows multilingual learners not to lose instructional time while they’re still figuring out English, Figueras-Daniel said.

“Access to high-quality preschool is one of the strongest predictors of positive outcomes for children learning multiple languages,” she said. That’s why it’s “critical that we continually recognize early childhood programs as part of this system.”

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

These Colorado counties have very different politics. Both now offer tax relief to childcare providers.

2026-05-29T19:01:10+00:00

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Two Colorado counties on opposite sides of the political spectrum are the first to use a recent state law to provide property tax relief to childcare businesses, in an effort to help stabilize the industry.

Adams County commissioners, who are all Democrats, and Douglas County commissioners, who are all Republicans, approved their respective property tax rebate plans this spring. The initiatives, which give extra incentives to childcare providers serving infants and toddlers, will send hundreds of dollars to the smallest providers and thousands to the largest ones starting in the second half of 2026.

Lisa Jansen Thompson, who leads the Early Childhood Partnership of Adams County, likened the rebates to one piece in a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle.

“Every little piece helps,” she said “And the more that we’re able to put together pieces, the closer we get to making childcare affordable for families as well as for providers, and making sure there’s enough.”

The new property tax rebate programs are the latest example of efforts by local governments around Colorado to offer financial help to childcare providers, and in turn support the families they serve. In the last few years, voters in more than a dozen cities or counties, including Larimer County and several mountain resort communities, have approved sales or lodging taxes that generate funding for childcare.

Such efforts have expanded as childcare providers face increasing financial headwinds: the end of COVID stimulus money, rising costs, and enrollment drops caused by freezes on childcare aid for low-income families.

Divine Klutsey, president and CEO of Purple Moon Early Learning Center in Northglenn, said he and his wife have considered closing their center, which enrolls about 80 children, because of barely-there profit margins. One Friday this spring, he was on the phone with a plumber whose visit to fix a leaking sink was going to cost $300.

“There’s always something that is not working well,” he said.

This year, Purple Moon’s property tax bill is $36,000, Klutsey said. Typically, he takes out a high-interest loan to pay the bill, and then makes weekly payments.

“I am still paying the one from last year,” he said.

Klutsey doesn’t know exactly how big of a rebate he’ll get back through Adams County’s new program, but said if it covered half his county property taxes it would be a relief.

“Then I don’t have to close the business a year or two down the road,” he said.

The rebate programs in Adams and Douglas counties are possible because of a 2024 state law that allowed counties to offer tax credits or rebates to address local challenges such as housing, childcare, job training, or renewable energy.

Only childcare businesses that pay property taxes or who rent from landlords that pay property taxes are eligible for the rebates. Childcare programs in public schools and churches aren’t eligible because those institutions don’t typically pay property taxes.

Diane Smith, executive director of the Douglas County Early Childhood Council, said private providers tell her the rebates will help level the playing field by cutting some of the overhead costs that other childcare programs don’t have.

Adams and Douglas counties will offer 100% rebates on county property taxes for two categories of providers: home-based programs and those that have infant and toddler spots. Providers outside of those two categories will get 50% rebates in Adams County and 75% rebates in Douglas County.

About 167 providers in Douglas County and 176 providers in Adams County will be eligible for the rebates directly, or through their landlords. Both counties will offer the rebates for one year and county commissioners will consider renewing them next year.

Julie Duran Mullica, chair of the Adams County Board of Commissioners, said approving the rebates was an easy decision for the five-member board even though it could mean a loss of $700,000 in property tax dollars.

“You budget what you value,” she said. “We know how much of a struggle [childcare] is in Adams County.”

At the end of the pilot year, Duran Mullica said she’ll want to see data on how many childcare closures the rebates helped and how many seats providers added.

Mark Arbitrio, who owns Ivybrook Academy in Castle Rock and paid about $20,000 in property taxes last year, said he’ll use a portion of the rebate he hopes to receive to subdivide one of his four classrooms, so that a portion of the space can be used for a new toddler classroom. That room will create around 18 new half-day toddler spots.

Some of the rebate could also go toward retention bonuses for teachers.

“They are the glue to everything that we do,” Arbitrio said. “I mean, I love our curriculum, our school’s beautiful and all that, but they are the glue, right?”

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Julie Duran Mullica’s title. She is the chair of the Adams County Board of Commissioners.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

More than 19,000 Colorado childcare workers benefit from new state tax credit in first year

2026-05-18T22:53:39+00:00

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More than 19,000 Colorado childcare teachers and staff have taken advantage of a new $1,200 state tax credit for workers who support young children, older adults, or people with disabilities.

The Care Worker Tax Credit was created by a 2024 state law and became available for the first time this spring when Coloradans filed returns for the 2025 tax year. It’s available to single filers who earn an adjusted gross income of $75,000 or less and joint filers who earn $100,000 or less.

The income tax credit represents an effort by Colorado lawmakers to help early childhood educators, whose average pay is lower than many fast food and retail workers. It also takes a more expansive view of the workforce than some other initiatives by including people who care for young children outside of state-licensed facilities, often called family, friend, and neighbor caregivers.

About 17,500 childcare workers providing state-licensed care, and 1,800 providing family, friend, and neighbor care sought the new tax credit this year, according to preliminary state data. That’s about $23 million worth of tax relief.

“For too long, early childhood and direct care professionals have been undercompensated, despite the essential role they play in our communities and economy,” Lisa Roy, executive director of the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, said in a press release.

“The Care Worker Tax Credit represents a meaningful step toward greater financial stability for these professionals who nurture Colorado’s children, support families, and strengthen communities every day,” she said.

State officials said they won’t have numbers showing how many workers caring for older adults and people with disabilities took advantage of the tax credit until the fall.

The care workers tax credit is a refundable tax credit, which means that eligible filers will get money back from the credit even if their tax bill is less than $1,200. For example, if their tax bill is $1,000, the tax credit will cover the bill, and the remaining $200 will be sent to the filer as a refund.

Colorado has another tax credit available to some childcare workers, but it’s expiring after the 2025 tax year. Created by a 2022 state law to encourage early childhood educators to increase their credentials, the Early Childhood Educator Tax Credit provides credits between $872 and $1,743 depending on credential level.

Child care workers who already filed their taxes but did not seek the Care Worker Tax Credit can still do so by amending their tax returns and filing the appropriate paperwork by Oct. 15.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado childcare bill aims to raise millions, cut waitlists for subsidies

2026-04-29T00:02:37+00:00

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More than 9,000 low-income Colorado families are in line for state subsidies to help pay for childcare so parents can work or attend school. Now, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced a bill that could shrink the wait by sending additional money to counties where working parents need help.

Senate Bill 180, introduced Monday, would create a new investment authority that could seek higher returns on certain pots of state money than what state investments typically produce. Some of the proceeds from the higher-yield investments would help low-income families pay for childcare.

Coming late in the legislative session, the bill reflects the tightrope lawmakers are walking as they try to bolster safety net programs while grappling with a $1.2 billion budget shortfall. Instead of shifting scarce general fund dollars from one program to another, lawmakers opted to create a new source of childcare revenue.

“This is a very kind of outside-the-box solution to a problem that’s been here for a long time,” said Sen. Scott Bright, a Platteville Republican and one of the bill’s sponsors. He said if the bill passes, counties could start receiving money to help low-income families with childcare in the spring of 2027.

Currently 27 of the state’s 64 counties have waitlists or freezes in place for the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program, or CCCAP, according to the Colorado Department of Early Childhood. That means a family that’s newly eligible for the state’s subsidy program in those counties can’t get childcare aid, potentially forcing parents to drop out of the workforce or rely on inconsistent or unsafe care arrangements.

Some Colorado counties have been on waitlists or freezes for more than two years. The expiration of COVID stimulus funds and a boost in reimbursement rates for childcare providers have contributed to the funding crunch. CCCAP is mostly funded by the federal government with smaller contributions from the state and counties.

If Bright’s bill becomes law, it would represent “the first time we’ve really established a fund for childcare in Colorado,” said Mathangi Subramanian, director of early childhood policy at the Colorado Children’s Campaign, an advocacy group based in Denver.

“This is important, not just in terms of serving families, but also symbolically, to show that our state believes that childcare is a public good, believes childcare is infrastructure and requires investment,” she said.

Bright, who owns several Weld County childcare centers, said the goal of the proposed investment authority is not to earn outsized returns through risky stock market bets, but rather to get modestly higher returns by investing a bit more aggressively than the state treasurer does.

Here’s how it would work: Certain state entities could opt to have the new authority make investments using some of their money. Enterprises, which are government-owned businesses that get most of their revenue from user fees, are one of the entities that could do so. The investment authority would return a portion of the investment earnings to the enterprise or other entity.

The rest would go to counties where low-income families need help paying for childcare. The new funding would work in tandem with CCCAP funding, but would be a distinct pot of money.

Working with the investment authority would be voluntary for Colorado’s enterprises, but the idea is that they would benefit financially from more aggressive investment options — even with a portion of the proceeds going to childcare.

Colorado’s more than two dozen enterprises include the state lottery, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and the state’s Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance program.

Bright said his bill would eventually generate millions of dollars for childcare assistance, but the amount will depend on how many enterprises opt in, the amount of money invested, and the duration of the investments.

The bill is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org

Mamdani needs home-based childcare providers for 2-K. Can he get them to sign up?

2026-04-28T20:16:00+00:00

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Melissa Reed is the type of childcare provider that Mayor Zohran Mamdani will rely on in his ambitious effort to offer free care to 2-year-olds.

Reed runs a daycare out of her home in Brownsville, Brooklyn — one of four high-needs neighborhoods Mamdani is prioritizing to participate in the inaugural year of “2-K,” set to launch in September with 2,000 seats.

Home-based providers like Reed were largely left out of the city’s free childcare programs for 3- and 4-year-olds, but Mamdani has pledged a more inclusive approach for 2-K. And the city can ill-afford to exclude family childcare providers from 2-K, since the youngest kids are more likely to be enrolled in home-based programs.

Reed has open seats and is interested in joining 2-K. She isn’t eligible, however, because of a little-known bureaucratic requirement that could hamper the city’s efforts to bring home-based providers on board.

How Mamdani’s administration navigates the challenge of recruiting providers like Reed could shape how effectively it stands up the ambitious 2-K program.

In order to contract with the city’s Education Department, home-based childcare operators must be part of a “Family Child Care Network” — a city-funded entity that serves as a middleman between the Education Department and home-based daycare operators. The networks, which are often run by larger childcare providers, handle payment disbursement and enrollment, monitor programs to ensure they meet safety and educational standards, and offer additional support like social workers and professional development.

Currently, only about 20% of the city’s roughly 6,500 home-based daycare operators are part of a network, according to a recent report from The New School.

Some providers want to join a network, but can’t find a spot because many are at capacity, several network operators said. Others, including Reed, are deeply skeptical of joining a network. They’re worried about incurring additional costs, giving up some of their independence, and operating under new restrictions that could make their programs less appealing to families.

“I don’t really have a lot of faith or trust in the networks,” Reed said.

The distrust among some providers is so profound that they’ve taken to calling themselves “never-networkers,” said Tammie Miller, the chapter leader at the United Federation of Teachers representing home-based providers.

While getting 2,000 seats online by the fall may be manageable, meeting Mamdani’s pledge to add 10,000 2-K seats next year and have seats for all of the city’s 2-year-olds by the end of his first term could become “practically impossible” without adjusting the network requirement, Miller said.

“It’s also leaving experienced providers on the sidelines who are more than capable of serving this population, who serve it already,” she said.

Networks help Education Department monitor an unwieldy system

Providers and experts said the concept of the network dates back decades, but took its current form in 2019 when the Education Department assumed control of all of the city’s contracted childcare programs for kids ages 0-5.

In programs like 3-K that rely on scores of individual private childcare providers to contract with the city, the Education Department doesn’t have the manpower to train, oversee, and support that many small programs itself, experts and former officials said. The networks allow the city Education Department to outsource that work.

Proponents of the system say it offers clear advantages for the city, for providers, and for families.

“If you’re in a network, you’re getting visits once a month from your coach, you get one visit a month from a health and safety monitor … somebody is coming to that home at least once a week,” said Emilie Gay, a veteran childcare provider and executive director of the Program Support Family Child Care Network, which oversees roughly 150 providers in Brooklyn and Queens.

“If I was a parent, I would want my child in a network program, because I know there are going to be other eyes on that program,” Gay added. (Non-network providers are also subject to inspections from the city Health Department and the state’s Office of Children and Family Services.)

Some providers said that in a good network, the added support and access to city-funded programs can be worth the added rules and responsibilities.

“Networks do help in the sense of … if I need anything, I can pick up the phone and they’re there to help me,” said Dianne Mejías, a home-based provider in South Jamaica, Queens, who is part of the Parent Support network and is hoping to get some of the initial 2,000 2-K seats this fall.

But for some providers, who have operated independently for years and already feel pushed to the brink, the idea of giving up some control over their program to an outside entity feels unthinkable.

“This has been 17 years of blood, sweat, and tears built into this, and now it feels like I have to give that up to join a 3-K or a 2-K program,” said Lashanda Fraser, a home-based daycare operator in Queens.

In addition to the added oversight, some providers say joining a network brings new expenses in a business where margins are already thin. On average, home-based childcare operators are paid just $6 an hour, the recent New School report found.

Providers said networks often require them to take out insurance policies, which can cost close to $20,000 a year with no additional financial support, and to close on days they’re in network-mandated training, causing them to potentially lose income.

Adding to some providers’ fears is a 2024 incident where, according to city officials, the Education Department issued payments to the Highbridge Advisory Council Family Services, a Bronx childcare network, but the network stopped paying providers and subsequently shut down, leaving some still fighting to get paid.

Lara Kyriakou, the policy director at All Our Kin, an organization that supports home-based providers, said there’s “a lot of variability” in providers’ experiences depending on the network.

Miller, from the teachers union, said she thinks there’s room for the city to be creative about tweaking the network system to make it more appealing for providers. She suggested tapping organizations like hers to run point on providing support. She said the city could also give providers a greater role in shaping networks so they function more like cooperatives, rather than top-down bureaucracies.

A spokesperson for the Education Department did not respond to questions about how the city is working with non-network providers, whether officials are considering any changes to the network model, or how many providers have joined networks recently.

Another looming issue: Will city contracts pay enough?

Joining a network isn’t the only question looming for home-based providers weighing whether they want to participate in the city’s 2-K program.

Some worry the program won’t pay enough to cover their basic costs.

Home-based operators have historically received far less funding through city contracts than larger centers doing the same work. The average extended-day contract for home-based providers last year paid roughly $17,000 per child, compared to more than $27,000 per child for the average center-based contract, according to city data compiled in the New School report.

Providers and network operators said they haven’t gotten a clear answer yet on how much the city will pay for 2-K contracts this year, though many welcomed the recent announcement that the default 2-K contract will run 10 hours a day, 12 months a year — rather than the shorter schedule of six hours and 20 minutes, September to June, that’s most common for 3-K and prekindergarten.

“The fact that the parents are able to get care and not have to pay for it, that’s amazing,” said Mejías, the Queens provider who has asked for 2-K seats this fall. “But how is that going to affect us?”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

For children in poverty, the biggest resource gaps are outside of school

2026-04-21T19:19:55+00:00

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Children from low-income families have roughly $80,000 less invested in their development, well-being, and education relative to their peers from high-income households, according to a new study.

The research is significant because it puts a figure on what has long been known: Children do not have the same access to the resources that might help them flourish. While formal schooling is fairly equal, investments outside of school vary substantially, the researchers conclude.

“The findings of this are not surprising,” says David Blazar, the study’s lead author and a professor at the University of Maryland. “What’s most compelling is thinking about investments in kids as a bundle — it’s not just about housing, it’s not just about early childhood. It’s about the investments we make altogether.”

At a moment when there is intense discussion about declines and disparities in student learning, the study is a helpful reminder of the broad array of factors that shapes children’s academic success.

The paper, written by several researchers and published last month, examines “childhood human capital investments” — in other words, the various resources that help children thrive and develop.

This is defined broadly to include formal schooling, as well as informal education, nutrition, health care, and housing, among other things. The researchers rely on a number of recent national surveys and put every item on a common dollar scale, including things that are not paid for, like parental time helping with homework or going to the library.

Under the researchers’ measure, the typical child received about half a million dollars’ worth of investment in their development through childhood. The disparities were significant, though. In addition to gaps by family income, there were also racial gaps. Relative to white kids, Hispanic kids had $73,000, or 14%, less investment. Black children had $55,000, or 10%, less.

There were notable gaps in spending across a variety of domains including housing, nutrition, health care, child care, and college preparation.

The researchers also considered time as a form of investment. They converted parental activities into a standard hourly dollar rate. Here there were also some gaps by income and race, though they were not especially large. Low-income children were slightly less likely to be read to or taken to a museum, but were more likely to get homework help or visit a zoo. This indicates that parents of all types put large amounts of time into their children’s development.

The overall disparities would likely be far larger without government programs designed to equalize opportunity, the researchers say. Investments in formal schooling, largely through public education, were fairly equal. This echoes analyses showing that there are typically not large gaps in spending between high-poverty and affluent schools. If anything, children in poverty had a bit more money spent on their education, the recent study finds.

“We see that the sectors where the disparities are smallest are when government services are the largest,” says Blazar.

His study does not speak to whether particular investments are effective in helping children develop, but in some cases other research does. For instance, low-income children are more likely to be identified for special education; these services lead to large gains in learning, according to a recent study. Research has also found that certain anti-poverty programs can boost test scores.

The latest study likely underestimates gaps in resources between different groups of students, Blazar says. Because of data limitations, the paper does not attempt to parse the quality of school a child attends, the doctor they go to, or the food they eat. The researchers also do not consider the neighborhood a child lives in or whether they’ve been exposed to environmental hazards. Both of these factors have been linked to success in school.

And while the paper includes the striking finding that formal education investments are relatively equal, the study stops at age 18. If the study continued a few more years, though, the findings would almost certainly be different. Children from low-income families are less likely to go to college and if they do, they typically attend less well-resourced schools.

So while K-12 educational investments have been equalized to a meaningful extent, vast disparities emerge after high school.

Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat’s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s new 2-K program will offer free child care 10 hours a day, 260 days a year, Mamdani says

2026-04-09T18:40:55+00:00

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Most of the 2,000 initial seats available through Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new free child care program for 2-year-olds will run 10 hours a day, year-round, officials said Thursday.

The full-day and full-year coverage sets the 2-K program apart from the city’s 3-K and prekindergarten programs, which in most cases only cover the cost of child care for six hours and 20 minutes a day from September to June, following the K-12 school calendar.

That limited coverage forces many working families to pay out of pocket for child care in the afternoons and summer months, adding up to thousands of dollars a year.

“For too long, parents have been forced to choose between their livelihood and their children, or to drain their savings just to make it through the workday,” Mamdani said in a statement. “That ends now.”

The extended calendar means families will get 260 days a year of free child care, compared to 180 under the school year calendar.

The city is currently in the process of issuing contracts to private child care providers who will get city funding to offer the initial 2,000 2-K seats. Officials are rolling out the program in five school districts, covering areas in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx with high levels of need.

City officials are planning to open an additional 10,000 2-K seats in fall 2027, and hope to bring the program citywide by the end of Mamdani’s first mayoral term in 2030.

Applications for families open in June for children who turn 2 in 2026, and the program starts in September. But at some programs, because of health codes, children who turn 2 between the start of the program in September and the end of 2026 will have to wait until their second birthday to start.

Child care providers in the 2-K program will still have the option of offering a school year and school day calendar if that better suits their families’ needs, according to city officials, who didn’t provide an estimate on how many seats would run for limited hours.

In the city’s 3-K and pre-K programs, the vast majority of seats run for only school day and school year hours. A smaller number of seats run for extended hours, but are only open to families who qualify as low income. Those full day and full year seats have been filled at a far lower rate than the school day and school year seats, which are open to all children in the designated age group.

Officials said the cost of extended hours for the 2-K program is covered under Gov. Kathy Hochul’s commitment to fund the first two years of the rollout. They didn’t immediately say what the cost difference is between a 2-K seat that follows the school calendar and a full-year seat.

Advocates are pushing the city to make more 3-K and pre-K seats full day and full year.

“We’re closer than ever to the child care system New York families have asked for and deserve,” said Rebecca Bailin, executive director of New Yorkers United for Child Care. “We’re not stopping until we get there.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library now available to children in all 92 Indiana counties

2026-04-02T15:35:34+00:00

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Children in all 92 counties across the state can now get free books in the mail through Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library of Indiana.

The announcement from the state on Wednesday comes nearly a year after state lawmakers approved the 2026-2027 budget that cut funding for the program. Gov. Mike Braun tasked First Lady Maureen Braun with fundraising to keep the program alive.

In a Thursday news release, the state touted the expansion of the program to all counties in the state as a “a major milestone for early childhood literacy across Indiana.”

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library provides books for children from birth to age 5 in the United States and four other countries. The organization mails the “high-quality, age-appropriate books” at no cost to families each month.

To provide the books, the library partners with local organizations that help secure funding for the books. Before the budget cut, the state of Indiana and local partners split the costs of books. The program received $2 million in the 2023-24 state budget and $4 million in 2024-25.

Griffin Reid, press secretary for Gov. Braun, said via email that there were no lapses in book delivery since the cuts.

As of August 2024, children in 85 counties had access to the program, and in Marion County, only two ZIP codes had access to the program. Now, all ZIP codes in the state are covered.

The Imagination Library in Indiana is a partnership between the state, the Dollywood Foundation, the Hoosier HOPE Foundation, and local partners, per the news release. The release did not say how much money was raised. In March, Maureen Braun announced she was at 90% of a two-year fundraising goal for the program, but didn’t specify amounts.

To sign up for the Imagination Library, visit www.imaginationlibrary.com

Update: This story was updated to include further details including no lapses in service since funding cuts, all ZIP codes are covered, and fundraising goal progress.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

Child care aid for low-income Colorado families to last through June at least, state officials say

2026-03-31T23:21:49+00:00

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Low-income families in Colorado’s child care subsidy program will get financial assistance at least through June 30 as a lawsuit challenging a Trump administration effort to withhold $10 billion in funding from five states unfolds.

The Colorado Department of Early Childhood announced the funding extension on Friday after a recent disbursement of child care dollars from the federal government.

Colorado’s program helps cover the cost of child care for more than 27,000 children so parents can work or take classes. It’s mostly funded by the federal government with smaller contributions from states and counties. In January, the federal government threatened to cut off funding to Colorado, California, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York, suggesting without evidence that the states were providing benefits to “illegal aliens.”

The five states quickly sued to prevent funding disruptions. Now, even after orders from a federal judge to release the funding as scheduled, there is a sense of uncertainty about the fate of the targeted programs.

In early January, when federal officials first threatened to restrict funding, Colorado officials estimated they had only enough money to offer child care aid through the end of January. Since then, they have sent regular alerts to child care providers and the public with updates on the freeze lawsuit and the latest estimate of how long funding will last.

In February, federal District Judge Vernon Broderick granted a preliminary injunction requiring the federal government to continue providing the child care and social services funding to the five states that sued.

In early February, Colorado estimated the child care assistance money would last through May. Friday’s announcement extended that by a month.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

This Colorado school district is losing students. Will new preschool options help?

2026-03-26T22:14:38+00:00

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One wing of Bradford Elementary in Pueblo School District 60 is dead silent in the middle of the school day. A darkened classroom at the end of the hallway doubles as a storage room, with a wooden play oven peeping over a jumble of furniture and boxes.

The lifeless hallway is a sign of declining enrollment in the district but also represents one of the building blocks of an ambitious — and at times contentious — plan to repurpose several school buildings for new uses, including preschool.

Bradford, which this year has one preschool classroom and 215 students, will cease being an elementary school next fall and re-open as a preschool center and community resource hub. Four miles away, Heritage Elementary will house a second new preschool center while continuing to serve kindergarten through fifth grade students. Both buildings will get renovations this summer.

Like most Colorado communities, Pueblo County has a shortage of licensed child care. There are only enough seats for just over a quarter of children under 6, according to a 2025 report from Common Sense Institute.

Pueblo 60, which has about 13,500 students, isn’t alone in its early childhood expansion aspirations. A number of Colorado districts, including large ones like Cherry Creek and small ones like Garfield RE-2 and Weld RE-8, have recently added or plan to add new preschool slots.

Especially since the 2023 launch of Colorado’s universal preschool program, scaling up preschool can help districts take advantage of vacant space, stem enrollment losses, and give children a jump start on early reading and math skills.

Pueblo 60 Superintendent Barbara Kimzey said, “I tell our staff this all the time, graduation rates begin the moment that preschooler walks in the door.”

A preschool student at Bradford Elementary School tried on his "Cat-in-the-Hat" hat on Read Across America Day on March 2.

The state’s $349 million universal preschool program, funded partly through a voter-approved nicotine tax, offers tuition-free preschool to all 4-year-olds.

This year, Pueblo 60 has 16 preschool classrooms offering free half-day classes. Next year, there will be 21 classrooms — at Bradford, Heritage, and some other district schools — and 80 new preschool seats. Bradford and Heritage will offer free full-day programming.

Kimzey said the district’s planned preschool expansion, along with other elements of the district’s “right-serving” facilities plan, aims to turn the tide on declining enrollment.

“Over the last 12 years, we’ve lost over a quarter of our enrollment,” she said. “We realize it’s a heavy lift, but we’re here for it, and we truly believe that we can … not only stem the decline, but really work on building back our district.”

In addition to Bradford, two other buildings will cease being elementary schools next year. Beulah Heights, which has about 250 students this year, will become a staff training center. Bessemer Academy, which has about 225 students this year, will become a family resource hub offering after-school enrichment, tutoring, and other programming.

The now-closed Hyde Park campus will reopen next year, housing a pre-collegiate middle school, the district’s online middle school program, and a community resource hub.

District-run preschool offers stability

Pueblo mother Randi Addington supports the addition of new full-day preschool seats in the district, especially since her 4-year-old’s private preschool closed abruptly last fall.

“They closed overnight in October … literally with no warning.” she said. “It was such a giant disruption to us.”

Addington, who works remotely, was able to secure the last available preschool seat at the district’s South Park Elementary after the closure. It was only a half-day program and wasn’t at the school her first grade son attends, but it was something.

She believes school districts have more safeguards against sudden closures than private preschools.

“I was like, this wouldn’t happen with the district. They’d give you warning a year in advance if they were going to close something,” she said.

Addington, who served on the district’s facilities plan steering committee, said as a working parent she’s happy the district will move back to full-day preschool next year. The reason she’d decided to enroll her son at the preschool that closed at the start of the school year was because it offered more daily hours than the school district.

“That was not sustainable for us as working professional parents,” she said of the half-day schedule.

Kimzey said the district previously offered full-day preschool but slimmed it down to half-day this year because of scheduling difficulties related to its four-day school week and teacher contract requirements. The new preschool centers will allow the district to offer full-day classes again, she said.

Addington said she believes attending district-run preschool helps children get ready for kindergarten. She’s watched her own son acclimate to the elementary school setting at South Park.

“Mama, there’s big kids here. There’s not babies here,” she recalled him saying after he started.

Correction: March 27, 2026: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the planned uses for Beulah Heights Elementary and Bessemer Academy next year.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Should you red-shirt your kindergartner? A new analysis suggests it doesn’t help most students.

2026-03-24T04:15:57+00:00

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The practice of red-shirting — having students start kindergarten a year late — appears to have returned to historically normal levels after a post-pandemic bump.

And the students who started kindergarten late in the aftermath of COVID now perform similarly to their slightly younger classmates on standardized tests, according to a new analysis from the testing company NWEA.

The analysis released Tuesday comes amid ongoing concerns about the academic preparedness and progress of young students.

Separate studies by NWEA and other testing companies have found that students who weren’t even in school yet during the pandemic are struggling academically compared with their pre-COVID counterparts. The reasons are not well understood, and theories range from parental stress to missing preschool learning experiences to increased screen time.

Red-shirting refers to the practice of having children whose birthdays are near the cut-off date start kindergarten a year later. This makes them the oldest rather than the youngest students in their class and is widely believed to confer academic and athletic advantages.

Megan Kuhfeld, director of growth modeling and analytics at NWEA, said she wanted to find out if all the chatter about red-shirting in the media and in her social circles showed up in the data.

Kuhfeld discovered it did not.

Kindergarten readiness varies widely by income, new data shows. Cities are stepping in to help.

Most years between 2017 and 2025, a little less than 5% of kindergarten students started school a year late. (Another 1% to 2% were older than their classmates because they repeated kindergarten.)

The exception was the 2021-22 school year, when 6.4% of kindergartners started late. But that increase quickly subsided. Last school year, just 4.4% started late.

NWEA used data from three million kindergartners who took the company’s MAP growth assessment for younger elementary students. This sample comes from schools all over the country but may not be nationally representative.

The typical red-shirted student is a white boy who comes from an economically comfortable household. That hasn’t changed over time. Rural communities have the highest rates of red-shirting, and they saw the largest increase during COVID. Roughly 9% of rural kindergartners started late in the 2021-22 school year.

Students in high-poverty schools have the lowest rate of red-shirting but also experienced notable increases during the pandemic.

Asian American students have consistently low rates of red-shirting, and that didn’t change during the pandemic.

Students who start kindergarten late posted higher test scores in kindergarten than their younger peers, with the gap equivalent to 20% to 30% of a school year’s worth of learning, NWEA found. However, by third grade, that gap evaporates.

Kuhfeld said there could be a number of reasons for this. Teachers tend to teach toward the middle of the pack, and where they differentiate, they tend to focus more on students who are behind. Students who start out ahead of their classmates might also grow bored and not do as well later, she said.

“Holding kids back is not going to undo the COVID impact,” Kuhfeld said.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

As NYC expands free child care, CUNY tries to grow its teacher pipeline

2026-03-17T16:27:58+00:00

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Rosalinda Rodriguez knows first hand what a difference free, high-quality child care can make for a New York City family.

Several years ago, Rodriguez, a 25-year-old single mom, enrolled her then-toddler-age son in a federally funded Early Head Start program on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Staffers there helped support her son with a speech disability and freed up Rodriguez to work part time.

Years later, her son is thriving in elementary school, and Rodriguez decided to pursue her long-time dream of attending college, enrolling at CUNY’s Borough of Manhattan Community College last fall to study early childhood education.

“It definitely feels like I got a second chance,” said Rodriguez, who hopes she can help families like hers. “There’s lots of low-income families that need child care, and kids need to get an education. [They] need someone who cares.”

Students like Rodriguez are at the heart of a new push from CUNY officials to bolster the city’s early childhood education workforce as Mayor Zohran Mamdani embarks on a historic expansion of free child care.

City officials haven’t said exactly how many new early childhood educators the expansion plans will require, but the need could be acute.

Mamdani, with funding from Gov. Kathy Hochul, has pledged to open 2,000 free child care seats for 2-year-olds this fall, and an additional 10,000 seats a year later, before growing the program to accommodate any city 2-year-old by its fourth year. He also expanded the city’s existing 3-K program by 1,000 seats in an effort to increase supply in oversubscribed neighborhoods.

Across CUNY’s 26 campuses, roughly 3,600 students are working toward a degree in early childhood education, university officials said. Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez recently asked all of the college presidents to review their early childhood education curriculum and ensure they’re pushing students out into the work force as quickly as possible.

“This is a moment where we need to meet the city’s demand for their work force,” Matos Rodríguez told Chalkbeat last week during a visit to a child development course at Borough of Manhattan Community College.

For aspiring early childhood educators who don’t want to pursue a full associate or bachelor’s degree, CUNY launched a free apprenticeship program last year to place them in assistant teacher roles. CUNY officials also hope that a separate state-funded program called Reconnect could prove particularly effective in bringing new early educators into the fold: It offers financial support for older students without a college degree to enroll in coursework in high-demand fields.

“You might have people out there who have experience working with kids and they have not been able to get their degree,” Matos Rodríguez said. “[Here’s] a chance to come do that, get an associate, it’s paid for, and be ready for when that credential becomes necessary.”

At a recent City Council hearing, Emmy Liss, Mamdani’s newly appointed director of the Mayor’s Office of Child Care, said “we will need to significantly expand the number of trained professionals working in child care” – jobs she acknowledged have been historically “underpaid and under-respected.”

Unlike teaching positions in K-12 schools, which uniformly require a bachelor’s degree and state certification, qualifications for city early childhood education jobs can vary.

Lead teachers for prekindergarten programs located in public schools need full teaching licenses. But for 2-K, which officials have said will be located in community-based centers or home-based settings, the qualifications are less stringent. Teachers in home-based programs must complete 30 hours of child development training, while center-based instructors must have, or be working toward, an associate degree in early childhood education, according to an Education Department spokesperson.

But even as university officials try to lure more students into early childhood education programs, they know that the meager wages awaiting many of them after graduation can make that task more complicated.

Early childhood educators made a median yearly wage of roughly $25,000 as of 2023, according to a report from former Comptroller Brad Lander — compared to nearly $100,000 for K-12 teachers. Mamdani has pledged to make increasing wages for educators a part of his child care expansion, but hasn’t laid out any specific plans or funding sources to make that happen.

“I think it’s pretty easy for people to find jobs,” said Phoebe Gilpin, a doctoral student at Hunter College and the instructor for Rodriguez’s course. “It’s hard for them to find living wage jobs.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Kindergarten registration has started. What does it mean to be ready for school?

2026-02-05T13:48:36+00:00

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New federal data shows about two-thirds of the nation’s 3- to 5-year-olds are on track to enter kindergarten. But being ready for school involves a lot more than a child’s ability to count or recite their ABCs.

The effort to get a snapshot of kindergarten readiness is part of the National Survey of Children’s Health, and that metric has been reported each year since 2022. Thousands of parents and guardians submitted answers about their child in five categories — early learning, motor skills, social-emotional development, self-regulation and health — with the goal of answering the big question: Is your child ready for school?

While there’s growing interest in assessing school readiness, education experts differ on what to measure and how. And some dispute whether children should be ready for school or if schools should be ready for their students.

Despite the complexities, it’s indisputable that what a young child learns before they enter classrooms can set the course for the rest of their academic career.

What is kindergarten readiness?

Kindergarten readiness encompasses the foundational skills necessary to engage in a more formal learning environment, said Ohio State University educational psychology professor Laura Justice. In some ways, it’s very similar to the expectations for a college graduate to be successful in their first job, she said.

There isn’t a universal definition of kindergarten readiness, but many experts and educators rely on guidance from the bipartisan National Education Goals Panel’s five developmental domains critical to a child’s success upon entering grade school. The criteria emphasize a child’s health and motor skills, social-emotional development, cognition, language development, and general attitude toward learning — a very similar framework as the federal survey.

But school readiness is a relatively new concept, as the panel’s guidelines came in the 1990s. Historically, there weren’t many expectations for children entering kindergarten, although some students — typically from wealthier families — would come in with more advanced skills than others, said Robert Crosnoe, a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Austin. That meant providing enriching learning opportunities before children set foot in a kindergarten classroom – so they could learn not only their ABCs, but also skills such as carrying on a conversation and problem-solving during playtime.

“If we just focus on those strictly academic things, it’s only going to get us so far,” Crosnoe said.

Is your child ready for kindergarten? The answer is complex

There are a few ways to measure readiness, but each method has its drawbacks, said Jill Cannon, a senior policy researcher at global policy think tank RAND.

Parents can answer questions about their child — such as in the NSCH survey — but can be biased or misinterpret questions, especially if English isn’t their first language. Teachers can assess children instead, but interpretations of a child’s behavior can depend on which teacher is doing the assessment.

Alternatively, a young child can be directly assessed on certain skills. But that approach can be “hit or miss,” according to Cannon, because a child that young may perform differently on any given day.

Kindergarten readiness varies widely by income, new data shows. Cities are stepping in to help.

When to measure readiness can also be a factor.

A child’s age when they enter kindergarten — typically at age 5 — can also factor into readiness, as children who are several months older are often in the same class as students who just turned 5, Cannon said.

“Six months now to me means nothing, but back then … I had a lot of learning to do. I grew a lot,” Cannon said. “These kids, they grow a lot over the kindergarten year.”

If your child is scheduled for a kindergarten readiness assessment, don’t worry. Most experts agree that readiness tests are, overall, a crucial tool for educators – but only to identify what supports kids will need.

“We have an arsenal of interventions that can improve these skills in kids,” Justice said. “So the screening instrument can help us identify where the need is so that we can respond.”

How to boost kindergarten readiness

Research suggests that attending a high-quality preschool program is one of the best ways to boost kindergarten readiness.

However, preschool curriculums vary vastly across the U.S., with some prioritizing certain development areas, such as literacy, over others. And the quality of preschool can vary drastically depending on where someone lives, making that goal a lot easier said than done.

But some measures of quality are universal. Many early childhood education experts rely on the National Institute for Early Education Research’s 10 quality benchmarks to make broad assessments in all states that offer public preschool programs.

Parents can use the standards as a guide for choosing a preschool that’s most likely to help prepare their child for the next step. The standards include requiring prekindergarten teachers to hold bachelor’s degrees, keeping class sizes at 20 children or fewer, implementing professional development for staff, and offering health screenings and referrals. In 2024, 13 states met five or fewer of NIEER’s standards, while just five states met all 10 benchmarks.

At home, parents can take many steps to prepare their child for kindergarten, too.

You can read to your child every day to boost their early literacy skills. Giving your child small responsibilities around the house develops their independence and gets them acclimated to tasks that may be expected of them in kindergarten. And coaching your child to name their emotions can strengthen those social-emotional and self-regulation skills that are integral to building positive relationships with classmates and teachers.

Data journalist Todd Feathers contributed reporting.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Kindergarten readiness varies widely by income, new data shows. Cities are stepping in to help.

2026-02-05T13:48:22+00:00

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SAN ANTONIO - Sandra Mosqueda watched with an amused smile as her 2-year-old son, Atreus, began sweeping the floor with a miniature mop.

Atreus is part of the inaugural class of infants and toddlers receiving free preschool in a citywide program in San Antonio, Texas. It’s something his mother doesn’t take for granted. As a child, she herself wasn’t able to start preschool this young. In the case of her two older boys — now in first grade and kindergarten — the free preschool set them up for success in elementary school.

The first five years of a child’s life are among the most critical for their development. Those years lay a foundation and prepare them for kindergarten, often setting them up for success throughout school and beyond. But immense disparities exist in whether parents across the country report their child as ready for kindergarten, new data from the National Survey for Children’s Health shows.

Nationally, nearly two-thirds of children were reported in the survey as on track for kindergarten, regardless of their families’ income. However, the gap in kindergarten readiness is substantial when comparing reports from the poorest families and the wealthiest — approximately a 20% difference.

Administered by the U.S. Census Bureau, the federal survey offers a glimpse into school readiness by collecting responses annually from thousands of parents and guardians on their children’s early learning, social-emotional development, self-regulation, motor development, and health. The latest results were released in December.

Low-income children often have less access to experiences that boost school readiness, such as high-quality early learning opportunities. That isn’t to say those kids haven’t made gains. Over the past few years, the survey’s portion of on-track children from families earning less than the federal poverty line — just under $32,000 for a family of four in 2024 — has trended upward nationwide by a few percentage points.

Some city and state programs are working to boost that improvement by expanding preschool opportunities for children from low-income families. The mission is even more urgent as parents juggle soaring child care costs and a widening affordability gap.

Pre-K 4 SA students play on the playground, Oct. 9, 2025, in San Antonio.

San Antonio’s program, called Pre-K 4 SA, is a prime example. It’s designed to serve low-income and working-class families throughout the city, offering 2,000 preschool seats for 3- and 4-year-olds — 80% of them free to families who qualify. The program, which opened in 2013, is funded through the city’s sales tax and expanded last year to include four infant and toddler classrooms in its new South Education Center. The preschools also offer an unusually broad mix of services, in recognition that poverty raises a complex blend of obstacles to kindergarten readiness.

Citywide early childhood programs have also emerged in recent years in Denver, New York, Boston, and Chicago, among others.

Students who have completed Pre-K 4 SA have scored higher than the state average on third grade math and reading, according to the Urban Education Institute at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Those outcomes contribute to what Sarah Baray, CEO of Pre-K 4 SA, views as a key success of the program: Children with the greatest needs receive the same quality education as kids from wealthier families.

“The quality is so high that even families who could afford to go anywhere try to get into our schools,” Baray said.

High-quality education a solution for all families, regardless of income

Many experts agree that one of the best ways to boost school readiness is to ensure programs meet high-quality standards, such as smaller class sizes and child-to-staff ratios.

Pre-K 4 SA has implemented a “whole child” approach that develops a range of skills, including socioemotional learning. Baray said the program prepares children “not just (for) academic success, but life success.”

Kids in Deziree Arce’s class learn to count and recognize shapes just like other preschoolers. But the children also receive guidance from Arce on social-emotional skills to test out all day, whether it’s consoling a crying classmate or resolving a conflict on who sits where at their classroom table.

“When I see kids that come from, like, where I came from, I’m giving them something that I never got,” said Arce, who grew up in a low-income family and has taught at Pre-K 4 SA for nine years.

Pre-K 4 SA also intentionally incorporates opportunities for children to refine their motor skills. For lunch, the children in Arce’s class pinched turkey burgers — provided by a local food bank — with tongs out of aluminum trays and onto their plates. Exploding ketchup packets were met with celebration, as some students opened them by themselves for the first time.

Outdoor play is another critical component to improving motor skills. Students spend an hour outside every day unless weather conditions are severe. In an era of too much screen time and time indoors, Pre-K 4 SA students are encouraged to engage in “risky play.” That could mean racing tricycles around the perimeter of the playground, climbing up the slide or spraying water from a pump. Those experiences teach students their physical limits early, said Pre-K 4 SA Chief of Schools Tonda Brown.

Finding solutions to get families off the waitlist

A major challenge for San Antonio’s program, as well as in citywide efforts around the country, is meeting the demand.

More than 1,600 families were on Pre-K 4 SA’s waitlist this school year, Baray said. To help wait-listed families, the program’s enrollment team connects them with other local options, such as school district-run preschools or private centers partnered with Pre-K 4 SA.

Other cities distribute the demand across a wide variety of high-quality preschool programs by offering financial assistance to families.

Denver Preschool Program offers tuition credits to all families with 4-year-olds. Selected families can then put that money toward any licensed public or private preschool participating in the sales tax-funded program, said Priscilla Hopkins, executive director of Denver Public Schools’ early education office. About 80% of DPP’s providers were rated four- or five-star in Colorado’s quality rating system, according to the program’s 2024 impact report.

What does it mean to be ready for kindergarten?

The level of financial support given to a family is determined by income. In 2024, nearly 1,800 4-year-olds who received DPP’s tuition support were in the lowest income tier — up to 135% of the federal poverty line. More than $21 million in tuition credits were dispersed in the 2023-24 school year, according to program leaders.

However, in large swathes of the country, especially rural areas, private preschools are the only high-quality option but often come with a hefty price tag and little financial assistance. That leaves low-income families with fewer preschool options than their wealthier peers, said Kelly Purtell, a human development and family science professor at Ohio State University.

“There’s all sorts of challenges that then really limit what preschools are even kind of on the table for them,” Purtell said.

Helping families outside the classroom, too

Reliable transportation can be another obstacle for low-income families, especially for parents who work outside normal business hours, Purtell said.

Pre-K 4 SA’s South Education Center offers free bus transportation to fill that gap.

Pre-K 4 SA students arrive to catch the school bus, Oct. 9, 2025, in San Antonio.

As children boarded the bus at a designated pickup spot near Southside Lions Park, cheerful bus monitors greeted them and strapped each one into their seat with a safety harness. Their bus driver offered each child a cartoon sticker for their school-provided backpacks.

The stress of poverty can hinder a parent’s ability to give their child enriching experiences key to school readiness, which is why services that promote family stability are important, said Katie Paschall, a researcher at Child Trends. At Pre-K 4 SA, that means healthy cooking classes, mobile vaccination clinics, and even “family cafes” where parents can get help from staff to apply for jobs. By eliminating those at-home issues, parents can focus more on setting their children up for a better future.

In Mosqueda’s case, having her kids in preschool allowed her to return to school after Atreus’ birth halted her studies to become a respiratory therapist. She completed a dental assistant degree and got a job at a nearby dental office. No one has cheered on Mosqueda more than her boys — her oldest son proudly took videos of his mom at her graduation last year.

“It’s showing them you can still do anything, no matter what comes in your way, and having the help to do it makes it possible,” she said.

Data journalist Todd Feathers contributed reporting.

Colorado parents sue private equity-backed child care chain after teacher’s abuse conviction

2026-01-22T18:53:14+00:00

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The parents of five Colorado children have sued a chain of child care centers, alleging that its owners and several staff members failed to protect their children from a teacher who they say hit, shoved, and kicked the 2-year-olds, threw water on them to wake them up, used racial slurs, and yelled in their faces.

The families filed the lawsuit in Colorado district court Jan. 13 against The Nest Schools, a national chain that has seven Colorado locations, including one in Centennial where the teacher, Brandon Vigil, worked. Vigil was sentenced earlier this month after pleading guilty to misdemeanor child abuse charges.

Besides alleging a series of individual failures that led a former cook with no teaching experience to become a lead teacher who abused toddlers, the suit claims a structural cause: The Nest’s backing by a private-equity investment firm, Rockbridge Growth Equity. Such investors prioritize growth and profit, the suit alleges, which can lead to high staff turnover and a push to increase enrollment at the expense of child safety.

About 15% of child care seats for young children in Colorado are housed in centers with private-equity backing or ownership, according to a 2025 Chalkbeat analysis. Besides The Nest Schools, they include chains like KinderCare, Primrose Schools, and Goddard Schools.

Some Colorado lawmakers have expressed concern recently about the role of private equity in child care, saying that the ownership structure can lower the quality of care, harm workers, and raise prices for families.

Last year, several Democratic lawmakers sought new guardrails on child care chains backed by private equity or venture capital firms, but their bill died in April. Sen. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat and one of the bill sponsors, told Chalkbeat by email this month that there are no plans to run a similar bill this year.

“Sometimes the problem has to get worse before people are willing to address it,” she said.

Lawsuit names center employees, company executives

The abuse cited in the families’ lawsuit occurred in Vigil’s toddler classroom in the summer of 2024.

The lawsuit alleges The Nest leaders and employees placed the children in dangerous conditions and failed to monitor the classroom even though children routinely screamed and cried. It also alleges that some of the defendants, who were employees at the Centennial center during Vigil’s tenure, saw him mistreating children and failed to report suspected child abuse as required by law.

Among the nine defendants named in the lawsuit are Gerry Pastor and Jane Porterfield, the husband and wife who are co-CEOs of The Nest Schools, which is based in Delaware. Pastor said by email that he and Porterfield could not comment on the lawsuit for legal reasons.

Vigil started at The Nest’s Centennial location as a cook and later assumed a teaching position in the “Cardinals A” toddler classroom, the lawsuit says. The director who hired him, promoted him, and is one of the defendants in the lawsuit, described him as “happy go lucky” and said her only issue with his performance as cook was that he was late for work, according to a state investigation report.

It’s not clear from the report what training or other requirements Vigil had to complete to become a child care teacher. Following open records requests by Chalkbeat last spring, state officials said the results of Vigil’s background check are not public and that the state doesn’t retain child care personnel files or training certificates.

A substitute teacher’s aide reported Vigil to authorities in September 2024, according to state inspection reports. State officials who investigated found that Vigil regularly dished out physical and verbal abuse to the children in his care. He threw toddlers in the air to scare them, threw their belongings in the trash, and slammed a child’s face and body into a glass window several times. He called children in his classroom “ugly” and “disgusting.”

He called one child “Kim Jong Un,” apparently referring to the North Korean dictator, and told another, “You better stay in school, girl, because that’s all you got going for you,” according to the investigation reports.

Classroom cameras captured the abuse, according to state inspection reports. The lawsuit notes that only 30 days of video footage was available because earlier footage had been deleted or overwritten by The Nest staff.

Vigil’s last day at the center was Sept. 5, 2024. That was when the aide subbing in his classroom reported Vigil to law enforcement for hitting a child with an open hand and directing a racial slur at the child, the lawsuit says.

Vigil was arrested on 51 criminal charges, including 28 counts of child abuse. In December, he pleaded guilty to three counts of misdemeanor child abuse as part of a plea deal. In early January, he was sentenced to two years in Arapahoe County jail.

Three of The Nest’s locations are on state probation

Subsequent state inspection reports and other documents detailing Vigil’s mistreatment of children paint a picture of a child care center in disarray — with management often absent because of problems at two other Colorado centers in The Nest Schools chain. One of those centers was the chain’s Highlands Ranch location, which closed for more than a week that summer after Nest officials failed to submit construction plans to the county health department or get construction permits from the building division.

Three of The Nest Schools’ seven Colorado locations are currently on probation, according to state records. They include the Centennial location where Vigil worked, the Aurora location, and one of two Littleton locations. When child care centers violate state health and safety rules, state officials can place them on probation and require frequent inspections.

Pastor said by email that the three centers have taken corrective actions and that he and Porterfield anticipate they will be released from probation in the near future.

“While the circumstances leading to these actions were concerning to us, we have addressed the issues identified, reinforced our standards and expectations and used the process as an opportunity to strengthen our programs,” he said.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Child care aid could run out by Jan. 31 due to Trump funding freeze, Colorado officials say

2026-01-08T00:38:31+00:00

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Colorado officials say money that helps 18,000 low-income families pay for child care could run out by Jan. 31 if federal officials don’t lift the freeze they’ve imposed on funding for several safety net programs in five Democrat-led states.

If that happens, some children could go without care and some parents would have to stay home from work. State lawmakers could cover such a funding gap temporarily, though Colorado is facing a significant budget crunch.

The Trump administration announced the freeze on $10 billion in child care and social services funding for Colorado, California, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York in a press release Tuesday.

In letters sent to the two Colorado agencies that run the affected programs, federal officials said they have “reason to believe that the State of Colorado is illicitly providing” benefits funded with federal dollars to “illegal aliens.”

The letters didn’t cite evidence for that claim and a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services didn’t respond to questions from Chalkbeat about why federal officials are concerned about fraud in Colorado.

Spokespeople from both state departments said by email on Wednesday they’re not aware of any federal fraud investigations focused on the programs affected by the funding freeze.

The five-state funding freeze follows a federal crackdown in Minnesota after a right-wing YouTuber posted a video in late December alleging that Minneapolis child care centers run by Somali residents get federal funds but serve no children. It’s not clear why the other four states have gotten the same treatment as Minnesota, but all have Democratic governors who have clashed with President Donald Trump.

In a New Year’s Eve social media post, Trump called Colorado Gov. Jared Polis “the Scumbag Governor” and said Polis and another Colorado official should “rot in hell” for mistreating Tina Peters, a Trump supporter and former Mesa County clerk who’s serving a nine-year prison sentence for orchestrating a plot to breach election systems.

The federal freeze will affect three main funding streams in Colorado that together bring in about $317 million a year. They include $138 million for the Colorado Department of Early Childhood for child care subsidies for low-income families and a few other programs.

The subsidy program, known as the Colorado Child Care Assistance program, helps cover the cost of care for more than 27,000 children so parents can work or take classes. It’s mostly funded by the federal government with smaller contributions from states and counties.

The other two frozen funding streams go to the Colorado Department of Human Services and pay for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, and other programs.

In the letter to the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, federal officials outlined new fiscal requirements the state will have to follow before the funding freeze is lifted. They include attendance documentation — without names or other personal identifiers — for children in the child care subsidy program.

A state fact sheet issued in response to the funding freeze said funding for the child care subsidy program would be depleted by Jan. 31. It also outlined several measures already in place to prevent fraud or waste, including state audits, monthly case reviews by county officials, and efforts to recover funds if improper payments are made.

The state said it is exploring “all options, including legal avenues” to keep the frozen funding flowing.

Six Democratic state lawmakers, most in leadership positions, released a statement Wednesday afternoon calling the funding freeze a callous move that will make life more expensive for working families.

“We stand ready to work with Governor Polis and partners in our federal delegation to resist this lawless effort to freeze funding, and we sincerely hope that our Republican colleagues will put politics aside, get serious about making life in Colorado more affordable, and put families first,” the statement said in part.

The statement was from Speaker of the House Julie McCluskie; Senate President James Coleman; House Majority Leader Monica Duran; Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez; Rep. Emily Sirota; and Sen. Judy Amabile.

Correction: The original version of this story incorrectly stated that the Trump administration announced the funding freeze on Monday. It was Tuesday. The original version also incorrectly stated that on Tuesday spokespeople for the two state departments said they were not aware of any federal fraud investigations and that six Democratic lawmakers released a statement on the funding freeze. Those things happened on Wednesday.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado parents can soon recover child care waitlist and application fees

2025-12-18T23:33:12+00:00

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Colorado parents will soon be able to get partial refunds on certain upfront fees they’ve paid to child care centers if their children don’t land a seat there within six months.

A new Colorado law that takes effect on Jan 1. aims to ease the cost burden on families who pay waitlist, application, or deposit fees to child care programs that their children don’t end up attending. It requires child care providers to provide the refunds if a child has not been offered a spot within six months and the parent requests the refund in writing, such as by email.

Democratic lawmakers pushed for the proposal during the 2025 legislative session, citing instances where families sometimes pay fees of $100 or more to a dozen or more child care centers as they search for a slot.

The law applies to fees paid on or after Jan. 1, 2026, so families won’t be able to obtain refunds until they hit the end of the six-month window in July 2026 or after. Families who are offered a spot at a child care center but decline it aren’t eligible to recoup any of the fees they paid.

Under the law, providers are allowed to keep a “reasonable” portion of the waitlist, application, or deposit fee to cover administrative costs. That amount is $25, according to a Colorado Department of Early Childhood document released Thursday.

Besides the refund provision, the new law requires child care programs to disclose their tuition and fees when a prospective family requests pricing information, joins the waitlist, enrolls in the program, or when the provider changes the fee schedule. It doesn’t require that tuition and fees be posted publicly.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado parents: Here’s what to know about signing up for free preschool for 2026

2025-12-09T00:35:57+00:00

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Colorado families can start applying for the state’s free preschool program for the 2026-27 school year on Tuesday at noon.

The $349 million program, which launched in the fall of 2023, is open to all 4-year-olds. Nearly 43,000 4-year-olds are currently enrolled in the program. About 3,900 3-year-olds with disabilities are also enrolled.

State officials say it will take most families about five minutes to fill out the universal preschool application. Like last year, there’s a phone helpline that offers interpretation in over 100 languages.

Here’s what families need to know about the preschool program and the online application.

Who gets free preschool? How much do they get?

Two groups of children qualify: all 4-year-olds and some 3-year-olds who need extra help.

The preschool program is primarily designed for children in the year before they go to kindergarten. For the upcoming 2026-27 school year, that means children who turn 4 before Oct. 1, 2026.

Most 4-year-olds will get 15 hours of preschool a week, though some preschool providers offer only 10 hours a week.

Some 4-year-olds will qualify for 30 hours of tuition-free preschool a week. This includes children from families with incomes at or below 100% of the 2025 federal poverty level — up to $32,150 for a family of four.

Four-year-olds from families with income between 100% and 265% of the federal poverty level — $32,150 to $85,198 for a family of four — must also have one of the risk factors below to qualify for 30 hours a week.

They speak a language other than English at home.
They have a special education plan, also known as an IEP.
They are homeless.
They are in foster care.

Qualifying for 30 hours of free preschool through the state isn’t a guarantee that a child will get it. Not every preschool offers a 30-hour a week schedule — or has open seats available even if it does.

Compared to 4-year-olds, only a small number of 3-year-olds — children two years away from kindergarten — qualify for tuition-free preschool. Only 3-year-olds who have special education plans are guaranteed free preschool.

What about 5-year-olds who aren’t in kindergarten yet?

A small number of 5-year-olds are eligible for free preschool in the year before they attend kindergarten. This group can include children who move between districts or who live in districts with kindergarten cut-off dates earlier than the state’s Oct. 1 cut-off and whose birthdays fall between the two dates.

Five-year-olds who could go to kindergarten but have been held out by their families — a practice often called redshirting — aren’t eligible for free preschool in that year.

When can I fill out the universal preschool application?

This year’s application opens on Dec. 9 at noon.

Some families of children who will be 4 by Oct. 1 will get to preregister, specifically those who want to send their child to the preschool where the child is currently enrolled, where a sibling is enrolled, or where the parent is employed. These families should fill out the state preschool application, list their current provider as their first choice, and submit. They’ll receive notification about their preschool match on Feb. 2 and must accept the match by Feb. 11.

Families not eligible to preregister can still fill out the universal preschool application starting Dec. 9. Those who submit by Feb. 2 will fall into the state’s first round of matching. They’ll find out which program they matched with on Feb. 25 and must accept or decline the match by March 5.

Families that submit their choices between Feb. 3 and March 15 will fall into the state’s second round of matching. They’ll find out their match on March 24 and must accept or decline the match by March 31.

What if I apply after the first two matching windows?

Families of children who will be 4 by Oct. 1 can still apply for free preschool after the first two rounds of matching are complete through what’s called “direct enrollment.” This process starts on April 1 and will continue through the end of the 2026-27 school year for children attending preschool that year.

Contact the preschool you’re interested in to see if they have space. If they do, they’ll assist you with the enrollment process, including filling out the state universal preschool application.

If you don’t have a preschool in mind, you can browse an online list of universal preschool providers on the state’s application website.

What do I need to fill out the state preschool application?

You’ll need to provide an email address to create an account and start your online preschool application. Families who believe their children may qualify for 30 hours also need to know the amount of their gross monthly or gross annual income. The application is available in English and 10 other languages, including Spanish, French, Arabic, and Hindi.

I have a child who will be 3 by Oct. 1, 2026. Should I complete the application?

If your child has an Individualized Education Program or IEP, yes. Otherwise, parents of 3-year-olds should contact their local school district to find out if they qualify for tuition-free preschool.

My child has a disability. Should I complete the application?

Yes. Families with a child who will be 3 or 4 next school year and has a special education plan — also known as an Individualized Education Program, or IEP — should fill out the state preschool application. Be sure to check “yes” in response to the question about whether the child has an active Individualized Education Program. The local school district will contact families about the enrollment and placement process. Most preschoolers with IEPs will be placed in classrooms run by their school districts.

Parents who are worried their preschooler may be delayed in speech, learning, or development, but don’t have a diagnosis or IEP, should contact Child Find, a state program that screens children suspected of having a disability. Check this list for Child Find coordinators by region.

Can I pick my 4-year-old’s preschool?

Yes. More than 2,000 preschools across Colorado are part of the universal program. Families who don’t qualify for preregistration or want a program other than the one their child currently attends will be asked on the state application to pick up to 10 preschools. They can rank their choices. Options include school-based preschools, faith-based preschools, preschool programs inside child care centers, and state-licensed home-based programs.

This year, more than 75% of families were matched with their first choice preschool.

There are some cases where preschool providers can turn down a universal preschool applicant. For example, a school-based preschool might turn away a child who lives outside district boundaries.

Can I pick my 3-year-old’s preschool?

Possibly, but you won’t have as many choices as 4-year-olds do. It all depends on your school district since districts are in charge of placing 3-year-old preschoolers. Some districts primarily serve 3-year-olds in district-run classrooms while others work with community child care programs to serve 3-year-olds.

Do I have to fill out my district’s school choice form too?

Families who want to send their child to a preschool run by their school district may have to fill out two applications: the district school choice form and the state universal preschool application. If you’re not sure if your district has a school choice form or if you are required to fill it out, contact your district.

What if I need more hours than what my preschooler is eligible for?

You can still pay for extra hours above and beyond what the state covers for free, as long as the preschool offers more hours. You can also see if you qualify for financial help through other means, such as the state’s child care subsidy program or a local tuition assistance program like the Denver Preschool Program. Here’s a rundown of the options.

I have more questions. What should I do?

Contact the local group that’s coordinating the universal preschool program in your county or region. Here’s a county-by-county list of all the groups — the state calls them Local Coordinating Organizations or LCOs — with email addresses.

You can also contact the state’s help desk from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday. The number is 303-866-5223 and interpretation is available in over 100 languages. Families can also email the help desk at universalpreschool@state.co.us or submit an online form at help.upk.colorado.gov.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s child care voucher waitlist hits 10,000, leaving working parents in crisis

2025-12-01T20:48:29+00:00

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Naomi Veerasammy and her 2-year-old daughter leave their Jamaica, Queens, apartment weekday mornings by 6:30 a.m. and head to the home of whichever friend or relative has agreed to watch the toddler that day.

Veersammy, a paraprofessional at a public elementary school, relies on a rotating cast of relatives and friends to watch her daughter for little to no pay, so she can still make it to work by 8 a.m. on the city bus.

The single mom nets under $2,000 a month in income and can’t afford full-time day care, which costs between $1,500 to $2,000 a month for the average city toddler.

“It’s very, very hard on me financially, mentally, physically to find a sitter for my daughter every day,” Veersammy said, adding that her daughter needs stability.

Hoping for more stable child care, Veerasammy applied for child care vouchers worth an average of $300 a week for kids up to age 13 from low-income families across the state.

Veerasammy met the income criteria, but the city stopped enrolling new families in May. She’s now on a waitlist that has mushroomed to 10,000 city children. It’s a glaring indication of both the exploding child care affordability crisis for the city’s middle- and low-income families and the insufficiency of the current publicly funded options to help defray those costs, experts said.

The massive waitlist is also an acute crisis in and of itself — one that threatens to push more families with young children out of the city and shutter small child care providers who rely on vouchers for income.

Andrea Davilar, a family child care provider in St. Albans, Queens, currently has only four of her 12 full-day seats filled. She suspects there are families on the waitlist who are interested in enrolling their kids, but can’t until they receive vouchers.

“Are they trying to force us out of business?” she said of the city’s waitlist. “They have to remember we are the backbone behind the workforce.”

Losing family child care providers is something the city can ill afford at a time when incoming Mayor Zohran Mamdani is hoping to provide universal child care — an expansion that would likely lean heavily on home-based programs.

That’s part of why some observers are encouraging Mamdani to make clearing the voucher waitlist his first step on what could be a long road to building free child care.

Issuing vouchers to those 10,000 kids would bring “virtually free child care immediately” to a wide swath of city families, said Lauren Melodia, an economist at the New School’s Center for New York City Affairs who studies child care.

“It’s not the big vision … but you want to be able to deliver services to people while you’re building the big vision,” she added.

Mamdani’s transition team didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Vouchers are a key tool for infant, toddler, after-school care

The vouchers can be redeemed at a wide range of child care providers or even used to pay approved relatives or friends. They’re an especially critical resource for families with kids 2 and under who don’t qualify for the city’s free 3-K and prekindergarten programs as well as those who need care outside of school hours.

Separate from the vouchers, the city funds a limited number of free seats for kids 2 and under from low-income families. But families often don’t know about the seats or how to apply, experts have said. Roughly 40% of those seats were unfilled last year.

Officials in Mayor Eric Adams’ administration said the voucher program’s costs are soaring because of the program’s popularity, an increase in the voucher’s value, and a growing number of families who are supposed to receive subsidized child care as a condition of their federal welfare benefits.

Officials predict the city will need a total of $2.9 billion from the state in the upcoming budget — $1.8 billion more than the city typically receives — just to maintain the program.

Melodia, the economist, said the cost of providing vouchers to all the families on the waitlist for a year would be more modest: around $155 million.

Gordon Tepper, a spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul, said “no one has done more to support and expand child care statewide” than the governor, noting that she has doubled funding for the voucher program and wants to reach universal child care.

Demand for vouchers boomed as eligibility widened

The voucher program’s current budget crunch traces back to a series of pandemic-era changes.

Prior to the pandemic, the city issued the majority of vouchers to families receiving federal cash assistance, whose child care the city is required to subsidize because their benefits come with work requirements.

Those work requirements relaxed during the pandemic, keeping more families at home with less need for child care. The number of vouchers going to those families fell from over 55,000 in 2017 to under 19,000 in 2022.

That drop, combined with a one-time infusion of federal relief funds, allowed Hochul to significantly expand the eligibility criteria for the vouchers, opening them to families who make under 85% of the state median income, or roughly $114,000 a year for a family of four.

At the same time, Hochul nearly doubled the value of the vouchers, from an average of $154 a week in 2019 to $301 a week last year. The change made the vouchers more attractive to families and providers — and expensive for the state.

City families flocked to the vouchers. Enrollment in the low-income voucher program skyrocketed from under 9,000 2022 to nearly 70,000 this year.

The changes created a major budget cliff.

After federal pandemic aid dried up, city officials resumed enforcing work requirements, bringing an expected surge of families who receive federal assistance to request vouchers.

To avoid kicking thousands of families out of the program each month, city officials asked the state, which has historically funded most of the voucher system, to commit an additional $900 million to the $1 billion city program.

Hochul eventually agreed to free up an additional $350 million for the program, contingent on the city chipping in the same amount.

That infusion allowed the city to continue offering vouchers to the majority of families who were already enrolled, city officials said. But it wasn’t enough to enroll new families.

Starting last May, the city began placing eligible new applicants for low-income vouchers on a waitlist, which has grown from 1,500 in August to its current 10,000.

Parents on voucher waitlist are desperate for relief

For families stuck on the waitlist, shouldering the costs of child care on their own often comes at the expense of other basic needs.

Milana Kochishvili, a mother of two elementary school children in southern Brooklyn, applied for vouchers after her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, leaving the family to rely on her $72,000 annual income as a payroll specialist at a plumbing company. But she has been on the waitlist for months.

The only after-school option that works with her schedule costs about $800 a month. With $4,500 a month in take-home pay — nearly half of which goes to pay rent — it’s an expense she can’t afford.

“I’m in a position now where I can only afford basics,” she said. “God forbid the car breaks or something like that, that’s it.”

Adams recently launched an expansion of free, city-funded after-school programs, with a pledge to add 20,000 seats by 2027. But for some parents who work longer hours, the schedule of the city’s free programs don’t fit their needs.

Kimberly Watson, a single mom of an elementary student in Brooklyn, works as a caseworker in a hospital and needed an after-school program with longer hours. The private program she found costs $450 a month — an untenable expense for Watson, who takes home roughly $2,700 a month in income and spends $1,200 on rent.

She applied for a child care voucher and cleared the eligibility threshold, but was placed on the waitlist. Paying for child care has left her behind on some utility bills — and even on her rent, she said.

Getting a voucher would mean she can “just cut back on one thing that I have to worry about so I can catch up on other things.”

For Veerasammy, the paraprofessional with a 2-year-old, there could be some economic relief on the horizon: a bill supported by both Mamdani and a supermajority on City Council that would give paraprofessionals a $10,000 recurring annual bonus.

But she said that money would go toward paying off credit card debt, leaving her still in need of a voucher.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Mamdani’s education transition committee: child care, higher ed, policy pros, but no K-12 teachers

2025-11-24T22:46:07+00:00

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Of the nearly 40 people Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani tapped for his youth and education transition committee, notably absent were principals, teachers, and students who are currently in New York City’s K-12 system.

Mamdani, who announced the names to his transition teams Monday, centered his campaign on an affordability agenda, including free child care, but had little to say about improving the nation’s largest school system.

Several advocates from the world of child care policy and school integration made the list, along with higher education leaders and some former high-level officials from Bill de Blasio’s administration.

The members of the 17 transition committees will work on helping Mamdani’s new administration make personnel decisions and provide policy guidance, so the 34-year-old Queens state assemblyman can hit the ground running when he takes office on Jan. 1.

Whereas Mayor Eric Adams tapped several Bloomberg administration officials on his education transition team, Mamdani’s list includes some Education Department officials from de Blasio’s tenure, including Josh Wallack, who oversaw the city’s massive free prekindergarten expansion; Edie Sharp, who served as Chancellor Richard Carranza’s chief of staff; and Karin Goldmark, a deputy chancellor of school planning and development who now runs GreenLink Education, a nonprofit that helps schools tackle sustainability efforts.

Some other notable committee members include: teachers union President Michael Mulgrew; Mark Dunetz, a former high school teacher and principal who now runs the New Visions for Public Schools network; and Sharon Greenberger, the president and CEO of the YMCA of Greater New York who was the head of the School Construction Authority and then the Education Department’s chief operating officer under Bloomberg.

Mamdani, who has mentioned concerns about school segregation in a city with among the most segregated schools in the nation, also tapped for the committee Nyah Berg, the director of Appleseed New York, an integration advocacy group, and Matt Gonzales, of New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools. Gonzales previously served on de Blasio’s School Diversity Advisory Group, or SDAG, which advised phasing out gifted and talented programs and curtailing selective admissions. Mamdani referred to the group several times on the campaign trail and also voiced interest in eliminating gifted programs that start in kindergarten, though the Bronx Science alum has walked back previous comments about addressing racial segregation in specialized high schools.

(Mamdani’s favorite Bronx Science teacher, Marc Kagan, who retired from the social studies department in 2014, was tapped for the transportation, climate, and infrastructure committee.)

Higher education leaders on the committee include SUNY Chancellor John King and CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez.

Child care and after-school policy experts made the list, including Susan Stamler of United Neighborhood Houses, Tara Gardner of the Day Care Council of New York, and Rebecca Bailin, who started the grassroots advocacy movement behind New Yorkers United for Child Care.

“I’m most hopeful about the tremendous opportunity we have to help shape a transformative policy to support families, strengthen our child care providers, and bolster our city’s economy by putting New York on a real path toward universal child care,” said Grace Rauh of Citizens Union, which is home to the 5BORO Institute think tank that has examined the importance of affordable child care.

Terrence Winston, who runs the Coalition for Community Schools Excellence and works with nonprofits who partner with public schools to provide wraparound services to students and families, felt encouraged to see several familiar names across different sectors and hoped this would be a “genuine opportunity to supply innovative input and insights that will influence the mayor-elect’s first 100 days in office.”

He added, “There will, however, need to be a committed investment in these collaborations — especially when things get difficult.”

Here’s the list of who will help shape Mamdani’s vision for youth and education:

Tazin Azad [former Brooklyn Borough appointee to the Panel for Educational Policy]

Rebecca Bailin, New Yorkers United for Child Care

Nyah Berg, Appleseed

Evelyn Castro, Medgar Evers College

Jason Cone, Robin Hood Foundation

James Davis, PSC-CUNY

Marielys Divanne, Futuro Solutions

Mark Dunetz, New Visions for Public Schools

Kesi Foster, Partners for Dignity & Rights

Amy Freitag, NY Community Trust

Tara Gardner, Daycare Council of NY

Debra Ellen Glickstein, KidsRise

Karin Goldmark, GreenLink Education

Matt Gonzales, New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools (RJPS)

Sharon Greenberger, YMCA Greater NY

Brian Jones, Center for Education & Schools and New York Public Library

John King, State University of New York (SUNY)

Sebastian Leon Martinez, YDSA

Randi Levine, Advocates for Children

Christine Marinoni, Public School Advocate

Felix Matos Rodriguez, City University of New York (CUNY)

Rashad Moore, Crown Heights Baptist Church

Michael Mulgrew, United Federation of Teachers (UFT)

Lori Podvesker, INCLUDEnyc

Hasoni Pratts, National Urban League

Grace Rauh, Citizens Union

Arva Rice, NY Urban League

Raysa Rodriquez, Citizen’s Committee for Children

Zakiyah Shaakir-Ansari, Alliance for Quality Education

Edie Sharp

Felicia Singh, Coalition for Asian American Children and Families

Susan Stamler, United Neighborhood Houses

Hannah Towfeik, Muslim American Society (MAS)

Mary Vaccarro, United Federation of Teachers (UFT)

Joshua Wallack

Eric Waterman, East Flatbush Village Inc.

Terrence Winston, Coalition for Community Schools Excellence

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Catholic preschools appeal to Supreme Court in Colorado case over LGBTQ rights and religious liberty

2025-11-14T23:46:34+00:00

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Two Denver-area Catholic parishes asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to reconsider a lower court decision that said parish preschools participating in Colorado’s state-funded preschool program couldn’t deny admission to LGBTQ children or children from LGBTQ families.

The appeal to the Supreme Court comes about six weeks after the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Catholic parishes, which had argued that enrolling children from LGBTQ families would conflict with their religious beliefs.

Gov. Jared Polis lauded the circuit court’s Sept. 30 ruling, which was a major win for the state.

If the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case, the justices could answer a question at the heart of the case: Can private religious schools that accept public education dollars refuse to enroll certain kids based on religious principles? The state and two lower courts have said no. The Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority, could give a different answer.

A spokesperson for Colorado Department of Early Childhood, which runs the state-funded preschool program, said officials won’t comment on pending or active litigation.

The Catholic preschools sued the state in 2023 as Colorado launched its new universal preschool program, which provides tuition-free preschool to 4-year-olds statewide. The $349 million program serves more than 40,000 children and allows families to choose from public, private, or religious preschools.

St. Mary Catholic Virtue School in Littleton and Wellspring Catholic Academy in Lakewood wanted to join the program when it started, but didn’t want to admit LGBTQ children or children from LGBTQ families.

They asked for an exemption from state rules banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, but the Colorado Department of Early Childhood refused. The two preschools never joined the program, and in August 2023, the parishes that ran the preschools sued the state.

Of more than 2,000 preschools participating in Colorado’s universal preschool program this year, about 40 are religious.

Attorneys from The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the Catholic preschools in the case, have argued that Colorado is discriminating against the preschools based on religion.

“Colorado is picking winners and losers based on the content of their religious beliefs,” Nick Reaves, senior counsel at Becket, said in a press release Friday.

The release suggests that Colorado’s rules barring discrimination have hurt Catholic preschool enrollment.

Since universal preschool began, “enrollment at Catholic preschools has swiftly declined, while two Catholic preschools have shuttered their doors, including one that predominantly served low-income and minority families,” the press release said.

Wellspring, one of two parish preschools involved in the case, did close last year when the K-8 school it was part of closed because of low enrollment and financial problems. A Catholic preschool in Denver also shuttered when the K-8 school it was part of — Guardian Angels Catholic School — closed at the end of the 2024-25 school year. At the time the Archdiocese of Denver announced the closure of Wellspring and Guardian Angels, it also announced the consolidation of two Catholic high schools into one campus.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani’s universal child care push will require building new seats and filling empty ones

2025-11-13T23:42:18+00:00

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A Brooklyn prekindergarten classroom that Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani visited Thursday to plug his $6 billion proposal for free universal child care bustled with activity.

More than a dozen 4-year-olds filled the small room with magnet creations, art projects, and a play bowling alley.

But one floor below, two large classrooms sat empty — as they have for the past five years.

To fulfill his ambitious and costly pledge to provide free universal child care to children 2 and under, Mamdani will have to build new seats and figure out how to make better use of the existing ones, he acknowledged Thursday.

“While so much of this conversation rightfully centers on funding, there’s also a number of issues around policy, around structure,” Mamdani said. “The city has oftentimes made it harder … today, we have two classrooms that are empty that used to be providing infant care in this very facility.”

Ever since the child care center, part of the Friends of Crown Heights network, switched from serving a mix of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers to exclusively offering city-funded pre-K and 3-K programs, it hasn’t been able to enroll enough 3- or 4-year-olds to fill the space, said Angalie Dasai, the network’s CEO.

It’s a reality that has bedeviled child care providers across the city: Even as demand for free care soars, many programs — particularly in the city’s lowest-income neighborhoods — have struggled to fill their seats.

Last year, more than 27,000 of the city’s roughly 136,000 free child care seats for kids ages 4 and under went unfilled, according to city data, or about 1 in every 5 seats.

The vacant seats are a problem at multiple levels. They force wasteful public spending, threaten the financial stability of providers, and signal that the city isn’t meeting families’ needs, experts said.

Providers, advocates, and elected officials say one logical fix is giving child care operators the flexibility to convert unused seats currently reserved for one age group to serve a different age.

For the Friends of Crown Heights program, that would mean converting the existing vacant seats for 3- and 4-year-olds into seats for infants and toddlers, Dasai said. She knows there’s demand for those seats in the neighborhood, but the center, which still has its license to serve infants and toddlers, can’t open them up.

“If you give programs the choice, if it’s more flexible,” she said, “we will fill the seats.”

In addition to shifting the age configuration of their seats, some providers have asked for more flexibility to convert seats currently funded only for the six hours and 20 minutes a day from September to June to seats that run 10 hours a day, year-round.

There are signs Mamdani is listening. Dasai said he was “receptive” when she raised the suggestion to him Thursday. And he highlighted the issue at a press conference with reporters.

“We know that the lack of flexibility sometimes between school day and extended care has also meant that there are families that are unable to get the care that they need,” Mamdani said.

Fulfilling his vision of universal child care will mean “ensuring that the government becomes a partner, as opposed to a burden or an obstacle,” he added.

Providers, advocates eye new contracts

Officials and experts cite a number of reasons for the vacant seats. Birth rates are declining, families with young children have fled the city in growing numbers since the pandemic, and some parents struggle with how to enroll.

Some providers also say the number — and types — of seats they’re funded for don’t match the demand in their neighborhood. But providers and lawmakers say the current child care contracts, which expire next year, don’t allow seat conversions.

Members of the City Council, which will be a key player in negotiating the city budgets that set Mamdani’s child care spending, are urging the city Education Department to rebid the contracts with more flexibility.

“This would allow providers to adjust the mix of infant/toddler, 3-K, and pre-K seats based on real-time community demand, enrollment trends, and local demographics,” officials wrote in a report from Council Speaker Adrienne Adams’ office released Thursday.

A spokesperson from the city Education Department declined to comment on the contracts.

Several providers said the agency recently notified them that contracts will be extended for two years, meaning they would last at least until 2028.

But one former city official said they believed that contracts could be amended to allow more flexibility for seat conversion without a full rebidding.

“It’s the low-hanging fruit,” said the former official, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive contract process. “It could buy time to plan for a thoughtful expansion and a new contract re-bidding.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Mamdani’s $6 billion universal child care plan: How will NYC fund, staff, and scale up the program?

2025-11-11T21:29:13+00:00

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Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has been clear on how he wants New Yorkers to evaluate his tenure: by whether he can achieve his ambitious campaign promises, including free child care starting at 6 weeks old.

“Being right in and of itself is meaningless,” Mamdani told The New York Times. “We have to deliver.”

Much of the discussion around whether Mamdani can follow through has focused on how he’ll pay for the eye-popping estimated $6 billion annual price tag for universal child care.

But paying for the program is only the first step.

If he gets the funding, Mamdani will face an array of logistical and operational challenges in standing up new public infrastructure for hundreds of thousands of youngsters, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former officials, policy experts, advocates, and educators.

Though Mamdani seems to be looking toward the rollout of former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ambitious pre-K and 3-K programs as a road map, the expansion into child care for infants and toddlers 2 and under brings a new set of challenges. The youngest New Yorkers require different space and supervision considerations than 3- and 4-year-olds, increasing the urgency of growing a staffing pipeline and identifying new spaces. Moreover, many observers say there are big flaws in the current child care system that could undercut expansion efforts if they’re not addressed.

“Is child care for all possible? It’s absolutely possible. Anything’s possible with the resources and the will,” said Richard Buery, the CEO of Robin Hood, and a former deputy mayor under de Blasio who oversaw the rollout of universal prekindergarten. “But I would not understate … the operational complexity of doing so.”

Here’s what experts told Chalkbeat about where the child care system stands now and what it will take to make it free for all.

How is the city going to pay for it?

Cost isn’t the only obstacle to Mamdani’s universal child care pledge — but it is the biggest.

The $6 billion estimate covers both the cost of creating new seats and bringing the salaries of child care workers, whose median income is currently $25,000, on par with those of city public school teachers, whose median yearly pay is close to $100,000.

The city’s 3-K and pre-K systems, by comparison, cost a total of about $1.6 billion, according to the most recent figures from the city’s Independent Budget Office.

Mamdani plans to fund the program through a tax hike on millionaires and corporations, a proposal that would need approval from the state legislature and Gov. Kathy Hochul. He estimates the taxes would raise about $9 billion a year.

Hochul has already shut down the idea of a tax hike, but has opened the door to increasing state funding for child care, which she shares as a top priority.

“I can’t just write a check and cover this cost, but I’ve talked to Zohran Mamdani … and we will get on a path forward,” she said last month at a child care summit convened by the 5Boro Institute at Citizens Union, a think tank.

De Blasio faced a similar dilemma, albeit over a much smaller price tag, when he tried to convince former Gov. Andrew Cuomo to greenlight a tax hike on wealthy residents to fund universal pre-K (Cuomo rejected the tax, but found other money in the state budget.)

Meanwhile, some advocates and experts are pushing a phased-in approach with a less daunting initial price tag. The group New Yorkers United for Childcare suggests starting out with universal care for 2-year-olds — a proposal City Comptroller Brad Lander estimates would cost $1.6 billion a year.

And while there’s no way around the high costs, proponents point out that child care also brings substantial economic benefits by freeing up more parents to work.

How close are we to free universal child care now?

There were about 466,000 kids ages 4 and under living in New York City as of 2022, according to the state health department.

City officials say both pre-K for 4-year-olds and 3-K for 3-year-olds are universal, in that everyone who applied this year got an offer. But 15% of 3-K applicants and 7% of pre-K applicants got an offer to a program they didn’t list on their application.

Of the city’s roughly 195,000 3- and 4-year-olds, about 101,000 of them were in free 3-K and pre-K programs last year.

Some observers say there’s still unmet demand for 3-K. Lander estimated 3-K has to grow by 16,000 seats to become truly universal.

Moreover, the vast majority of city-funded pre-K and 3-K programs run only six hours and 20 minutes a day from September to June, leaving tens of thousands of families paying out of pocket for afternoon and summer coverage.

Making afternoon and summer coverage free for all pre-K and 3-K families would cost around $872 million, Lander estimates. But the City Council is proposing a less costly intermediate step: moving to a “family share” model that charges families on a uniform sliding scale based on income for extended hours.

About 17,000 3- and 4-year-olds got state-funded child care vouchers for low-income families worth $300 a week, according to the Administration for Children’s Services, which runs the voucher program. (There are currently about 10,000 city kids on the waitlist for vouchers because of insufficient funding, officials said.)

For kids 2 and under, free child care is much more limited — and reserved for low-income families.

In 2024, only 32,000 infants and toddlers got free care through city-run programs or state vouchers — just a quarter of the roughly 108,000 kids who qualify based on family income, according to Lander’s analysis. And that’s not to mention the more than 150,000 tots who don’t qualify for a means-tested program and currently have almost no free options.

Who’s going to staff it?

The staffing needs to create a universal program for infants and toddlers are likely to be immense, experts said.

Younger kids require more teachers — one for every three infants, and one for every five to six toddlers, according to licensing regulations, compared to one for every 10 3 and 4-year-olds.

Babies and toddlers are also more likely to be in small, home-based child care settings, meaning any expansion will likely lean heavily on those providers.

It’s a workforce that has been decimated by years of low pay, the loss of students and staff to universal pre-K and 3-K programs, and the COVID pandemic. President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign has further strained the immigrant-heavy workforce, according to providers and advocates.

The chapter of the United Federation of Teachers representing home-based child care providers has shrunk from 28,000 in 2007 to just 12,000 today, said Tammie Miller, the chapter chair.

“People love what they do … but they cannot make a living,” said Doris Irizarry, a long-time home-based child care educator and cofounder of the advocacy group ECE On the Move.

Many observers said a logical first step for Mamdani is expanding the existing 3-K and pre-K model to include 2-year-olds. The city recently launched a pilot to open 240 seats to kids 2 and under, regardless of their parents’ income, through providers already contracting with the city.

For infants, who are more likely to still be at home with parents or in some kind of informal care, the equation may look different. Mamdani has said he plans to subsidize care “at home for families who prefer to have a trusted neighbor or relative take care of their child.”

Expanding paid family leave is “both the most economically efficient way to provide care for young children and good for families,” said Emmy Liss, a former Education Department official who helped oversee universal pre-K and studies models of free child care nationwide.

But some experts warned it’s no replacement for investing in the workforce.

“Expanding paid family leave is clearly an important benefit for families,” said Lara Kyriakou, the policy director at All Our Kin, an organization that supports home-based child care educators. “And it’s not a substitute for a trained, informed workforce.”

Where are the programs going to be?

The city relied on space in K-12 public school buildings for a substantial share of 3-K and pre-K programs. Several experts said it will likely be harder to outfit public schools for infants and toddlers — though models do exist.

Mamdani has promised to open more child care centers, using city space and public school buildings wherever possible. He also pledged to subsidize commercial rent and ease the regulatory burdens of opening new programs.

One regulation some providers and experts say makes it harder to build new child care sites: The city’s Health Department requires programs serving kids under 2-years-old to occupy the ground floor.

“Is this really a barrier we need to keep in place?” Hochul asked at the recent child care summit. “If we don’t add more capacity … then we’re failing.”

Who’s going to oversee it?

The city’s child care sector is currently controlled by an alphabet soup of governmental agencies.

The Education Department handles the contracts and supervision for 3-K and pre-K programs. The Health Department is in charge of licensing. The Fire and Buildings Departments deal with building inspections. And the Administration for Children’s Services operates the state-funded voucher system for tens of thousands of low-income families.

Most observers said the Education Department should continue to play the leading role in an expanded child care system — but urged officials to simplify the complex governance structure. Buery, the former deputy mayor, said he doesn’t see how Mamdani could pull off the operational challenges without maintaining mayoral control of the school system, an arrangement Mamdani said he wants to change.

A universal system will also likely have to balance two distinct funding models, at least for now: vouchers that hand cash to parents to spend on child care, and contracts that fund providers.

Some officials hope to eventually simplify that process, too.

“We need to, as we go on with it, figure out a way to phase out that type of system,” said City Council speaker Adrienne Adams, a Queens democrat who has clashed with Mayor Eric Adams over child care in recent years. “I believe that we can evolve away from the voucher system.”

What needs to be fixed in the current system?

Providers, advocates, and experts warn that if the city doesn’t act to shore up the foundations of the current system, any expansion efforts will cause it to buckle.

Experts and providers both agreed the city should improve its process for reimbursing providers, which has resulted in delays so substantial that some providers have had to close.

Another major issue: The city’s free child care programs had more than 27,000 unfilled seats last year, according to city data. Programs reserved for low-income families were more likely to go vacant, reflecting the onerous process of qualifying, experts and advocates said.

The glut of unfilled seats is partly due to demographic projections for pre-K that failed to fully take into account how the city’s declining birth rates and COVID enrollment losses would play out on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood level, said Dan Weisberg, the former first deputy chancellor at the city Education Department under Adams.

Some advocates and experts said the city can help fill programs by allowing providers to shift the kind of seats they’re offering — from 3-K seats to 2-year-old seats, for example, or from school day to extended day — to meet the demand in their communities. Some of those changes might happen only through new contracts. (The Education Department is planning to issue a 2-year extension when the current child care contracts expire next year, people familiar with the plans said.)

Weisberg encouraged the new administration to take a more conservative approach in building out capacity because it’s much easier to add seats than take them away, he said.

Correction: Nov. 11, 2025: A previous version of this story described a pilot program as being open to 2-year-olds. It’s open to kids 2 and under.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Mamdani’s child care promise: Who’s advising the mayor-elect on his ambitious plan?

2025-11-06T23:40:45+00:00

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As Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani figures out how to deliver on his promise of universal child care, his administration is grappling with what lessons to draw from the expansion of universal prekindergarten and 3-K.

In many ways, the rollout of universal pre-K under former Mayor Bill de Blasio offers a clear template for Mamdani — an ambitious and fast-moving effort that “showcased the ability of city government to actually meet the needs of New Yorkers,” as Mamdani said in June.

But many child care providers still feel resentful about how the program rolled out a decade ago, saying it unleashed disruptions to the system that persist to this day. Some of those providers are now urging Mamdani’s campaign to slow down and avoid some of those same pitfalls.

“Members of the provider community have strong feelings about what worked well and what didn’t during the first expansion,” said Xanthe Jory, a former top official overseeing child care expansion in the city Education Department under de Blasio. “They will have important questions about what will be different this time around. The success of another expansion will depend, in part, on the degree to which their concerns are addressed.”

It’s a balancing act that will shape how Mamdani approaches perhaps his most ambitious and complex campaign promise: providing free, universal child care for kids as young as 6 weeks old.

And the stakes are high. Families with young children continue to leave the city at an alarming rate due in part to ballooning child care costs. At the same time, any major changes Mamdani makes will send ripple effects across the city’s sprawling child care ecosystem, which relies on thousands of independent child care providers.

Mamdani’s campaign is seeking advice from people on different sides of the issue.

Former de Blasio budget chief and deputy mayor Melanie Hartzog, who played a key role in the prekindergarten expansion, is co-chairing Mamdani’s transition committee. Emmy Liss, the former chief of staff for Josh Wallack, a top de Blasio aide who oversaw the pre-K rollout in the city Education Department, has also been advising the campaign on child care, according to multiple people familiar with the conversations. (Liss declined to comment on her involvement, and Mamdani’s campaign didn’t respond to an inquiry.)

Observers and people involved with that effort say there’s much Mamdani’s campaign can learn from it — including the sense of urgency and speed with which officials approached the rollout.

“We can’t take too long, because then people lose hope, it doesn’t actually benefit people, and then it has the risk of getting deprioritized,” said Rebecca Bailin, the executive director of New Yorkers United for Childcare, a parent advocacy group.

But others say de Blasio’s administration failed to account for the collateral damage the rapid expansion would bring to existing child care providers, causing staff to flee and some programs to shutter.

“There was such a push to move forward that, in many cases, the providers were left behind,” said Laura Ensler, the founder of an early childhood program in Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood who has known Mamdani for years and has also been advising his campaign. “We had a lot to offer and there weren’t many opportunities to share our experiences because they were moving so quickly.”

Now, as Ensler offers advice to Mamdani’s team about crafting its plan to reach universal child care, she is urging them to take their time.

“We know we want to act fast on everything that Zohran has put out there,” Ensler said. “And I’m one of the people that will say, look at every perspective of what you’re doing before you commit, because people will be hurt if you don’t.”

A need for speed

After de Blasio took office in 2014, it took just 18 months for his administration to stand up tens of thousands of pre-K seats, an all-hands-on-deck blitz that involved everything from marketing the new program to completing building inspections.

Some staffers who worked on the effort said that speed was key: People needed to experience the program in order to build the long-term support to keep it going.

“There was a clear political window, and a mayor who was willing to match that window with resources and focus. You can only maintain that level of political focus for so long,” said Liss. “Building pre-K quickly built the political coalition in many ways to sustain the program.”

Some observers say Mamdani may be stepping into an even more opportune political window. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who endorsed Mamdani after the June primary, has signaled that she shares the goal of universal child care as a top priority.

“The stars have really aligned in a big way around this issue,” said Grace Rauh, the executive director of the 5Boro Institute at Citizens Union.

A lesson in unintended consequences

For some child care providers and advocates, de Blasio’s much-heralded pre-K programs left a complicated legacy. Teachers at programs run by city public schools earned much more than those in city-funded programs run by private providers, setting off a mass exodus of staffers from private programs.

Many smaller home-based providers said they weren’t included in the initial rollout of city-funded contracts — and lost many of their students to the new programs.

“I can tell you that we lost many, many qualified child care providers as a result, and I truly believe that further enhanced the child care deserts that we currently have,” said Tammie Miller, the chapter chair for thousands of home-based providers represented by the United Federation of Teachers.

Membership in Miller’s unit has shrunk from 28,000 providers in 2007 to just 12,000 today, she said.

And despite its claims of universality, the program has failed to include many children with disabilities, who require more expensive programs and specialized staff. As recently as last year, hundreds of preschoolers with disabilities couldn’t access free 3-K and pre-K seats.

“It is essential for the administration to consider the needs of children with disabilities at the outset,” said Randi Levine, the policy director at Advocates for Children. “It’s much harder to add something on later.”

Advocates and former officials said they hope the Mamdani administration takes heed of some of those lessons and builds them into its approach from the start.

Liss said the system’s exclusion of home-based providers and students with disabilities are two of the clearest lessons she’s drawn from the rollout — ones she hopes “a new team could take and think differently for the future.”

Other veterans of the pre-K effort said that while it’s still important to move quickly, slowing down when needed could help the next administration avoid further destabilizing an already fragile system.

“Maybe instead of 90 miles an hour, let’s go 80,” said Jory, the former Education Department official. “I think that even letting the foot off the gas a little bit would allow for some really thoughtful work that will support the system long term.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Here’s where lodging tax hikes for child care passed and failed in Colorado

2025-11-06T19:42:33+00:00

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Local ballot measures that will send new money to child care efforts across Colorado did pretty well at the polls this year, with voters approving six of nine proposals.

Sales tax measures in Larimer County and a western Colorado mountain resort region passed, as did lodging tax measures in Gilpin, Hinsdale, and Ouray counties. A lodging tax measure in Eagle County was passing by a narrow margin Thursday, but a county spokesperson said it’s possible the result could change as additional ballots are counted or cured in the coming days.

Voters in Chaffee, Custer, and Lincoln counties rejected lodging tax hikes on Election Day.

Together, the nine ballot measures represented a record number of local pitches for funding to support efforts that would create new child care seats or take other steps to help working parents and child care businesses. The blitz of ballot measures comes at a time when some state and federal funding is receding, and counties and other jurisdictions are looking for ways to fill the gap. Over the last several years, Colorado lawmakers have also given communities new ways to raise local money and more flexibility in spending it.

In Hinsdale County, the lodging tax increase will raise $240,000 a year, with about $50,000 going to child care efforts. The new funding will help boost staff wages at Wee Care, one of two licensed child care facilities in the county.

“We were so excited and relieved,” Lily Virden, a Wee Care board member, said of the lodging tax win.

Wages are so low at the center — the director makes about $20 an hour — that it’s hard to keep staff, she said. Last year, the center had to close on 21 days it was scheduled to be open because employees were sick or absent, and there was no way to staff it properly.

The lodging tax proceeds earmarked for child care may also be used to provide tuition assistance to families or stipends to child care employees so they can buy health insurance — a benefit not currently offered at Wee Care, Virden said.

The four lodging taxes approved Tuesday bring the number of Colorado communities that allow proceeds from such levies to be used for child care efforts to more than a dozen. Last year, voters in La Plata and Grand counties and the City of Montrose approved such taxes and in 2023, the town of Ridgway in southwestern Colorado did. Summit, Clear Creek, and San Juan counties, and towns like Estes Park, also have lodging taxes that allocate a portion for early childhood efforts.

Especially in Colorado’s tourist destinations, lodging taxes are an appealing way to generate funding because they generally apply to out-of-town visitors staying at hotels or short-term rentals, not locals.

Such taxes became even more versatile in 2022, when state lawmakers expanded allowable uses for lodging tax proceeds to include housing and child care among other things. The idea is that local workers power the tourism industry, so visitors should contribute to efforts that support a stable workforce.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Two sales taxes for child care are passing, one reversing early lag

2025-11-06T19:14:13+00:00

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A Larimer County ballot measure that would send millions to child care efforts pulled ahead late Wednesday afternoon after almost 24 hours where it looked like it might be defeated.

If the measure stays ahead as the final votes are counted, it will be one of two local sales tax levies approved by Colorado voters this year to support child care providers and parents with young children. The other measure, which passed easily, would create the state’s first early childhood special district in Garfield and Pitkin counties and part of Eagle County — what backers call the Aspen-to-Parachute corridor.

The measures in Larimer County and the special district both asked voters for a .25% sales tax increase, the equivalent of 25 cents on every $100 spent. The levies would not apply to food, gas, diapers, or prescription drugs. The proceeds in both cases would help families pay for child care, boost pay for child care workers, and fund child care facility expansion or improvement.

Christina Taylor, CEO of the Early Childhood Council of Larimer County, said Wednesday night she was cautiously optimistic that the measure will pass.

“I think we’re in a really good spot,” she said. “All the people I’ve talked to, all the doors that I’ve knocked, it felt like this was where we were headed, and so I had faith all day.”

Taylor said that around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday she saw results come in that pushed the ballot measure over 50%.

Maggie Tiscornia, outreach director for the ballot measure in Pitkin, Garfield, and Eagle counties, said she watched the results come in with dozens of supporters at a Carbondale restaurant Tuesday night.

“I’m just incredibly proud and grateful for all of our community support,” she said.

The prospect of creating a “more affordable, more accessible and more welcoming community for families with young children” resonated with voters, she said.

The two ballot issues are the most ambitious among a record number of pitches across Colorado this year that would send new money to child care. In addition to the two sales tax measures, voters in seven rural counties — Chaffee, Custer, Eagle, Gilpin, Hinsdale, Lincoln, and Ouray counties — are deciding on lodging taxes that could generate new funding for child care facilities or related efforts.

Asking voters to raise local taxes to support child care efforts isn’t new, but Colorado lawmakers have made it more attractive in recent years by giving communities new ways to do it. In addition, as federal and state funding recedes, local leaders are looking to ease the budget pinch for pressing needs, including child care and housing.

The measure in Pitkin, Garfield, and Eagle counties is particularly notable because it represents the first use of a 2019 state law that allowed the creation of early childhood special districts. Similar to fire or library districts, the idea behind early childhood districts is that multiple communities or counties can band together and ask voters within their boundaries to levy taxes specifically for early childhood efforts.

The sales tax in the new district, which would be called Confluence Early Childhood Development Special Service District, would generate about $12 million a year.

Tiscornia said the sales tax increase in the new Confluence district will take effect on Jan. 1, and that the new money won’t start funding early childhood initiatives until the second half of 2026.

The sales tax measure in Larimer would generate nearly $29 million a year. Some of the money would be used for sliding-scale child care subsidies, with every family eligible for some help, said Taylor.

Another chunk of the money would be used for quarterly wage subsidies for child care employees, many of whom earn $16 to $19 an hour. A smaller amount would help providers upgrade or expand their facilities.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

NYC is piloting free child care for kids ages 2 and under. These neighborhoods get priority.

2025-10-27T16:55:37+00:00

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For the first time, New York City is preparing to open hundreds of free, publicly funded child care seats for kids ages 2 and under, regardless of their parents’ income.

The roughly 240 seats are set to open in January and are part of a $10 million pilot funded in the city’s budget agreement from June. City Council leaders who pushed for the program said they hope it will offer a blueprint for future efforts to expand free child care to a wider swath of the youngest New Yorkers.

“This latest critical investment in child care gives the City the tools necessary to build a system to provide care for families with children from birth to five years old,” said Rendy Desamours, a spokesperson for Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, a Queens Democrat.

The city already funds preschool seats for nearly 100,000 3- and 4-year-olds, and the push to expand that system has gathered steam in recent months. Mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani has pledged to provide free universal child care starting when children are six weeks old, and Gov. Kathy Hochul has said expanding child care is a top priority.

The new seats, unlike the majority of those in the city’s 3-K and Pre-K programs, will be subsidized for up to 10 hours a day year round, rather than following the K-12 school schedule, which runs six hours and 20 minutes a day, from September through June.

A City Council spokesperson said the seats will open in January, but officials didn’t immediately clarify when families could start applying or when enrollment would begin. Applications for Pre-K and 3-K programs starting September 2026 open in January.

Contracts between the city and providers who will be offering the new seats have yet to be finalized, but officials have now narrowed how they will award them, according to information provided by the City Council.

City officials will prioritize high-needs neighborhoods including Hunts Point and Mott Haven in the Bronx, Sunset Park in Brooklyn, and Jamaica, Queens for the new seats. (See the full list of priority neighborhoods below.)

Officials selected those neighborhoods based on their poverty rates, estimates of how many eligible children aren’t in child care, and the number of families who fall just above the income threshold to qualify for city programs geared towards low-income families.

Education Department spokesperson Dominique Ellison said the pilot will “expand access to care for infants and toddlers in communities with the greatest need.” But officials stressed they are still working out the final number and location of the new seats.

Some of the $10 million will also go towards outreach to ensure families know about the new seats.

Before the new pilot program, publicly funded free child care seats for kids 2 and under were available only to families who make below 85% of the state median income. That comes out to about $91,000 a year for a family of three and $109,000 for a family of four.

The city Education Department has struggled to fill all of those seats, with 6,250 infants and toddlers enrolled last year and more than 4,100 seats unfilled, according to city data. Advocates and experts say the application process for the income-based programs can be onerous for families.

A separate state-run voucher program, using the same income threshold, gives families an average of $300 a week to defray child care costs, and has exploded in popularity.

But as the costs of child care have continued to rise, it has become a crippling expense even for families with higher incomes — helping drive an exodus of families with young children from the five boroughs.

For the new seats, city officials will tap child care centers and home-based programs that already have contracts for other programs.

Families will apply for the new seats through the same MySchools portal used for Pre-K, 3-K, and income-based programs, a council spokesperson said.

Here’s the full list of priority ZIP codes, with their borough and neighborhood names, along with alternates:

Highest Priority Neighborhoods (with ZIP codes)

Bronx

Hunts Point and Mott Haven, 10459

Hugh Bridge and Morrisania, 10452

Northeast Bronx, 10466

Central Bronx, 10460

Brooklyn

Sunset Park, 11220

Southern Brooklyn, 11224

Borough Park, 11219

Bushwick and Williamsburg, 11206

Manhattan

Central Harlem, 10027

Queens

Jamaica, 11432

Staten Island

Port Richmond, 10304

Alternates:

Bronx

Bronx Park and Fordham, 10467

Brooklyn

Borough Park, 11204

Borough Park, 11230

Southern Brooklyn, 11223

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado voters: Child care funding measures could be coming to a ballot near you

2025-10-20T16:46:47+00:00

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This election season, eight Colorado communities will ask voters to consider new taxes that could be used to support child care efforts.

The ballot measures, most in mountain resort areas, represent a record number of local pitches for money to bolster a notoriously low-margin sector and help working families who struggle to find child care or cover the cost of tuition.

Five communities — Chaffee, Custer, Eagle, Gilpin, and Hinsdale counties — are asking voters to approve lodging tax increases, with child care efforts one of several potential uses for the new funding. Ouray County is asking voters to pass a new lodging tax. A state law passed last spring that increased the maximum lodging tax counties can levy from 2% to 6% helped fuel the flurry of requests this year.

Two other ballot questions — in Larimer County and a region made up of Pitkin and Garfield counties and a corner of Eagle County — ask voters for .25% sales taxes. The levies, which would not apply to food, gas, diapers, or prescription drugs, would produce millions of dollars in annual revenue exclusively for early childhood initiatives.

There’s organized opposition to the ballot measure in Chaffee County, where critics say the lodging tax increase would drive tourists to other destinations and hurt local businesses. Most of the other counties with tax measures that could send money to child care don’t have organized opposition groups. Still, some residents and lodging providers have objected to the new taxes for reasons similar to those in Chaffee County. In addition, they say counties should focus on core services and make do with the tax money they’re already collecting.

The measure in Pitkin, Garfield, and Eagle counties is particularly notable because it would create Colorado’s first early childhood development special district, a region with taxing authority enabled by a 2019 state law. The idea is that multiple communities or counties can band together and ask voters within their boundaries to levy taxes for early childhood efforts.

Maggie Tiscornia, outreach director for the ballot campaign, said, “It would just be not only a first in the state, but really a first locally as well to have something truly regional.”

The new early childhood district would stretch from Aspen to Parachute, reflecting “how our community operates in our economic corridor and how our families move across jurisdictions,” she said.

The new funding — about $10 million a year — would boost wages for child care staff, provide tuition subsidies to families, and award grants to providers to expand or improve their space.

The sales tax measure in Larimer would generate nearly $29 million. Some of the money would be used for sliding-scale child care subsidies, with every family eligible for some help, said Christina Taylor, CEO of the Early Childhood Council of Larimer County.

Taylor said there’s no guarantee the sales tax will pass, but previous polling shows “a narrow path to victory.”

If that happens, she said, “I’ll make a huge dent in a very big problem.”

Lodging taxes a boon in mountain resort areas

About a dozen Colorado cities, counties, or local marketing districts — from Estes Park in northern Colorado to La Plata County in southwestern Colorado — already have lodging taxes that allow some proceeds to be used for early childhood purposes. Lodging taxes don’t typically raise huge sums but advocates say they can help with local needs at a time when federal and state funding is receding.

Stacy Terrill, who leads Custer County’s early childhood council, said the county has only two licensed child care providers: a home-based business and a center run by the school district. Both facilities are closed on Friday and the school district doesn’t operate during the summer.

She said she’s heard parents say, “It’s not worth me trying to find a job” because child care is expensive and hard to find.

If the county’s lodging tax passes, it would bring in around $90,000 a year for child care, which Terrill said could be used to help offer Friday and summer care, and to train new child care workers to cover those times.

Some communities with proposed lodging taxes say the money would help with the cost of building new child care facilities, maintaining existing ones, or providing local matching funds required for certain kinds of grants.

Jake Niece, who spoke in his personal capacity not in his role as a Ouray County commissioner, said feedback from the community indicated little interest in using local taxes to cover day-to-day child care operations, but a willingness to use some for capital costs.

If passed, most of the county’s new 6% lodging tax would probably go first to emergency medical services, but some could eventually be earmarked for child care, he said. Like most of the lodging taxes on the ballot, Ouray County’s new 6% levy wouldn’t apply to municipalities in the county, only to unincorporated areas.

Niece, who expects the lodging tax vote to be close, said the shortage of both child care and affordable housing can make it hard for young families to stay in the county of about 5,000 people.

“We lose good people from our community,” he said.

Jace Hochwalt, community development director for the City of Montrose, which passed a lodging tax increase last year, knows the feeling.

Just after he and his wife moved to Montrose from Grand Junction three years ago, they discovered they were expecting their first baby.

“It was like an ‘oh no’ moment,” he said. “We contemplated moving back, frankly.”

They weren’t sure they could find a child care spot for their baby in Montrose, whereas Grand Junction was just finishing a child care center with seats for the children of city staff and community members.

Hochwalt and his wife, who are now expecting their second child, ended up staying in Montrose, and today the city is working on converting an old school district building to a child care center.

About $150,000 collected from the lodging tax approved in 2024 will be used for the $850,000 renovation.

Hochwalt said they’ll send their new baby to the center when it opens next spring and their older son after he finishes the school year with his current provider.

Once the new center is done, other local child care providers will be able to access some of the lodging tax money for help with costly improvements like HVAC or roof repairs, he said.

“Those are big ticket items,” he said. “I think it certainly helps the bottom line for [child care providers] to just continue to be able to stay in business.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Will 24 new paraprofessionals help students in this Colorado school district become better readers?

2025-10-02T21:12:11+00:00

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The kindergartner in the light blue Bart Simpson T-shirt was quick to say “no” when Quianna Becenti asked him if “horse” starts with the “h” sound.

“Nooooo?” Becenti asked in an affectionate sing-song voice. “Listen to the beginning … horse.”

The 5-year-old gazed at the smiling cartoon horse on his worksheet and reconsidered. He repeated the word in a breathy voice, nodding as he heard the “h” sound.

The moment was a step on the little boy’s road to reading at Mesa Elementary School in the Westminster school district north of Denver. Becenti, a paraprofessional, is part of a new $1 million district effort to boost early reading skills by adding paraprofessionals to all kindergarten classrooms.

Quianna Becenti, whom students call Miss Kiki, works with kindergartners on the letter H.

At a time when many Colorado school districts are tightening their belts because of state and federal budget cuts, Westminster’s initiative represents a bet that offering kids more personalized help from trained adults will improve reading outcomes.

Like many districts, Westminster Public Schools, where about 40% of students are English language learners and most students come from low-income families, has struggled to get students back on track after the pandemic. Over the summer, district officials received discouraging news: After an eight-year reprieve, the 7,700-student district was back on the state watchlist for schools and districts with low ratings.

Ratings are largely based on state test results. Scores from last spring show that only about 23% of Westminster’s students are reading and writing at grade level, compared with 45% statewide.

Across Westminster’s 24 kindergarten classrooms, paras like Becenti give students more small group instruction and one-on-one attention than they would get with only a classroom teacher.

The new literacy effort won’t generate quick results on state tests, district leaders say. That’s partly because today’s kindergartners won’t be in third grade — the year state testing starts — for three more years.

It’s about playing the long game, said Mat Aubuchon, the district’s executive director of learning services. That means working harder to build foundational skills among the youngest students rather than simply offering remedial help as they get older.

“If you don’t develop a reader by the time they’re walking out of first grade, they have a hard time catching up,” he said. “This is intended to be an early investment to say, ‘How do we offset that?’”

Aubuchon said he expects the district will fund the effort for at least two years and possibly more.

The district used a multinational staffing company called Scoot Education to hire two dozen new kindergarten paras over the summer. Most get paid $22 an hour, with bilingual paras getting a little more. Compared with most other paras Scoot supplies to local schools, the early literacy paras in Westminster get more structure, support, and training, said Colleen O’Malley, an educational consultant at the company.

Becenti, who graduated from nearby Thornton High School and has completed some college, used to consider herself a “kid-hater.” Not anymore. After a stint at a swimming school, then a child care center, she found she loved working with children. At Mesa Elementary, she likes watching students make big learning gains.

“Even just from looking back at our first week and seeing where they were at versus now, it’s like, wow. It’s crazy,” said Becenti, who now aspires to become a teacher.

On a recent September morning, Becenti, whom students call Miss Kiki, worked with a group of four students on the letter H. She articulated the airy H sound over and over, adjusted their grip as they used crayons to draw the letter, and quizzed them on the beginning sound of heart, hat, house, and — just to make sure they got it — nest and monkey.

Nearby, teacher Kristina Cleveland worked with another small group on the letter L, practicing with words like “legs,” “lips,” and “lid.” A third staff member, who only spends a short time in the room each day, worked on letter flashcards with three children. Another handful of students practiced independently on computers.

A staff member in Kristina Cleveland's kindergarten classroom works with students on letter names and sounds.

With Becenti in the room, “It’s just nice because there’s more reinforcement,” Cleveland said. “My concern’s always been sending a kid away, especially a 5-year-old … and them practicing something I’ve taught them incorrectly.”

Research shows that small group instruction in phonemic awareness, a key early reading skill that enables children to identify and manipulate the individual sounds in spoken words, can be more effective than whole class instruction.

During a morning break, Cleveland pulled up a chart tracking her students’ progress on the eight letters and sounds they’d learned over the previous few weeks. It had a lot more green than white — a good sign.

“I just did DIBELS testing,” Cleveland said, referring to a common elementary reading assessment. “We’re way ahead for first sound fluency at this part of the year than I think we’ve ever been, because they’re getting three doses” of practice.

Brandi Housewright, the other kindergarten teacher at Mesa Elementary, said her paraprofessional, Zatina Gardner, is also helping the kids make progress. By the end of the year, she hopes their students will have better blending skills than previous classes did. That is, the ability to look at a series of letters, such as C, A, and T, and smoothly combine the sounds to say “cat.”

“The jump from kinder to first grade, people don’t realize it’s a big jump,” Housewright said. “And with the second person, we’re going to be able to make that jump without having gaps.”

Teacher Brandi Housewright works with kindergarten students on early reading skills.

Gardner, who previously worked with teens as a mentor and tutor and is planning to earn her teaching license, was constantly in motion on a recent morning. She was standing before two boys and two girls in the pink reading group, the lowest in the class. She led them in a fast-paced letter-naming game. A boy in a Super Mario hoodie was particularly quick on the draw, soon amassing a stack of white cards with letters he’d called out first. Across the table, the other boy had no cards, often naming the letter a beat later than his groupmates or not answering at all.

Such struggles aren’t lost on Gardner or Housewright. The two meet regularly to talk about student needs, even delving into how to seat students so they are benefitting most from their nearest classmate.

Housewright said the early literacy effort is valuable because it puts an extra set of eyes in the classroom.

“If it gets taken away … I will cry and throw a fit like a kindergartner,” she said laughing.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Appeals court rules for Colorado and LGBTQ rights and against Catholic parishes in state preschool case

2025-09-30T23:25:08+00:00

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Preschoolers with LGBTQ parents or who identify as LGBTQ can’t be shut out of religious preschools that are part of Colorado’s state-funded preschool program, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The decision, which upholds a key part of a lower court decision, represents a major win for the state and a defeat for the two Denver-area Catholic preschools at the center of the case.

Tuesday’s decision provides the latest answer to a question being asked in several cases percolating in state and federal courts: Can private religious schools that accept public education dollars refuse to enroll certain kids based on religious principles?

Along with the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, a Maine federal district court and a Utah state court are among those who have said no.

It’s possible the U.S. Supreme Court could eventually weigh in, though it’s not clear which case will advance to the high court.

In its 54-page ruling, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that it found no proof that the Colorado Department of Early Childhood took actions that “evidence religious hostility” as the two Catholic preschools claimed.

The state’s universal preschool program “went to great effort to be welcoming and inclusive of faith-based preschools’ participation,” the decision said.

The three-judge panel also found that the early childhood department, which runs the preschool program, had applied the state’s nondiscrimination policy in a neutral way to both religious and non-religious preschools.

The policy bars preschools in the universal preschool program from discriminating based on a variety of factors, including sexual orientation and gender identity. State officials cited the policy in denying the Catholic preschools a waiver that would have allowed them to keep LGBTQ children or children from LGBTQ families from enrolling if the preschools had joined the state-funded preschool program.

In a statement Tuesday, Gov. Jared Polis said, “We are building a Colorado for all, where every student is free from discrimination and this voter-approved initiative continues to enroll approximately 70% of all eligible four-year-olds each school year and many faith based and secular providers are operating terrific preschools that serve parents and children well.”

Tuesday’s ruling essentially upholds the status quo in the universal preschool program, meaning that participating preschools can’t shut out LGBTQ children or children with LGBTQ parents.

The three appeals court judges who ruled Tuesday were Gregory Phillips, Veronica Rossman, and Richard Federico. Phillips was appointed by President Barack Obama, and Rossman and Federico were appointed by President Joe Biden.

Nick Reaves, senior counsel at The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the Catholic preschools in the case, sent Chalkbeat a short statement about the ruling.

“Colorado is punishing religious schools and the families they serve for following their faith. The Tenth Circuit’s decision allows the state’s anti-religious gamesmanship to continue. We will keep fighting to ensure that every preschooler in Colorado can access quality, affordable education.”

Conflict arose as state preschool program rolled out

The Colorado case began in 2023 as the state was launching its new universal preschool program, which provides tuition-free preschool to 4-year-olds statewide. The $349 million program serves more than 40,000 children and allows families to choose from public, private, or religious preschools.

Of more than 2,000 preschools participating in the program this year, about 40 are religious.

In June 2024, a federal district court judge appointed by President Jimmy Carter largely ruled in the state’s favor.

He wrote of Colorado’s non-discrimination rules: “The purpose of the requirement is not to invade religious freedom but to further the implementation of a strongly embraced public value.”

The parishes quickly appealed.

Unfolding alongside the Catholic preschool case is a separate lawsuit over universal preschool brought by an evangelical Christian preschool in southern Colorado. Unlike the Catholic preschools, that school, Darren Patterson Christian Academy, joined the universal preschool program when it launched.

While officials there never sought to keep LGBTQ children or families out, their lawsuit said state non-discrimination rules could force the preschool to hire employees who don’t share its faith or to change school policies related to restrooms, pronouns, and dress codes.

In February, a federal judge appointed by Donald Trump ruled in favor of Darren Patterson Christian Academy.

The state appealed the ruling in May. The case is ongoing.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Two mothers and Trump’s Head Start rule: Child care shortages meet anti-immigrant politics

2025-09-15T12:00:00+00:00

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Solangel, a Venezuelan immigrant, is the mother of a 7-year-old who blossomed at the Head Start preschool program he attended in a Denver suburb.

He received therapy for his speech delay, came out of his shy shell, and grew to love books.

Her son is a U.S. citizen. But Solangel fears the Trump administration’s plan to bar undocumented children from the federally funded preschool program will hurt other children.

“They are little ones,” she said. “They need their education.”

But Carmit Poyras, a Sacramento mother, supports the new Head Start policy. She believes undocumented immigrants may be taking seats from citizens like her 7-year-old son, who spent around two years on Head Start waitlists when he was younger.

Poyras sees providing Head Start to undocumented children as irresponsible largesse.

“Are you going to go out and treat all of your coworkers to lobster and champagne … and come home and tell your child, ‘Oh sorry, I don’t have food for you’?” she said.

The two mothers represent opposite sides of a debate that came to a head in July, when the Trump administration unveiled a new policy barring undocumented children from Head Start. The announcement upended 60 years of precedent and played up a message that resonates with many Americans, including Trump’s base: Undocumented immigrants are taking scarce resources from citizens.

But in practice, the new Head Start policy may free up relatively few spots. And some providers fear that it will become harder to serve the most vulnerable children and families due to new logistical hoops.

The new policy, which is currently blocked by injunctions in two separate lawsuits,, comes after the White House made a short-lived push to cut all Head Start funding and disrupted the program in other ways. The administration has also pushed to make life in the U.S. more uncomfortable or wholly untenable for certain immigrants.

Advocates say that barring certain immigrant children from Head Start could keep them from learning English, getting developmental screenings, and preparing for kindergarten. But the ripple effects might not stop there.

“A lot of these attacks on public benefits, they are branded as being about … immigrants that supposedly are taking from the native-born population,” said Valerie LaCarte, a senior policy analyst at Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. “But really what they do is that they are weakening the social safety nets for low-income people overall.”

Head Start has historically welcomed undocumented children

Since it was established by the federal government in 1965 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty, Head Start has never required families to prove citizenship or divulge immigration status.

In fact, Migrant and Seasonal Head Start, which serves about 25,000 young children, is specifically designed to serve the children of migrant farm workers, many of whom are immigrants.

Even when a landmark 1996 welfare reform law barred undocumented immigrants from getting most forms of government assistance, including child care subsidies, nothing changed for Head Start.

Walter Gilliam, executive director of the Buffett Early Childhood Institute, said the 1996 law treated the two programs differently because they have different histories and goals.

Child care subsidies, which help low-income families pay for child care, were “designed specifically and solely to support the employability of the parents,” he said.

In contrast, Head Start focuses on child development. Edward Zigler, one of the architects of Head Start, drew heavily from his own experiences as an immigrant child who benefited from the services offered by settlement houses, said Gilliam, who counted Zigler as a mentor.

There’s no solid data on how many Head Start seats are occupied by undocumented children.

On the low end, Trump administration officials have estimated that 12,000 of 719,000 Head Start participants, or 1.7%, are undocumented. On the high end, their estimate is 115,000 participants, or 16%.

Lisa Stone, executive director of Tri-County Head Start in southwestern Colorado, said she doesn’t know how many of the 275 children served by her program may be undocumented.

“If a child is living in the United States of America and they are income eligible, there’s no questions asked” about immigration status, she said. “I think that’s been a beautiful part of this program.”

U.S. Health and Human Services officials said in a press release the new rule barring undocumented participants from Head Start, would take effect immediately and provide an additional $374 million annually worth of Head Start services to Americans.

But the government’s own analysis and legal and regulatory filings suggest a much more modest impact.

For example, two-thirds of Head Start are programs run by charitable nonprofits, which are exempt from verifying immigration status under the 1996 welfare reform law. And Head Start is still open to some non-citizens, including immigrants who have been granted asylum, refugees and six other categories of “qualified aliens.”

Even for Head Start programs that are subject to the new rule — those run by public schools, cities, and counties — government lawyers wrote in court filings that there’s no danger of “sudden and major disruption.” That’s because students who are already enrolled in Head Start can stay enrolled through the year.

But some Head Start families and providers are already reacting out of fear.

Parents in multiple states have disenrolled their children from Head Start or declined services to avoid providing their home address, according to a recent court filing. In addition, some nonprofit Head Start providers are already trying to verify immigration status by checking birth certificates even though they’re exempt from the rule.

Although the rule technically took effect in mid-July, the government has yet to issue instructions explaining how to implement it.

Nationwide, there are far more children eligible for Head Start than available Head Start seats. But the new rule alone won’t solve that problem.

In fact, the Trump administration’s own analysis finds that verifying immigration status will cost providers money, reducing some new seats made available by excluding undocumented children. Some U.S. citizens may also struggle to provide the right documents.

Meanwhile, providers with low enrollment could be forced to close.

Two mothers, two different paths for their children

Poyras, the Sacramento mother, was eager to get her son into Early Head Start when he was 2.

“I was so excited,” she said. “I heard so many good things about the program from the beginning.”

But her son, who has a speech delay and learning disabilities, never got off the Early Head Start waitlist. When he turned 3, he started on a new waitlist for Head Start. When he finally was offered a seat, Poyras turned it down because her son, then 4, would have had a long bus ride to a neighborhood she didn’t consider safe.

Poyras, a single mother, now homeschools her son. She doesn’t know for sure that undocumented children are the reason he waited so long waiting for a spot.

But she’s heard people in her school district, San Juan Unified, say things like, “The school has so many immigrant children … and like, the schools are full and the waitlists are long.”

Solangel, the Colorado mother, took a plane to the United States with her family in 2018 and sought asylum. Water and electricity outages were routine in her native Venezuela, and there were always long lines for food and gas. Speaking out often led to political persecution, she said.

“You don’t have any lifestyle,” she said. “It’s just like doing lines and just waiting.”

The youngest of her three children, the one who participated in Head Start, was born here in 2019. Solangel, a single mother, is now a citizen.

Today, Solangel runs a maternal mental health program in the Denver area. She always recommends Head Start to her clients, who include many immigrant mothers. (Chalkbeat is not using Solangel’s last name due to privacy concerns.)

“If you start segregating immigrants like me, that is so bad,” she said. “It’s a fact that the migrants, they contribute a lot [to] this country,” she said.

Trump administration decisions put Head Start’s future in doubt

Polls show that many Americans oppose allowing undocumented immigrants to access public benefits, though they don’t ask specifically about preschool. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reflected that sentiment when he announced the rule change.

“For too long, the government has diverted hardworking Americans’ tax dollars to incentivize illegal immigration,” he said in a July press release.

In reality, there’s little evidence that migrants are uprooting their lives for Head Start or other programs, said Cassandra Zimmer-Wong, an immigration policy analyst at the center-right Niskanen Center

“To suggest that it’s a pull factor for migrants, I think is pretty ridiculous,” she said.

Rather, the rule change on Head Start represents “low-hanging fruit” that can make Trump’s base feel like they’re getting a win, she said.

Neal McCluskey of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, agreed with Zimmer-Wong that Head Start and other welfare programs are not the main draw for immigrants. That said, he cited a famous quote from the economist Milton Friedman: “It’s just obvious you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state.”

Conservatives who have the president’s ear have long called for getting rid of Head Start entirely. In a draft budget proposal earlier this year, the Trump administration proposed cutting all Head Start funding, before backpedaling and proposing level funding at $12.3 billion.

But the new rule is among a host of recent disruptions, including sudden funding freezes, mass layoffs of federal workers, and closures of five regional Head Start offices that are undermining the program.

“They’re not eliminating the program at the federal level, but it’s like, community by community by community,” said Yvette Sanchez Fuentes, senior vice president of national policy at Start Early, a Chicago-based Head Start grantee.

But McCluskey, director of Cato’s Center for Educational Freedom, said that Head Start is “not something the federal government should be doing.”

To Gilliam, the new Head Start rule would send negative effects rippling beyond undocumented children to their families and the broader community.

Amid the “national debate over who is entitled to what,” he said it’s easy to lose track of what the nation gains from programs like Head Start.

“It’s important to all of us to have families that are well functioning, to have children who are growing up succeeding and are likely to be contributing members to the American society,” Gilliam said.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Trump rule barring undocumented children from Head Start blocked by judges

2025-09-11T23:40:18+00:00

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The Trump administration’s effort to prevent undocumented immigrant children from enrolling in Head Start preschool programs is on hold nationwide after federal judges issued injunctions in two separate lawsuits.

The Department of Health and Human Services in July declared that Head Start, along with a wide swath of health care services and workforce training programs, should be considered public benefit programs, a category of programs only available to U.S. citizens and immigrants with particular statuses, such as legal permanent residents and refugees.

Undocumented immigrants are already excluded from most welfare programs, but the rule changes abruptly expanded the list of programs that would need to verify participants’ immigration status.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued to block the rule change on behalf of four state Head Start associations as well as some parent groups. Twenty states and the District of Columbia filed their own lawsuit.

In both cases, federal judges ruled this week that the Trump administration had not followed appropriate procedures for changing rules; that in some cases the rule changes appeared to go against Congressional intent; and that providers, families, and state governments would suffer significant harm if the rules were allowed to go into effect.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy of Rhode Island blocked the rule from going into effect in D.C. and the 20 states that sued. McElroy, a Trump appointee, wrote in her opinion that the administration appeared to be arguing that the federal government had been mistaken about its own rules going back to 1996, when Congress passed the law that restricts access to public benefits.

“The Government argues that it has somehow interpreted this statute incorrectly for the nearly thirty years that it has been the law,” she wrote.

On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo Martinez of Washington issued a nationwide injunction in favor of Head Start providers. He noted that Congress repeatedly has updated Head Start eligibility rules and never added immigration status to the list of factors to consider.

Head Start’s enabling legislation also requires Health and Human Services to consult with experts and providers before changing rules and not to adopt rules that might reduce services. The department failed to follow this and other procedures, said Martinez, who was appointed by President George W. Bush.

The new rule was set to go into effect immediately in July, but the department put it on pause in some states as part of an agreement related to the lawsuit. Health and Human Services has not issued guidance on how providers were supposed to check eligibility.

Nonetheless, Head Start providers told the court they had already experienced a chilling effect, with some families withdrawing out of fear and some providers asking for proof of citizenship in the form of birth certificates.

“Today the court was clear: HHS does not have the authority to impose an immigration-based restriction on Head Start families,” Jennesa Calvo-Friedman, senior staff attorney in the Women’s Rights Project at the ACLU, said in a press release. “No child and no family should have to fear accessing critical early learning services, and we will continue to defend the families that Head Start aims to serve.”

The U.S. Supreme Court recently restricted the use of nationwide injunctions, but Martinez said one was necessary in this case because some providers have preschools in multiple states, including programs designed to serve migrant farmworker families.

A spokesperson for Health and Human Services could not immediately be reached for comment. The agency told the Associated Press it disagrees with the decision and is considering next steps.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica atemeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Banana phones and cozy corners: Colorado’s third year of universal preschool gets off the ground

2025-09-02T23:28:49+00:00

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The little boy clung to his mother as she carried him through the wooden half-door of the preschool classroom on Tuesday morning. Tears streamed down his face. It was going to be a tough drop-off.

While other children finished bananas, raisin bagels, and milk, Vraja Johnson, the lead teacher, ushered the mother and son toward a cozy corner in the back of the classroom. She spoke softly in English and Spanish to the nervous preschooler. Several minutes later, when his mother had slipped away, the boy nestled into a large blue beanbag clutching Tucker the Turtle, a stuffed animal that helps preschoolers understand that it’s OK to retreat into your shell — and to come back out when you’re ready.

It was the first day of preschool in the Otters classroom at El Nidito, a bilingual child care program at The Family Center in Fort Collins. The little boy and his 11 classmates are among 40,000 children enrolled in Colorado’s universal preschool program this year. The $349 million program offers tuition-free preschool — typically a half day — to all children in the year before kindergarten.

Now entering its third year, Colorado’s preschool for all program has smoothed out since its rocky rollout in 2023. At the time, application system errors, glitches in the state’s preschool matching algorithm, and last-minute reductions in preschool hours for some children caused widespread confusion and frustration.

A national early childhood group recently ranked Colorado third in the country for the share of children served by state-funded preschool. Around 70% of the state’s 4-year-olds are enrolled in the program, which generally covers about $6,000 a year in preschool costs per child.

But wrinkles remain. The state is still fighting two lawsuits brought by religious preschools that objected to non-discrimination rules protecting LGBTQ children, families, and employees. Both suits are pending in federal appeals court. And the national early childhood group found that Colorado meets only two of 10 benchmarks meant to ensure that preschool classrooms are high quality.

Currently, the “universal preschool” label doesn’t indicate anything about the caliber of classroom a child will join. Rather, it simply indicates the state is paying for 10 to 30 hours of class time. Of about 2,000 preschools participating in the program, some have the state’s lowest rating and meet only basic health and safety standards.

Others, including El Nidito, which has been around for 25 years, have the state’s highest rating.

A morning in Johnson’s classroom makes it easy to see why. She and her co-teacher, an experienced sub named Maria Chavira, are warm, cheerful, and organized. Their young charges are curious, silly, and always in motion.

Maria Chavira, a substitute teacher at the El Nidito child care program in Fort Collins, puts sunscreen on a preschool student before they go outside.

During breakfast, two boys held bananas up to their ears like phones.

“Ring, ring, ring. Hi, Henry,” one said as the other burst out laughing.

Nearby at the sensory table, as one little boy poured dried pinto beans through a cardboard tube, he said, “Did you ever watch ‘Boss Baby?’ The baby is a bossssss. Babies can’t be bosses!”

Meanwhile, the little boy who’d struggled to leave his mother was getting braver, slowly testing the waters of group play. One minute he crouched next to a little girl in front of a tree house play set. Later, he tried out bear and leopard hand puppets as the Boss Baby skeptic threw Tucker the Turtle up in the air next to him.

Johnson, who switched from a sales and marketing career to early childhood education in 2007, seems to have a sixth sense for detecting imminent meltdowns, skirmishes, and rule-bending.

She quickly peeled away from a conversation with a visitor when a little girl dressed in head-to-toe pink accidentally got a squiggle of red marker on her new cowboy boots.

“Your mom can get that out. The markers are washable,” Johnson said as tears welled in the preschooler’s eyes.

Then she averted the crisis with five words: “Do you want a hug?”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit families reeling after local nonprofit loses federal Head Start funding

2025-08-13T22:13:24+00:00

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Kyra O’Guinn and her young family have relied heavily on Focus: HOPE’s Early Head Start programming to help raise their daughter since she was just 4 months old.

But that safety net was eliminated when the longtime Detroit nonprofit announced that it has not received federal Head Start funding for the 2025–26 school year.

The closure of the Head Start program affects more than 300 Detroit-area children like O’Guinn’s, leaving her and other parents scrambling for alternative arrangements while as many as 70% of its 107 early learning staff members face layoffs, said Portia Roberson, CEO of Focus: HOPE, which provides early learning, job training, and food support to families.

For 10 years, Focus: HOPE’s Head Start programs were funded through a relationship with Starfish Family Services. Focus: HOPE was a subrecipient of a grant Starfish received from the federal government to provide the program. Last year, though, the two organizations agreed to apply for the funding individually, meaning Focus: HOPE would have to seek the federal money on its own. That funding request was formally rejected last week without explanation.

It isn’t clear whether the decision is connected to the uncertainty facing Head Start nationally due to the Trump administration’s temporary pause of funding and the closure of regional offices.

O’Guinn and her husband both work, and she’s also pursuing a degree in marketing and public relations. She said it’s difficult to consider next steps for their now 3-year-old daughter and another younger child with no nearby options for child care or family to pitch in.

“To take something away like this from us and our neighborhoods is you telling us that you want us to continue to be underserviced,” O’Guinn said during a Focus: HOPE town hall hosted on Tuesday. “It left us empty-handed, and we really needed that support.”

Kyra O'Guinn speaks about the impact Focus: HOPE's early childhood programming has had on her daughter during a town hall meeting hosted on Aug. 12, 2025.

The loss of funding affects families in Detroit’s 48202, 48206, 48211, and 48238 ZIP codes, which are located in city neighborhoods like Midtown and Forest Park and includes neighboring cities like Hamtramck. In addition to having one of the highest rates of poverty in the state, three of the four ZIP codes were characterized as having “insufficient” licensed child care access, with three or more children for each available slot, according to data analyzed by Boston University’s Child Opportunity Index.

Roberson said Focus: HOPE will continue to operate some of its early childhood programming through state funding it receives for 4-year-olds enrolled in its Great Start Readiness Program, or GSRP, Michigan’s free prekindergarten program.

In the meantime, Roberson encouraged parents attending the town hall to advocate for restoring the agency’s federally funded programming provided by Head Start, designed to promote school readiness for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers from families that meet income eligibility requirements.

Roberson said Focus: HOPE plans to work with the city of Detroit, community partners, and other child care providers in the area to figure out where children can enroll without significant disruption.

In addition to educating children through its preschool program for 4-year-olds, Focus: HOPE’s early learning programs provided more than 250 mothers with peer-to-peer support for pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, and early parenting — all services impacted by not receiving the grant.

“We’re actively working to figure out how many classes we can run with some of the other funding we receive,” Roberson said. “We’re looking for other funding sources so that we can try to serve as many of those 300 children as possible and then pivoting and trying to figure out where are some affordable, solid places that we can send other children that parents can access easily.”

Focus: HOPE Chief Executive Officer Portia Roberson speaks about the impact of not receiving federal funding for the 2025-26 fiscal year.

The decision to seek the Head Start funding independently came because Starfish Family Services had indicated it no longer wanted to serve as a grantee with subrecipients, Roberson said. Starfish Family Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Focus: HOPE applied for the funding on its own in December, Roberson said, while continuing to operate under the Starfish’s grant funding that ran through the end of July. Expecting to hear from the federal government early in the year, Roberson said she first was updated in March that there could be a delay in decisions on funding due to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Head Start announcing it was shutting down five regional offices.

She said she contacted Michigan U.S. Sens. Gary Peters and Elissa Slotkin, both Democrats, in June to see if they could find out more after hearing rumors that some organizations might not be receiving funding.

Late last week, Roberson said she was informed by the federal Administration of Children and Families, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, that it had not received funding, but that Starfish and MiSide, another Detroit agency, had.

“We really don’t know why, because, to be honest, while it was a competitive grant process, it was not competitive in the sense that anyone else was applying to service the kids in the four ZIP codes we were currently servicing,” Roberson said. “So, essentially, by not funding us, it wasn’t as if they said, ‘Oh, we think that the application from some other organization was a better application, and we’re sending the kids there.’ They just said we’re not going to service you in these ZIP codes.”

Officials from the Health and Human Services department didn’t respond to a request for comment.

‘I don’t need a day care … I want her to be learning’

Roberson said Focus: HOPE applied for 100 additional Head Start slots and $14 million in total federal funding to serve around 400 children, a significant increase from the $6 million it operated on this past year. The intention, she said, was to see if it could accommodate children who were on a wait list.

“We were hoping this would be our opportunity to grow our program a little bit and have even more students participate in a Head Start program,” she said. “This obviously is not that and it’s going to be a significant hit to our overall Focus: HOPE budget.”

After enrolling her 4-year-old daughter in the Head Start program through Focus: HOPE a few months back, parent Sade Walker said she was concerned about having to potentially find a new place for her daughter this fall.

Though the Great Start Readiness Program might still be an option this fall, Walker said she’s concerned about receiving the news so close to the beginning of the school year.

“It’s probably going to be hard to find a school,” Walker said. “I don’t need a day care or a babysitter. I want her to be learning.”

Head Start overall has been dealing with uncertainty, beginning in January when the Trump administration paused federal funding for the program via an administrative order. That pause was eventually rescinded, but a later decision to shut down five regional offices raised more concerns. One of the regional offices that closed was in Chicago, which oversaw Head Start centers in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

In a statement about the closure of the Focus: HOPE programs, Peters said Head Start provides Michigan families with access to early childhood education while helping parents enter and stay in the workforce.

“That’s why we must ensure that every single community in our state receives the funding needed to administer this important program and support our working families,” Peter said in the statement. “I’ll keep working to ensure Focus: HOPE can continue serving children and families in Detroit.”

Democratic U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar, who attended Tuesday’s town hall, said the decision not to fund Focus: HOPE Head Start programming in some of the poorest ZIP codes in the country is another example of the administration’s “reverse Robin Hood” approach of “taking from people who need it and giving it to billionaires.”

“We cannot rest,” he said, “until this is reversed.”

Child care centers often reject kids with disabilities. These states are trying to change that.

2025-08-04T10:02:00+00:00

This story about children with disabilities was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education, and is republished with permission.

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COLUMBUS, Ohio — When Selina Likely became director of the Edwards Creative Learning Center six years ago, she knew there was one longstanding practice that she wanted to change. For as long as she had taught at the thriving child care center, it had turned away many children with disabilities such as autism and Down syndrome. The practice was even encoded in the center’s handbook as policy.

Likely, the parent of a child with a disability, wanted to stop telling families no, but she knew that to do that she and her staff would need more support. “I said, ‘Let’s start getting training and see what we can do.’”

Not too long after, her effort received a big boost from a state-funded initiative in Ohio to strengthen child care teachers’ knowledge and confidence in working with young kids with disabilities and developmental delays. That program, Ohio PROMISE, offers free online training for child care workers in everything from the benefits of kids of all abilities learning and playing together to the kinds of classroom materials most helpful to have on hand. It also offers as-needed mentorship and support from trained coaches across the state.

Related: Young children have unique needs, and providing the right care can be a challenge. Our free early childhood education newsletter tracks the issues.

Child care providers across the country — including large, established centers and tiny home-based programs — struggle to meet the needs of children with disabilities, according to a 2024 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. More than a quarter of parents of children with disabilities said they had a lot of difficulty finding appropriate care for their kids. And even those who do find a spot regularly encounter challenges, like having their children excluded from extracurricular activities such as field trips and even academic instruction.

“It’s really hard to find child care for this population, we heard that loud and clear,” said Elizabeth Curda, a director on the GAO’s Education, Workforce, and Income Security team and a coauthor of the report. Even the most well-resourced centers report that they struggle to meet the needs of children with disabilities, according to Curda.

There’s a lot of desire at the grassroots level to change that. Ohio PROMISE and a few other recent initiatives provide models for how to expand the capacity — and the will — of child care centers to serve the more than 2 million U.S. children age 5 or below who have a disability or developmental delay.

In Vermont, for instance, officials hope to soon unveil a free, on-demand training program aimed at helping child care teachers have more inclusive classrooms. And officials in Ohio’s Summit County, home to Akron, report growing interest from other counties in creating programs based on Summit’s more than decade-old model that provides in-person training for child care operators in inclusion of children with disabilities.

“We’re helping to create child care centers that feel they can handle whatever comes their way, especially when it comes to significant behavior concerns,” said Yolanda Mahoney, the early childhood center support supervisor for Summit County’s disabilities board.

Cards on the walls at Edwards Creative Learning Center display the signs for different letters so students — whether nonverbal or not — can all learn sign language.

The federal government until recently encouraged the creation of such models. In 2023, the federal Department of Education and Department of Health and Human Services issued a joint statement urging states to take steps to support inclusion in early childhood settings, including strengthening training and accountability.

Also, a year-old provision of the Child Care and Development Fund, the primary federal funding source for child care, requires that states increase the availability of child care for children with disabilities as a prerequisite for receiving funds. (However, 43 states have received waivers allowing them to delay implementation of that provision.)

Under the current president, federal momentum on the issue has largely stalled. While the administration of President Donald Trump hasn’t directly attacked inclusion in the context of special education, the president has criticized the term more broadly — especially when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion. That can create uncertainty and a chilling effect on advocates of inclusion efforts of all kinds.

Funding for some inclusion efforts is also in jeopardy. States rely on Medicaid, which faces nearly $1 trillion in cuts over the next decade, to pay for early intervention programs for children birth to age 3 with developmental delays and disabilities. Trump has also proposed eliminating Preschool Development Grants, which states such as Vermont and Illinois have used to expand support of young children with disabilities.

That means over the next few years, progress on inclusion in child care settings could hinge largely on state and local investment. It helps that there’s a “real desire” among providers to enroll more children with disabilities, said Kristen Jones, an assistant director on the GAO’s Education, Workforce, and Income Security team, who also worked on the report. “But there’s also a concern that currently they can’t do that in a safe way” because of a lack of training and resources.

Parents of disabled kids struggle to find child care

The idea for Ohio PROMISE came after an appeal in 2022 from Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. He reported that families were coming to him saying they couldn’t find child care for their kids with disabilities.

“He said, ‘Come to me with ideas to solve that problem,’” recalled Wendy Grove, a senior adviser in the Ohio Department of Children and Youth who spearheaded development of the program.

Grove and her colleagues had already been working on a related effort. In 2020, Ohio won a federal grant that included help exploring how well — or not — children with disabilities were being included in child care and early education settings. DeWine liked the idea Grove’s team presented of morphing that work into a state-led effort to strengthen training and support for child care teachers. They also proposed more direct support to families, including the extension of child care vouchers to families with incomes above the poverty level, with a higher reimbursement rate for children with disabilities.

The training, which debuted about two years ago, is provided in three levels. Jada Cutchall, a preschool teacher at Imaginative Beginnings, an early learning center just outside of Toledo, recently completed the third tier, which for her included customized coaching. Cutchall’s coach helped her create communication tools for a largely nonverbal student, she said, including a board with pictures children can point to if, for example, they want to go to the bathroom or try a different playground activity.

As a result, Cutchall said, she has watched kids with disabilities, including those with speech impairments and autism, engage much more directly with their classmates. “They have the courage to ask their peers to play with them — or at least not distance themselves as much as they usually would,” she said. All of the children in the classroom have benefited, she added, noting that kids without disabilities have taken an interest in learning sign language, strengthening their own communication skills, and fostering empathy.

Child care programs where one teacher and one administrator have completed some of the training earn a special designation from the state, which may eventually be tied to the opportunity to get extra funding to serve children with disabilities. In Ohio PROMISE’s first year, 1,001 child care centers — about 10% of the total number in Ohio — earned that designation, according to Grove.

The effort costs a little over $1 million in state dollars each year, with most of that paying for several regional support personnel who work directly with centers as mentors and advisers. Over the last two years, Ohio has seen a 38% increase in the number of children in publicly funded centers who qualify for the higher voucher reimbursement rate for children with disabilities, which can be double the size of the standard voucher.

Grove hopes that ultimately the effort plays a role in narrowing a critical and stubborn gap in the state: about 27% of children without disabilities show readiness on state standards for kindergarten; only 14% of children with disabilities do. Since so few disabilities exhibited at that age are related to intellectual or cognitive functioning, “we shouldn’t see that gap,” said Grove. “There’s no real reason.”

One goal of the new efforts is to reduce the number of young children with disabilities who are expelled from or pushed out of care. Those children are frequently asked to leave for behaviors related to their disability, the GAO report found.

Several years ago, a child care center in Columbus expelled Meagan Severance’s 18-month-old son for biting a staff member. The boy has several special needs, including some related to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Severance brought him to Edwards Creative Learning Center, where not too long after Selina Likely shifted into the role of director. The boy also bit a staff member there — not uncommon behavior for toddlers, especially those with sensory sensitivities and communication challenges.

Likely was determined to work with the child, not expel him. “They put in time and effort,” said Severance. “The response wasn’t, ‘He bit someone, he’s gone.’”

For the last six years, Selina Likely has overseen the Edwards Creative Learning Center, where she’s steadily enrolled more children with disabilities and developmental delays.

Likely empathized. Decades earlier, her own daughter had been expelled from a child care center in her hometown of Mansfield, Ohio, for biting.

“I was so angry and mad at the time — how are you going to kick out a 1-year-old?” she said. The center director didn’t think at all about how to help her child, Likely recalled, instead asking Likely what might be happening at home to make the child want to bite. She said she got no notice or grace period to find a new placement. “That left me in a disheartened place,” she said. “I was like, ‘I still have to go to work.’”

Just 17 years old at the time, she was inspired by the injustice of the situation to quit her job in a factory and apply to be an assistant in a child care program. She’s been in the industry ever since, gradually trying to make more space for children like her daughter, who was later diagnosed with autism.

As director, Likely displays the nameplate “chaos coordinator” on her desk. And she’s taken the stance that the center should at least try to work with every kid. She and some of her teachers have completed the first two tiers of the Ohio PROMISE training, as well as some related sessions available from the state. Likely estimates that about 10% of the children in her center have a diagnosed disability or developmental delay.

Liasun Meadows, whose son has Down syndrome, chose Edwards several years ago for her then 1-year-old over another program better known for its work with children with disabilities. She has not been disappointed.

Parents of kids with disabilities watch their children like a hawk, she said. “There are certain things you notice that you don’t expect others to notice, but they do at Edwards. They’ve been growing and learning alongside him.”

Severance, whose son is now 8, works at the center these days, leading the 3-year-old room, which includes two children who are largely nonverbal. She’s made the classroom more inclusive, adding fidget toys for children with sensory issues, rearranging the classroom to create calming areas, providing communication books to nonverbal children so they can more easily express needs and wants, and teaching everyone some sign language.

“For a while there was segregation in the classroom” between the kids with disabilities and those without, Severance said. But that’s lessened with the changes. “Inclusion has been good for the kids who are verbal — and nonverbal,” she said.

Demand for grants far exceeds availability

As in Ohio, state officials in Vermont turned to online training to help ensure young children with disabilities aren’t denied quality care. The state should soon debut the first parts of a new training program, focusing on outreach to child care administrators and support for neurodivergent children. The state wanted to focus on center leaders first because “directors that are comfortable with inclusion lead programs that are comfortable with inclusion,” said Dawn Rouse, the director of statewide systems in Vermont’s Child Development Division.

Vermont also pumped millions of dollars into a separate program, known as the Special Accommodations Grant, that supports young children with disabilities. Since 2009 the state has set aside $300,000 a year that child care centers can tap to provide services for individual children with disabilities. It might help buy specialized equipment for a child with cerebral palsy, for instance, or be used to hire a full- or part-time aide.

The $300,000 has been maxed out every year, Rouse said. And after the pandemic, the need — and the number of applications — surged.

As a result, the state allocated some federal American Rescue Plan and Preschool Development Grant dollars to increase spending on the program by about sevenfold — to between $2 million and $2.5 million annually — an amount Rouse still describes as a “Band-Aid.”

Without access to the grants, “we see a lot of children being asked to leave programs,” Rouse said. “That’s not good for any child, but for children with specialized developmental needs it’s particularly bad.”

One tool for supporting and calming children with sensory issues is keeping a healthy supply of fidget toys on hand.

Over time, Likely hopes, her Ohio center can play a small role in reducing that instability, although the center hasn’t yet been able to work with all such children it wants to. Likely recalls one toddler with a severe disability who climbed up anything he could. There wasn’t enough money to pay for what the child really needed: a full-time aide. “It’s hard when you know you’ve tried but still have to say no,” she said. “That breaks my heart more than anything.”

On one June morning, the center’s teachers acknowledged and celebrated several milestones in its work on inclusion, big and small. One child in the 3-year-old classroom with fine and gross motor challenges was drinking independently from a bottle. The preschool classroom held its first graduation ceremony, translated partly into sign language. All of the kids, no matter their challenges, were set to go on field trips to Dairy Queen and the zoo.

Likely dreams of someday running a center where about half of the children have a disability or delay. It may be years off, she said, but as with the milestones she sees scores of children at the center reach every day, “There’s a way — if there’s a will.”

Sarah Carr is a fellow at New America, focused on reporting on early childhood issues.

Contact contributing editor Sarah Carr at carr@hechingerreport.org.

Three takeaways from a new report on child care costs, supply in Colorado

2025-08-01T21:47:41+00:00

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In some Colorado counties, the cost of child care is equivalent to more than half a week’s salary at a minimum wage job, which leaves little money to pay for other expenses.

That’s one of the findings in a new report on licensed child care from the Common Sense Institute, a Colorado research organization. Overall, the report reiterates what many parents know intuitively: Child care is expensive and hard to find. But it also digs into county-by-county differences that highlight how the child care landscape differs by community.

One thing the report doesn’t account for is family, friend, and neighbor care, which is informal child care provided by a child’s relatives or others. The state doesn’t license such providers or track their prevalence, but they are the ones who often fill the gap when state-licensed care is in short supply or out of reach financially.

Here are three takeaways from the report:

Child care takes a big bite out of family income

In Colorado’s 10 largest counties, families are spending 18% to 25% of their monthly income on child care — far above the 7% affordability benchmark set by the federal government. It’s the worst in Weld County, where child care costs consume about $1,400 a month on average. That’s 25% of $5,600, the average monthly household income.

Families have it a bit better in Denver. There, child care costs nearly $1,600 a month per child on average, 18% of the monthly household income of nearly $8,600. Households in Arapahoe and Pueblo counties spend a similar share of their income on child care as those in Denver.

In populous counties, child care supply is best in Boulder, worst in Pueblo

Boulder County has 0.63 child care seats per child under 6 — more seats relative to the number of young children than Colorado’s other nine most populous counties. Jefferson and Douglas counties are close behind.

Lowest on the 10-county list is Pueblo, which has 0.29 seats per child under 6. Child care supply is even worse in some of Colorado’s least populous counties, including Elbert, Huerfano, Lake and Las Animas.

Four Colorado counties have enough slots for young children — technically

Four Colorado counties in the southwestern corner of the state have enough licensed child care seats to serve every child under 6 within their borders. The largest of them is La Plata, where Durango is the county seat. The county has about 400 children under age 6 and about 1,200 child care slots — though the report doesn’t account for children who may come to La Plata from nearby counties for child care.

The other three counties with the best child care supply relative to their child populations are all sparsely populated. They include San Juan, Mineral, and Hinsdale counties.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Are Colorado kindergartners showing up ready to learn? The picture is fuzzy, advocates say.

2025-07-28T21:44:34+00:00

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Are Colorado kids showing up ready for kindergarten? Are their early math and reading skills up to par? How’s their social and emotional development?

A new report from Early Milestones Colorado, a statewide research and policy group, argues that clear answers are unavailable because of missing or incomplete data.

The report arrives as Colorado is spending big on universal preschool, which launched in 2023 and aims to help prepare kids for kindergarten. Advocates say better kindergarten data could spotlight bright spots and weak areas in that program and help the state make informed decisions about improvements.

At the same time, Gov. Jared Polis is pushing for better data systems for all education levels as part of a multistate effort he’s spearheading for the National Governor’s Association. Part of the goal of the “Let’s Get Ready” initiative, he said in a recent press release, is to “bolster our capacity to measure what works and what doesn’t.”

For nearly a decade, a law known as CAP4K has required Colorado’s kindergarten teachers to collect information early in the school year on how students are doing in six areas: cognition, language, literacy, math, social-emotional development, and physical and motor development. Most schools use one of several state-approved assessments to collect the data, which is released annually in a report to lawmakers.

In 2024-25, the share of students considered ready for kindergarten ranged from 51% to 63% depending on the developmental area, according to the state report.

But advocates say the report lacks key information about certain student subgroups. That’s because schools are allowed to report as “unknown” a child’s race or ethnicity or whether the child is eligible for free or reduced-price school meals, one measure of poverty. In the most recent report, about 10,000 children who met language expectations had unknown free and reduced-price meal status. The numbers were similar for the other five developmental areas.

In addition, the report contains no readiness data at all for thousands of kindergartners whose schools got waivers from using state-approved assessments. Such students make up about 7% of the more 50,000 kindergartners in the state’s public schools, according to the Early Milestones brief.

Jennifer Stedron, executive director of Early Milestones, said given that CAP4K’s goal was to boost student achievement, the lack of data about a key grade is “a little stunning.”

The Early Milestones report includes three recommendations:

Require reporting of students’ race/ethnicity, gender, and free-and-reduced-meal eligibility status as part of kindergarten readiness data. Eliminate the “unknown” option.
Require reporting of results for kindergartners whose schools received waivers from state-approved assessments.
Require reporting of the share of kindergartners who meet or exceed expectations across all six developmental areas.

Officials from the Colorado Department of Education say the State Board of Education would be in charge of making any changes to kindergarten assessment data requirements.

Tami Yetter, the department’s director of elementary literacy and school readiness, said data privacy rules are why free- and reduced-price-meal status is unknown for so many students in the kindergarten readiness report.

She noted that the state has kindergarten data for schools with waivers that allow them to use non-approved assessments, but historically hasn’t published it. She said state officials aren’t sure if such assessments are comparable to state-approved assessments, the most common of which is Teaching Strategies GOLD.

The State Board’s next scheduled review of kindergarten readiness data requirements will be in 2028, Yetter said.

Madi Ashour, director of K-12 education policy for the Colorado Children’s Campaign, said the state’s current kindergarten readiness report is “good, but could be better.”

She said requiring that all schools use state-approved kindergarten assessments would be the easiest way to ensure that the 7% of kindergarteners not currently represented in the kindergarten readiness report show up there. But she acknowledged that Colorado local control ethos makes that tricky.

Ashour also noted the state has made some progress over the years toward more accurately reporting kindergarten data. Indeed, the state’s kindergarten readiness report used to be even more opaque. In 2016, worries about data privacy and government intrusion prompted the State Board to drastically limit what data appeared in the report.

That eventually changed, but advocates say more is needed.

Ashour described the Early Milestones recommendations as a way to “further improve these systems that can really make a difference in how Colorado serves kids.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

After a child care worker is detained by ICE, a community is left reeling

2025-07-21T22:14:56+00:00

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Two years ago, Nicolle Orozco Forero walked into an in-home day care in Seattle, Washington, looking for a job. She was barely 22, a whole five feet tall — if that. But she was calm, focused. Her presence struck the owner, Stephanie Wishon, because it’s not easy to find qualified staff who can work with children with disabilities.

Orozco Forero had experience working with kids who had autism back in Colombia, so Wishon had her come in for a trial run and hired her after the first day. The children, who needed someone who had love and care to give in abundance, gravitated toward her. She was good at the hardest stuff. She changed diapers and outfits the moment they were soiled. She was vigilant; her kids stayed pristine. And she got them to do the things they wouldn’t do for other people, like say “ah” when it was time to get their teeth brushed or sit still long enough for her to twist a braid down their back.

Some people just have that way about them.

And people like Orozco Forero are exceptionally rare. Already, the staffing shortage in child care is near crisis levels. It’s far worse for children with disabilities — about a third of those families say they face significant difficulty finding care for their kids, partly because there are too few people with the ability, expertise or desire to work with their children. Immigrant women like Orozco Forero have been helping to fill that void. They now make up 20% of all child care workers.

At home, Orozco Forero was also caring for her own young boys, one of whom started to show symptoms of a serious illness over the past two years that doctors have not yet been able to diagnose. She took some time off to care for him last year before returning to the kids at Wishon’s day care.

Her work has kept an already precarious safety net together. Without women like Orozco Forero, families who have nowhere else to turn for care have to make difficult decisions about how to survive and keep their children safe. Without her, the safety net snaps.

And that’s exactly what happened on June 18, the day she was detained.

Routine immigration check-in upends family’s life

It was supposed to be a routine meeting with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Orozco Forero and her husband had been to all their monthly meetings for the past year and change, since their asylum charge was denied in April 2024.

The family — Orozco Forero; her husband, Juan Sebastian Moreno Acosta; and their two sons, Juan David, 7, and Daniel, 5 — fled Colombia two years ago. Moreno Acosta, a street vendor, had been persecuted by gangs who target vendors for money.

After arriving in the United States, they sought the help of a lawyer with their asylum claim, but when they couldn’t pay his full fee ahead of their hearing, he pulled out. They represented themselves in court and lost the case. With no knowledge of the U.S. court system, they didn’t know they had 30 days to appeal the ruling, either. Ever since, ICE has been monitoring them, requiring they wear a wrist tracker and meet with an immigration officer once a month, sometimes more, according to a family member. (The 19th is not naming the family member to protect their identity.) It’s unclear why ICE has allowed them to stay in the country all this time, though it’s not necessarily uncommon; ICE typically prioritized immigrants with felonies for deportation.

Orozco Forero had seen the reports of undocumented immigrants being rounded up at their immigration appointments. President Donald Trump’s mass deportation effort has led to the detention of about 30,000 migrants with no criminal record, like Orozco Forero, who now make up about half of those detained. Her husband does have a misdemeanor reckless driving conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol on his record, but he completed a court-mandated alcohol course for that and has no other convictions.

Still, Orozco Forero wasn’t worried when she headed to her appointment on the morning of June 18. If ICE planned to detain her, Orozco Forero thought, they would have asked her to come with the boys, right?

And she had been doing everything right: She’d gone to all her appointments, taken documentation to show she was going to school at Green River Community College taking courses in English and early childhood education. She had completed a child care internship that trained her to open her own licensed in-home day care. Her licensure approval was set to arrive any moment, likely that same week, and the day care was just about ready to go.

But that morning, her family was still wary, asking her to share her location just in case.

Shortly after 10 a.m., Orozco Forero texted her family member: “They are going to deport us”

“Nicolle what happened? Nicolle answer me,” they texted back. “What do I do?”

“I can’t speak I feel like I’m going to faint,” Orozco Forero replied. And then: “I’m sorry it wasn’t what we expected.”

Detention disrupts a sick child’s care

Two-and-a-half hours west, on the coast of Washington in a town called Southbend, Wishon was frantic. Orozco Forero had texted her, too. ICE was asking for the boys.

In two years, Wishon had grown incredibly close to Orozco Forero, who had cared for her own kids. After her family moved to the coast, Wishon rented out her house in Seattle to Orozco Forero, whose boys were excited to have a home with a yard.

Wishon’s husband, Gabriel, hopped into his truck and headed to Seattle. Wishon, meanwhile, got on the phone with the Orozco Forero family’s ICE agent and every lawyer she could. They were going to take them into detention at a facility 2,200 miles away in Texas, a facility that was reopened earlier this year by the Trump administration to detain families. Wishon wanted to find a lawyer who could stop the deportation order, and she wanted to make sure the boys would be reunited with their parents if they took them to meet the ICE agent.

And that was especially important, not just because they were young children, but because Juan David is still sick.

Nicolle Orozco Forero’s sons play with a child their mother takes care of.

For the past year, he’s been seeking treatment at Seattle Children’s Hospital for an illness that is turning his urine muddy. So far, doctors have determined he’s losing red blood cells and protein through his urine, indicating a possible kidney issue, but they haven’t yet zeroed in on what is causing the problem. They likely need a kidney biopsy to be sure.

“Given the complexity of his case, it is essential that Juan remain in the United States for continued testing and treatment,” his nephrologist Jordan Symons wrote in a March letter to ICE. “We kindly request that you consider this medical necessity in your review of his immigration status and grant him the ability to stay in the United States until his treatment and evaluation are completed.”

Juan David’s care team has been monitoring him closely to ensure his red blood cell and protein levels never drop too low. His condition could become serious quickly.

“You can die from that,” said Sarah Kasnick, a physician’s assistant who is familiar with his case. Kasnick is also a foster parent, and Orozco Forero provided care for her family.

When Gabriel Wishon arrived to pick up the boys, they were confused and disoriented. Where were their parents? Why was everyone crying? They didn’t want to go to Colombia, they told him on the drive. They wanted to stay in the United States.

Around 5:30 p.m. that evening, he met with the ICE agent, who had waited past her work hours for them to arrive.

“Bye boys, you are going to see your parents right now. They are right inside,” Wishon told them. He watched them walk in carrying two stuffed animals, a Super Mario doll and Chase, the popular cartoon dog dressed as a police officer.

A fragile child care network falls apart

The families Orozco Forero cares for are now in a free fall.

Jessica Cocson, whose son has been in Orozco Forero’s care for more than a year, described her in a character letter to ICE as a “blessing to us in ways I struggle to fully express.”

Orozco Forero and her husband “support working families, provide quality childcare, and demonstrate compassion and commitment every day,” Cocson wrote. “It is heartbreaking to think that someone who gives so much and asks so little could be forced to leave.”

Tamia Riley, whose two sons with autism were also in Orozco Forero’s care, said losing her was like watching “a father walking out the door.”

“These people, these day care providers, sitters, they are a form of family members for me and my children,” Riley said.

Now, the day care she was set to open lays empty. Inside, the walls are plastered with posters listing colors and sight words. There are cushioned mats on the floor and play stations. Tables with tiny chairs. A tall pink dollhouse. High chairs and a pack and play for the babies. Outside, two play houses, a ball pit, toys to ride on and little picnic tables set across an artificial turf. But no children to enjoy any of it.

Big Dreams Day Care she was going to call it, for the dreams she wanted the kids in her care to strive for, and the ones that were finally coming to fruition for her.

Orozco Forero’s detention has rattled child care workers across the country. In Texas, workers represented by the Service Employees International Union have been rallying in her name. U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat, spoke in support of the family’s release at a rally on June 29 in San Antonio. And a group of union workers is attempting to deliver supplies to the family. It’s an effort Orozco Forero knows little about; she only has limited communication with those on the outside.

Tricia Schroeder, the president of the Seattle-based SEIU chapter that represents care workers, said that, for years unions like hers have been working to improve quality, access, and affordability in child care, a system in such deep crisis it’s been called by the Treasury Department “a textbook example of a broken market.”

Immigrant women like Orozco Forero were part of that effort to improve access, doing jobs few Americans want to take on.

“Detaining child care providers, especially those who care for kids with special needs, just deepens the crisis in early learning,” Schroeder said.

Orozco Forero was also the connective tissue that kept families employed. Her loss has rippled across industries.

Nicolle Orozco Forero was going to community college for early childhood education and planned to open her own day care before she was detained by ICE.

Kasnick, the foster parent, said one of the children in her care had been tentatively set to start at Orozco Forero’s day care as soon as it opened. Orozco Forero had been the only provider who would take the child, who has autism and is nonverbal.

Orozco Forero had cared for the girl at Wishon’s day care as if she was her own, even taking her in once when the child’s care had fallen through and no foster family in the entire county would take her in because of the complexity of her needs. The girl arrived at Orozco Forero’s house at midnight on a weekend “with no clothing, toys, medication or any of her belongings … this did not [deter] Nicolle and Sebastian instead they immediately went and purchased all the things” the child needed, a social worker wrote in a letter to ICE. Kasnick said Orozco Forero was even considering becoming a foster parent.

Without her, Kasnick is out of options: She quit her job as a physician’s assistant to care for the child after Orozco Forero was detained.

“There are now 44 patients a day who don’t have anyone to provide their health care, and I can’t go to work because Nicolle’s day care didn’t open,” Kasnick said.

In the weeks since, Kasnick has had an overwhelming feeling of helplessness, she said. How could this happen to someone who gave back so much?

“The security of knowing that you can be in your home one day and in a prison the next week, and you didn’t do anything except exist?” she said. “It makes you feel like there’s no good left in the world.”

Community appeals not enough to halt deportation

Orozco Forero’s family was in ICE detention for nearly a month awaiting a bond hearing they hoped could buy them time in the United States. Orozco Forero and the boys were together; her husband was in the same facility but separated from them.

Juan David wasn’t eating much. It took three weeks for him to receive medical care, Orozco Forero told her attorney, James Costo.

Costo had been working to get the details of why ICE allowed the family to stay in the country with monitoring after they lost their asylum case last year. There has been an order for their deportation since then, but ICE never attempted to deport them until the Trump administration ramped up efforts. The number of immigrants without criminal convictions who have been detained has doubled since May.

The process to fight an asylum claim and appeal a denial is complicated — there are court deadlines, documents that need to be submitted and translated.

“They think maybe they can do it themselves and go in and say what happened but they are not understanding the whole legal process,” Costo said. “The system isn’t made for things to be easy.”

Costo was hopeful a judge will allow them to stay in the country temporarily as Juan David seeks care. They have almost no family left in Colombia, and no way to obtain care for him there, their family said.

But on July 10, Wishon got word that the family had been deported. The family arrived distraught at the home of the only close family they have in Bogotá, the capital.

Daniel, Orozco Forero’s youngest son, sent Wishon a voice message: “Good evening Stephanie, um, we are good. My mommy is very sad,” his little voice tells her. “Thank you for everything you have done for us. God bless you.”

A GoFundMe she set up will be used toward supporting the family as they try to transition to life in Colombia and seek care for Juan David.

A collection of support letters they hoped would move a judge somewhere to hear their case now only remain as chronicles of their impact. In the letters, Juan David’s first grade teachers call him an exceptional student who went from one of the lowest reading levels in the class — 10 words a minute — to one of the highest at 70 words a minute.

“He shows the qualities of a model citizen at a young age — dependable, ethical, and hard-working,” wrote his teacher, Carla Trujillo.

They were all on their way to shaping a better life, Wishon wrote in hers. The couple “worked tirelessly to build a better life for their children and to open their own licensed child care business. In all my years of employing and mentoring caregivers, I have rarely met a couple as responsible, driven, and capable as Nicolle and Sebastian.”

“This family is not a threat,” she concluded. “They are an asset.”

Chabeli Carrazana covers the economy and child care for The 19th.

Head Start advocates pursue legal challenge to new Trump policy barring undocumented children

2025-07-16T22:54:23+00:00

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Several state Head Start associations and parent groups are fighting a Trump administration effort to bar undocumented children from the federally funded Head Start program.

The groups, which are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, asked a federal district court on Tuesday to amend an April lawsuit they filed against the Trump administration over Head Start changes. They want to add a challenge to the government’s July 14 directive calling for the exclusion of undocumented children from the program.

Tuesday’s motion marks the second time the plaintiffs have sought to update their lawsuit in an effort to keep up with what they see as a series of abrupt and harmful changes that are chipping away at the 60-year-old program. The groups’ original lawsuit came after the Trump administration closed five regional Head Start offices, cut 60% of Head Start staff, and banned federal grant recipients, including Head Start providers, from promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, or accessibility.

Ming-Qi Chu, deputy director of the Women’s Rights Project at the ACLU, said the Trump administration’s July 14 directive represents another step in the government strategy to kill Head Start by continually weakening the program.

“The message of reserving Head Start for U.S. citizens is really at odds with a core purpose of Head Start — to be able to serve immigrant communities,” she said.

While a July 10 press release from the Department of Health and Human Services said Head Start would be “reserved for American citizens from now on,” federal officials later clarified that certain immigrants would still qualify, including legal permanent residents, children who’ve been granted asylum, refugees, and children with humanitarian parole.

Chu said the court hasn’t yet ruled on whether the ACLU can amend the lawsuit to include arguments against the new federal directive, but said she’s optimistic the court will allow it.

The plaintiffs in the case include Parent Voices Oakland, Family Forward Oregon, and Head Start associations from four states: Washington, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Head Start provides free child care, preschool, and various other services to about 750,000 children from low-income families annually. Conservatives have criticized the safety net program for years, but attacks have ramped up in recent years. Project 2025, a conservative policy agenda released in 2023, called for its elimination. In April, a leaked version of the president’s draft budget did the same — though Trump backpedaled on that plan a few weeks later.

Despite escaping the budget knife for now, Head Start has felt the impact of temporary funding freezes, confusing federal directives, and layoffs of federal Head Start workers. Some Head Start programs have closed and laid off workers, halting services to hundreds of children and families.

The Trump administration’s July 14 directive, published a few days after Department of Health and Human Services officials announced the new policy, is the latest wrench to hit Head Start providers and families.

For decades, Head Start was not considered a “federal public benefit” like Medicaid, SNAP, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families — all of which aren’t available to undocumented immigrants. The Trump administration has now reinterpreted the definition of federal public benefit to include Head Start, essentially shutting out undocumented children.

Chu said it’s the job of Congress, not the presidential administration, to determine whether Head Start should be considered a federal public benefit. When Congress did define the term in a 1996 welfare reform law, it specifically cited “postsecondary education” as a federal public benefit, but did not include early childhood or K-12 education.

In the landmark 1982 Plyler v. Doe case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that children have a right to a free public education regardless of immigration status, but that case focused on K-12 education.

The July 14 directive says the rule change aligns with several recent Trump actions “that reflect the will of the American people that aliens should not burden our public benefits system and that our public benefits system should not serve as a magnet for illegal immigration.”

Aside from the definition of federal public benefits, Chu cited other problems with the new Head Start policy. By making it effective immediately, the Trump administration skipped over key processes meant to delay rule changes until the public has a chance to comment and that require a thorough cost-benefit analysis, she said.

“We know that [the Health and Human Services Department] didn’t try to grapple at all with the enormous cost this would have on immigrant families that relied on Head Start for decades,” she said.

It’s unclear how many children the new Trump administration rule could bar from Head Start.

The federal directive states, “The Department anticipates that numerous unqualified aliens will no longer receive benefits under Federally funded programs due to this notice.”

It’s not clear yet whether all Head Start providers would have to verify a child’s immigration status before enrolling them. Some Head Start providers have pointed to language in federal law that exempts nonprofit charities from verifying the immigration status of beneficiaries. Head Start providers include private nonprofits as well as school districts and other public entities. Still, the Health and Human Services Department has not yet issued guidance on what providers will be asked to do.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Head Start preschools to bar undocumented children under new Trump rule

2025-07-11T00:28:28+00:00

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Undocumented children will no longer qualify for federally funded preschool through the Head Start program under a major policy shift the Trump administration announced Thursday.

In a news release, the Department of Health and Human Services said it was rescinding a nearly 30-year-old interpretation of federal law issued under President Bill Clinton that allowed undocumented immigrants to access certain programs because they were not considered “federal public benefits.”

As President Donald Trump pursues his anti-immigrant agenda, this change may be the most direct and far-reaching effort to target children after his attempts to end birthright citizenship. His administration has also ramped up immigration enforcement and deportations, withheld funding for English learners, and threatened to punish states that offer in-state tuition to undocumented college students.

Administration officials have said they hope many immigrants will “self-deport” if the United States makes life here more uncomfortable. Health and Human Services leaders cast the change as a way to protect benefits for Americans.

“For too long, the government has diverted hardworking Americans’ tax dollars to incentivize illegal immigration,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a press release. “Today’s action changes that — it restores integrity to federal social programs, enforces the rule of law, and protects vital resources for the American people.”

Early childhood education advocates, meanwhile, condemned the change as violating both the spirit and the letter of the 1965 law that authorized Head Start. They also warned the change could scare away eligible families.

“This decision undermines the fundamental commitment that the country has made to children,” Yasmina Vinci, the executive director of the National Head Start Association, a nonprofit that represents Head Start staff and families, said in a written statement. “Head Start programs strive to make every child feel welcome, safe, and supported, and reject the characterization of any child as ‘illegal.’”

The change is also at odds with how the Supreme Court has treated K-12 education. In the landmark Plyler v. Doe decision from 1982, the justices ruled that children have a right to a free public education regardless of immigration status. However, the courts have upheld laws restricting immigrants’ access to welfare benefits.

Head Start provided preschool to over 544,000 children from low-income families, according to the latest federal data from the 2022-23 school year, while Early Head Start served more than 186,000 infants, toddlers, and expectant parents.

The program, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, has reached 40 million children but has recently faced a number of challenges, from federal staff layoffs to threats of eliminating the program.

Head Start will now be considered a public benefit, the Trump administration said, because it offers services that are similar to welfare. Officials said the change aligns with Trump’s executive orders, including a February order titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders.”

“While Head Start provides for school readiness, it also provides low-income children and their families with ‘health, educational, nutritional, and social and other services, that are determined based on family needs assessment,’” federal officials wrote in a notice announcing the change. “Further, it may serve as child care for parents of young children.”

Classifying Head Start as welfare, rather than education, could be a Trump administration strategy to avoid having to address whether the protections extended to undocumented children in Plyler apply here, said Nate Ela, an assistant professor of law at Temple University, in an email.

Reflecting Trump’s America First agenda, Health and Human Services officials said in their press release that Head Start will be “reserved for American citizens from now on.”

But a spokesperson for the Administration for Children and Families clarified that U.S. citizen children and “qualified” immigrant children would be eligible for Head Start. Under federal law, that includes legal permanent residents, children who’ve been granted asylum, refugees, and children with humanitarian parole.

In its statement, the National Head Start Association said providers were alarmed that programs would have to check the citizenship or immigration status of children before they could enroll. The law that governs Head Start has never required documentation of immigration status as a condition to enroll, the organization said, and “attempts to impose such a requirement threaten to create fear and confusion among all families.”

It is unclear exactly how the new rules will be enforced. Guidance based on the new legal interpretation is forthcoming, the Administration for Children and Families spokesperson said.

“Are they going to monitor us when they come out for their federal review?” asked Lauri Morrison-Frichtl, the executive director of the Illinois Head Start Association. “Will there be something attached to our grant that we have to certify?”

The latest version of the law governing who is eligible for Head Start says nothing about immigration status, but it does say that the program can use federal funds to train staff, counsel children, and provide other services that are “necessary to address the challenges of children from immigrant, refugee, and asylee families, homeless children, children in foster care, limited English proficient children, children of migrant or seasonal farmworker families, [and] children from families in crisis.”

The law says that children who are experiencing homelessness or whose families have incomes below the federal poverty line qualify. The Migrant Seasonal Head Start program also guarantees child care for the children of farm workers and seasonal workers.

This is not the first attempt to roll back educational rights for immigrant children and families. A number of Republican state legislators have backed bills that would limit enrollment for immigrant children or track their immigration status in ways that could intimidate families. So far, none has been successful. Meanwhile, the author of a brief from the conservative Heritage Foundation that called on states to charge undocumented children tuition to attend public school now works in the Education Department.

Restricting Head Start access could have ripple effects

Federal officials estimated that the Head Start change would free up $374 million a year for U.S. citizens and qualified immigrants to access Head Start, which represents about 3% of the program’s annual budget in recent years.

But keeping children out of Head Start could lead to more costs down the road for public schools, advocates warned. Kindergartners who don’t go to preschool may need more help with basics like learning their ABCs, colors, and how to work with classmates. They also may have missed out on health screenings.

“We’re really shortchanging our community by cutting them off from strong early childhood programs that are going to put them on the right path to be successful in K-12 schools where they have a guaranteed right to attend,” said Xilonin Cruz-Gonzalez, co-founder of the National Newcomer Network and deputy director of Californians Together, groups that advocate for immigrant rights in education.

There are typically many more children in poverty who qualify for Head Start than the program has funding to serve. A 2024 Government Accountability Office report found, for example, that for every 100 young children in poverty, there were typically 28 Head Start seats, with much larger gaps in some states.

Keeping out immigrant children wouldn’t necessarily close those gaps. The main factor limiting Head Start seats is a lack of trained teachers, said Diane Schilder, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, a public policy think tank.

“A lot of programs are having challenges hiring teachers in preschool and infant-toddler classrooms who meet the requirements because the wages are not adequate,” Schilder said.

Low-income families are less likely to have documents proving their children are citizens, Schilder said, and anti-immigrant sentiment can scare away even eligible families from applying. Parents are less likely to work when they don’t have access to child care. The effects of these changes would be felt most strongly in urban areas and in communities with a large agricultural workforce.

Head Start providers worry that verifying children’s immigration status will create more administrative work and could make it harder for all families to enroll. Federal officials estimated the cost of assembling documents and reviewing paperwork would be an additional $21 million a year.

And there would be more transition costs to change Head Start protocols, the federal notice stated.

Federal officials said the change would take effect as soon as it is published in the Federal Register. It has not been published, but has been submitted, the Trump administration said. The public will have 30 days to submit comments.

For now, Heather Frenz, the executive director of the Colorado Head Start Association, said her organization is telling Head Start providers to wait for further instructions before un-enrolling any children.

Reconsidering the eligibility or enrollment of children who are already attending Head Start would be expensive and time-consuming, Frenz said. The process involves everything from measuring children’s height and weight to drawing up individual plans.

And if undocumented children miss out on preschool and other services Head Start provides, Frenz said it could “put a lot of strain” on other public entities when those children get older.

“They may not speak English or have never seen a dentist,” Frenz said. “That’s going to be a heavy load on the public school education system.”

Chalkbeat New York reporter Michael Elsen-Rooney, Chalkbeat Philadelphia bureau chief Carly Sitrin, Chalkbeat Chicago bureau chief Becky Vevea, and Colorado bureau chief Melanie Asmar contributed reporting.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Norah Rami is a Dow Jones education reporting intern on Chalkbeat’s national desk. Reach Norah atnrami@chalkbeat.org.

Coming in 2026: A drop-in child care center at the Denver airport

2025-06-17T21:08:07+00:00

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Denver airport officials plan to open a small drop-in child care center in 2026 and are studying the possibility of opening another child care center that would serve more employees in the future.

The drop-in center will have room for 20 children and be located on the fourth level of the airport’s hotel and transit center, within a new training facility called the Center of Equity and Excellence in Aviation. The child care center is meant to provide occasional care and will primarily serve the children of airport employees or community members who are participating in training center activities.

While the planned center would serve only a tiny fraction of the airport’s more than 40,000 employees, it represents a first step toward boosting the number of child care seats in an area with limited supply. Officials at the airport, which is the nation’s third busiest, began studying the possibility of a child care center at or near the airport’s far northeast Denver campus earlier this year.

That area of the city has so few state-licensed child care slots, it’s considered a child care desert.

The Denver airport will soon join a few other U.S. airports with on- or near-site child care facilities. They include Los Angeles International Airport, which operates a center for the children of employees a few blocks from the airport campus, and Pittsburgh International Airport, which runs a center in a converted terminal. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport is slated to open a center on its campus this year. The three centers are bigger than what’s planned at Denver’s airport.

Denver’s drop-in center will have two classrooms — one for babies and toddlers and one for preschoolers — and a separate play area. It will be open 10 to 12 hours a day Monday through Friday year-round, including on holidays, according to the airport’s recent request for proposals, which seeks an operator to run the child care center.

Parents participating in activities at the airport training center will pay nothing for care. Some airport employees not participating in training activities also will be allowed to use the child care center for back-up care, but will have to pay a fee.

Ashley Forest, an airport spokesperson, said by email that she couldn’t provide information on which employees will be eligible for back-up care at the center or whether they will pay a discounted fee. She also couldn’t provide details on whether families will be limited to a certain number of weekly or monthly hours of care at the center.

Forest said plans for the drop-in center came out of the second phase of the airport’s three-phase child care feasibility study. The third phase will look at the possibility of “an airportwide child care solution,” which could be a second child care center on or near the airport campus.

Earlier this spring, airport officials estimated that 19,000 of more than 40,000 airport employees fall into the 20- to 39-year-old age range, but said they still needed more information about how many of those employees have young children and need child care.

The airport is working with a business-oriented group, Executives Partnering to Invest in Children, on the child care feasibility study. Forest said she expects a recommendation to come out of phase three later this year.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

¿Ansiedad ecológica en los niños pequeños? Estos profesores de educación infantil están a la última.

2025-06-05T17:58:07+00:00

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Stavros, un niño de 4 años de la escuela primaria Palmer de Denver, estaba de pie en una silla azul baja echando tierra en una maceta blanca que había decorado con la foto de su colegio y pegatinas de un donut, una cámara y la palabra “lucky” (suerte). A continuación, sacudió un paquete de semillas de flores silvestres autóctonas de Colorado y las agitó con el dedo índice.

“¿Qué más necesitamos?”, preguntó la maestra de preescolar Raegan Haines.

“Agua”, chilló el niño.

“Ha dado en el clavo”, añadió.

La actividad de jardinería en un lluvioso día de mayo es una de las formas en que Haines intenta que sus alumnos experimenten con la naturaleza y adquieran hábitos tempranos de cuidado del medio ambiente. Estas actividades, prácticas y apropiadas para cada edad, son el tipo de cosas que, según los expertos, ayudan a alejar la preocupación por el destino del mundo natural. En pocas palabras, la ansiedad ecológica.

Raegan Haines, profesora de preescolar de Palmer Elementary, ayuda a un alumno a plantar flores silvestres.

Este término, reconocido por la Asociación Americana de Psicología, se define sencillamente como el miedo crónico a la fatalidad medioambiental. En todo Colorado, muchos educadores de la primera infancia están creando momentos de enseñanza destinados a combatir la sensación de tristeza y desesperanza que puede conllevar.

Aunque la mayoría de los niños pequeños no saben lo que es el cambio climático, no son inmunes a sus aterradoras consecuencias, como inundaciones, incendios forestales y calor extremo, que pueden afectar a los niños de familias con bajos ingresos de forma más aguda que a sus compañeros con ingresos más altos. La información alarmante sobre la catástrofe climática también puede llegar a los niños de forma indirecta, a través de fragmentos de conversaciones de adultos e imágenes de las noticias 24 horas al día, 7 días a la semana.

“Entiendo por qué los niños se sienten así, porque tienen tanto acceso a los medios de comunicación todo el tiempo”, afirma Haines. “Cuando yo era pequeño, no me enteraba de los incendios forestales de California a menos que fueran muy, muy graves”.

Haines se encontraba entre las dos docenas de profesores de guardería y preescolar que llenaron recientemente una pequeña sala para asistir a una sesión de la conferencia de la primera infancia sobre cómo mitigar la ansiedad ecológica. Algunos dijeron que estaban interesados en la sesión porque ellos mismos sentían ansiedad ante el cambio climático o porque habían observado un repunte de la ansiedad en general entre sus jóvenes alumnos.

Una mujer dijo que había decidido asistir a la sesión tras una sorprendente conversación con su hija de 12 años.

“Su profesora le había dicho que cuando tenga 25 años... no podrá enseñar a sus hijos ciertas partes del océano y que muchos animales ya no estarán allí”, explicó.

Liz Beaven, una de las ponentes y presidenta de la Alianza para la Educación Pública Waldorf, tenía un nombre para eso: “Matar a los niños de un susto”.

Incluso las lecciones bienintencionadas pueden ser contraproducentes, afirma, y provocar que los niños se cierren en banda o se pongan muy nerviosos.

“Hay que equilibrar la información con un sentido de la posibilidad”, afirma.

Crear un oasis al aire libre en una plaza comercial

Los expertos afirman que los profesores de educación infantil pueden ofrecer a los niños experiencias que refuercen su aprecio por la naturaleza, aunque no tengan acceso a parques o parajes naturales. Es tan sencillo como dejar que los niños escarben en la tierra, planten flores o verduras y utilicen hojas y piñas para hacer manualidades, el tipo de cosas que muchos profesores ya hacen.

Step by Step Child Development Center, una guardería de Northglenn que atiende a muchas familias con bajos ingresos, ocupa un antiguo almacén de muebles en la esquina de un centro comercial. Detrás hay apartamentos y al lado se está construyendo un nuevo complejo para personas mayores.

En los últimos años, las subvenciones del programa de Salud Infantil al Aire Libre de la Federación Nacional de Vida Silvestre han ayudado al centro a renovar tres patios de recreo y un corredor al aire libre para que sean más propicios a la exploración de la naturaleza. Ninguno de ellos es lujoso, pero todos pretenden hacer que el aire libre sea interesante y accesible.

Alumnos de preescolar juegan en un charco en el Centro de Desarrollo Infantil Step by Step de Northglenn.

El pasillo tiene bancales elevados para cultivar un huerto, además de uno llamado “El parche de lombrices”, donde los niños pueden cavar en una tierra poblada de cientos de lombrices que la directora del centro, Michelle Dalbotten, encarga por Internet. El parque infantil está rodeado de jardineras bajas con plantas comestibles (pero sin fertilizante, ya que los bebés curiosos podrían intentar comérselo).

La zona de juegos para niños pequeños incluye una terraza de madera donde los niños a veces almuerzan o duermen la siesta. Un reciente día de primavera, una niña de 2 años ofreció a un visitante un puñado de tierra, diciendo: “Lámelo”.

Una maestra interpretó rápidamente el gesto, preguntando: “¿Intentas darle las magdalenas que estabas haciendo?”.

En el patio de recreo de preescolar, la gran estructura de plástico que era la pieza central hace tiempo que desapareció. Ahora hay huertos elevados, una “cocina de barro”, túneles apoyados en rocas, cubos llenos de troncos, un tipi para estar a solas, un camino pavimentado en curva y una casita de juegos al aire libre. A continuación, Dalbotten quiere instalar una cadena de tocones de árbol.

A principios de mayo, la estrella del espectáculo fue un charco de barro. Los preescolares saltaron al agua pardusca, la pisaron, tiraron piedras y colgaron en ella un muñeco de acción azul para que «nadara».

Ni los profesores ni los alumnos se preocuparon de que el agua salpicara pantalones, abrigos y botas. El centro advierte a los padres de que el tiempo al aire libre significa ensuciarse y guarda carritos llenos de calzado seco en la puerta principal.

Dalbotten afirmó que la transformación del exterior, que ha durado todo el año, ha hecho que alumnos y profesores se muestren más entusiastas a la hora de pasar tiempo al aire libre.

Contemplando el patio de recreo, dijo: “Esto es más divertido que tirar 200 veces el mismo camión por el mismo tobogán”.

Cambiar el mundo a la medida de los niños

A medida que los niños tienen más experiencias con la naturaleza, están más preparados para mejorar su rincón del mundo,

“Acción colectiva”, afirma Cathrine Aasen Floyd, consultora especializada en primera infancia, que participó junto con Beaven en la sesión sobre ansiedad ecológica. “Sabemos que están ocurriendo cosas negativas, pero podemos hacer mucho para conseguir estos cambios positivos”.

Jenni Bauderer, una amante de las plantas que enseña a niños de 2 años en Step by Step, intenta incluir pequeñas lecciones sobre la vida de las plantas y la jardinería al menos dos veces por semana.

“Creo que les enseña a respetar más la vida en general, porque a la mayoría de la gente no se le ocurre hablar a un niño de 2 años de las plantas y de que están vivas”, explica.

Bauderer comienza con la práctica de la siembra en las mesas sensoriales del aula. Los niños introducen las semillas en la tierra, las riegan y hablan de cómo necesitan el sol para crecer. A veces, coloca flores falsas en el jardín durante la siesta para que los niños encuentren flores al despertarse.

Bauderer ve el impacto de sus lecciones cuando se incorporan nuevos niños al aula.

“Tenemos una suculenta gigante en el centro y ellos simplemente entran y empiezan a destrozarla, y otros amigos dirán: ‘¡Noooo!”

Una maestra de pequeños del Centro de Desarrollo Infantil Step by Step de Northglenn ayuda a los niños a llenar un cubo con tierra.

En Palmer Elementary, que en otoño pasará de ser una escuela primaria a un centro de educación infantil, Haines también ofrece lecciones adaptadas a los niños con aplicaciones en el mundo real.

Esta primavera, los niños de 3 y 4 años aprendieron sobre los peligros de la basura oceánica y los beneficios del reciclaje a través de un libro ilustrado titulado “Salva el océano”. Trata de una tortuga marina que se come accidentalmente una bolsa de plástico y de una sirena que la salva.

Después de leer el libro, los niños de preescolar trabajaron con los de quinto para transformar viejas botellas de agua, envases de yogur y rollos de papel higiénico en un paisaje oceánico de criaturas marinas para una exposición en el pasillo.

A veces, durante la hora del círculo, Haines saca miniaturas de productos cotidianos -aderezo para ensaladas, galletas saladas y toallitas para bebés- y pide a cada alumno que decida si los envases deben ir a un pequeño contenedor azul de reciclaje o a un contenedor verde de basura.

“Hablamos del plástico blando frente al duro, y de la lata, el papel y el cartón”, explica. “Si alguien necesita ayuda, todos ayudamos a resolverlo”.

Una niña no necesitó ayuda para encontrar una solución al problema de la basura oceánica. Un día vino a clase con una propuesta muy sensata.

“Srta. Raegan, cojamos una gran grúa, vayamos al océano y recojámoslo todo, y así los animales estarán bien”.

Ann Schimke es reportera senior de Chalkbeat y cubre temas relacionados con la niñez temprana y la alfabetización temprana. Para comunicarte con Ann, envíale un email a aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por Juan Carlos Uribe para The Weekly Issue/El Semanario.

Eco-anxiety in little kids? These early childhood teachers are on the case.

2025-05-29T19:28:40+00:00

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Stavros, a 4-year-old at Denver’s Palmer Elementary School, stood on a low blue chair scooping soil into a white pot he’d decorated with his school picture and stickers of a donut, a camera, and the word “lucky.” Next, he shook in a packet of seeds for wildflowers native to Colorado and swirled them around with his index finger.

“What else do we need?” asked preschool teacher Raegan Haines.

“Water!” squealed the little boy.

“Nailed it,” she said.

The gardening activity on a rainy May day is one way Haines tries to give her students experience with nature and build early habits in environmental stewardship. These activities — hands-on and age appropriate — are the kinds of things experts say help stave off worry about the fate of the natural world. In short, eco-anxiety.

Palmer Elementary preschool teacher Raegan Haines helps a student plant wildflowers.

Recognized by the American Psychological Association, the term is most simply defined as the chronic fear of environmental doom. Across Colorado, many early childhood educators are creating teachable moments meant to combat the sense of sadness and hopelessness that can come with it.

Though most small children don’t know what climate change is, they’re not immune to its frightening impacts, including floods, wildfires, and extreme heat — all of which can affect children from low-income families more acutely than their higher income peers. Alarming information about climate disaster can also reach kids indirectly, through snippets of adult conversations and imagery from 24/7 news.

“I can see why kids are feeling like this, because they have so much access to media all the time,” said Haines. “When I was growing up, I didn’t know about the wildfires in California unless they were really, really bad.”

Haines was among about two dozen child care and preschool teachers who recently filled a small room for an early childhood conference session on mitigating eco-anxiety. Some said they were interested in the session because they feel anxious about climate change themselves or because they’d seen anxiety in general spike among their young students.

One woman said she’d decided to attend the session after a startling conversation with her 12-year-daughter.

“Her teacher had told her by the time she’s 25 … she will not be able to show her kids certain parts of the ocean and there’s a lot of animals that are not going to be there,” she said.

Liz Beaven, one of the presenters and president of the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education, had a name for that: “Scaring the kids to death.”

Even well-intentioned lessons can backfire, she said, prompting kids to shut down or become wildly anxious.

“We need to balance the information with a sense of possibility,” she said.

Creating an outdoor oasis in a shopping plaza

Experts say early childhood teachers can give kids experiences that bolster their appreciation for nature even if they don’t have ready access to parks or wild places. It’s as simple as letting kids dig in the dirt, plant flowers or veggies, and use leaves and pinecones for crafts — the kinds of things many teachers already do.

Step by Step Child Development Center, a Northglenn child care center that serves many low-income families, is housed in a former furniture warehouse in the corner of a strip mall. Behind it are apartments and next to it a new senior living complex is going up.

Over the last several years, grants from the National Wildlife Federation’s Early Childhood Health Outdoors program have helped the center revamp three playgrounds and an outdoor breezeway so they’re more conducive to nature exploration. None of them are fancy, but they all aim to make the outdoors interesting and accessible.

A toddler sits in her favorite chair under a pergola parents helped build at Step by Step Child Development Center in Northglenn.

The breezeway has raised beds for gardening, plus one called “The Worm Patch” where kids can dig in soil populated with hundreds of earthworms that center Director Michelle Dalbotten orders online. The infant playground is ringed with low garden beds that contain edible plants (but no fertilizer since curious babies might try to eat it).

The toddler playground includes a wooden deck where children sometimes eat lunch or take naps. On a recent spring day, a 2-year-old girl offered a visitor a handful of dirt, saying, “Lick it.”

A teacher quickly interpreted the gesture, asking, “Are you trying to give her the cupcakes you were making?”

A toddler teacher at Step by Step Child Development Center in Northglenn helps children fill a bucket with dirt.

On the preschool playground, the large plastic play structure that was once its centerpiece is long gone. Now, there are raised garden beds, a “mud kitchen,” tunnels propped on boulders, bins full of logs, a teepee for alone time, a curving paved path, and an open air playhouse. Next, Dalbotten wants to install a string of tree stumps.

In early May, the star of the show was a mud puddle. Preschoolers jumped into the brownish water, stomped through it, dropped rocks in it, and dangled a blue action figure into it so he could “swim.”

Neither teachers nor students worried about the water splashing onto pants, coats, and boots. The center warns parents that outside time means getting dirty and stows carts full of dry footwear by the front door.

Preschool students play in a puddle at Step by Step Child Development Center in Northglenn.

Dalbotten said the yearslong outdoor transformation has made students and teachers more enthusiastic about spending time outside.

Gazing at the playground, she said, “This is more fun than throwing the same truck off the same slide 200 times.”

Changing the world in kid-sized ways

As kids have more experiences with nature, they are primed to to improve their corner of the world,

“Collective action,” said Cathrine Aasen Floyd, an early childhood consultant who presented with Beaven at the eco-anxiety session. “We know there’s negative things going on, but there’s a lot that we can do to make these positive changes.”

Preschoolers at Palmer Elementary planted wildflower seeds to give to family members at the end of school.

Jenni Bauderer, a plant-lover who teaches 2-year-olds at Step by Step, tries to include small lessons about plant life and gardening at least twice a week.

“I just think it teaches them more respect for life in general, because most people don’t think about telling a 2-year old about plants and that they’re alive,” she said.

Bauderer begins with planting practice in the classroom sensory tables. The toddlers push seeds into dirt, water them, and talk about how they need sun to grow. Sometimes, she stages fake blooms in the garden during nap time so the kids find flowers when they wake up.

Bauderer sees the impact of her lessons when new children join the classroom.

“We have one giant succulent in the middle and they just go in and start ripping it apart, and other friends will be like, ‘Noooo!’”

At Palmer Elementary, which in the fall will switch from an elementary school to an early childhood center, Haines also offers child-friendly lessons with real-world applications.

This spring, 3- and 4-year-olds learned about the dangers of ocean garbage and the benefits of recycling through a picture book called “Save the Ocean.” It’s about a sea turtle who accidentally eats a plastic bag and a mermaid who saves him.

After reading the book, the preschoolers worked with fifth graders to transform old water bottles, yogurt containers, and toilet paper rolls into an oceanscape of sea creatures for a hallway display.

Palmer Elementary preschoolers worked with fifth graders to create an ocean scene using recycled materials.

During circle time, Haines sometimes brings out miniatures of everyday products — salad dressing, crackers, and baby wipes — and asks each student to decide whether the packages should go into a tiny blue recycling bin or a green garbage bin.

“We talked about soft plastic versus hard plastic, and tin and paper and cardboard,” she said. “If somebody needs help, we’ll all help figure it out.”

One little girl didn’t need help finding a fix for the ocean garbage problem. She came to class one day with a no-nonsense proposal.

“Miss Raegan, we get a big crane and we go into the ocean and we scoop it all out, and then the animals will be OK.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org

Last of COVID money helps create child care seats in rural Colorado

2025-05-21T23:01:23+00:00

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A rural school district, a college, and a science museum in western Colorado will all open new or expanded child care centers over the next two years, all funded in part with state grants for employer-based child care.

The projects include an expanded child care center in the Buena Vista school district, three child care classrooms in The Powerhouse, a children’s science museum in Durango, and a new child care space at Colorado Mountain College in Garfield County. The Buena Vista center will open this fall, and the other two will open in the fall of 2026.

Together, the projects will create about 330 new child care seats, chipping away at the perennial problem of child care shortages, particularly in Colorado’s rural communities. The state grant program, which aims to help employers provide child care for their workers, is largely funded with federal COVID stimulus money. With those dollars now used up, the grant program will end.

Child care programs offered inside or near workplaces can reduce staff turnover, shrink commute times, boost morale, and provide child care hours that better match parents’ work hours.

Colorado’s employer-based child care grant program gave out five rounds of grants — most worth $500,000 to $800,000 — to more than two dozen projects. They funded new child care centers at a ski resort in Steamboat Springs, a community hospital in Grand Junction, and a school district in La Veta. In several cases, new child care seats were made available to both employees and other local residents.

Many grant recipients got started by participating in a program that guides businesses through the complicated process of opening child care centers on their sites or nearby. It’s called the Design Lab and is run by the business group Executives Partnering to Invest in Children, or EPIC. From 2021 to 2024, the state kicked in more than $270,000 to help run the program.

“The success of the Design Lab and employer-based child care model is proof that when businesses and government collaborate around family-focused solutions, we create lasting impact,” said Lisa Roy, the executive director of Colorado’s Department of Early Childhood, in a press release.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

NYC preschool offers yield waitlists in some neighborhoods, empty seats in others

2025-05-20T22:06:52+00:00

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Over the past week, families of preschoolers got offers to New York City’s sprawling free early childhood education system — and acceptance rate data shared Tuesday by city officials contains a familiar paradox.

Even as the city faces a historic child care affordability crisis, tens of thousands of free seats will likely go vacant once again next school year. Roughly 56,000 students turning 4 by the end of 2025 got offers last week to the city’s pre-K program, which has capacity for roughly 70,000, according to data shared Tuesday by Education Department officials with the City Council. Another 44,000 students turning 3 this year got offers Tuesday for 3-K, which has room for 47,000.

Across the roughly 130,000 total early childhood education seats overseen by the city’s Education Department, only about 70% are currently filled, according to Simone Hawkins, the deputy chancellor for Early Childhood Education.

Officials, advocates and lawmakers point to a number of potential reasons, including a lack of outreach, a drop in the population of young kids, and a mismatch between the location of seats and demand.

“We have to really face the reality that this sector is very much stressed and strained for a variety of reasons,” said Hawkins, who took over as deputy chancellor last July after her predecessor’s rocky two-and-a-half-year tenure. “I do think that outreach is part of the solution. It’s not the whole solution. It’s a matter of really moving seats closer to where the demand lives.”

Despite all those empty seats, thousands of families didn’t get into any of their preferred programs, officials said. Roughly 15% of 3-K applicants, more than 6,000 students, didn’t get into any of the programs they listed on their application and were instead assigned other options by the city — leaving some facing long commutes.

Rebecca Bailin, the executive director of New Yorkers United for Childcare, said her organization has already heard from multiple families concerned that their 3-K offer is too far away or has hours that don’t work.

One family living near the border of Bushwick and Ridgewood was placed in a program roughly 40 minutes away and not easily accessible by train, according to survey results shared with Chalkbeat.

“I can’t get there every morning with a 3 year old, it’s just not feasible,” wrote the parent, who said they would likely have to continue paying for a private program.

City officials noted that this year, unlike last, every family at least got an offer. Some families might get into programs off waitlists over the summer, officials added. And while families can apply for up to 12 programs, about half of the families applying to preschool rank only one or two programs, according to a report commissioned several years ago by the Education Department.

Zachary Nosanchuk, a spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams, said the mayor’s recent commitment to long-term funding for 3-K is allowing the city for the first time to offer “a seat in 3-K for every child and family who wants one.” City officials will “continue to work with families to ensure every child can attend a program that meets their needs,” he added.

Officials have for years pointed to a misalignment between where seats are located and where there’s demand but have yet to make a major dent in fixing the problem. The rate of filled 3-K seats varies widely across the city — from a low of 61% in District 23 in central Brooklyn to a high of 98% in District 30 in western Queens, according to a recent report from the Independent Budget Office.

Hawkins said the department is constrained by the contracts that govern the city’s relationship with scores of community-based organizations who operate the lion’s share of the 3-K and pre-K programs. She said the city is doing its best to work within those contracts to shift seats to better align with demand, including converting pre-K seats into 3-K seats and shifting seats currently earmarked as full-year seats only for low-income families to school year seats for any family.

In addition, city officials are seeking to shift more of their federally-funded Head Start seats to 0- to 2-year-olds because of growing demand for that age range, they said.

Factors including the cost of housing and the COVID-19 pandemic have also contributed to a shrinking number of young kids in the five boroughs. The population of kids under 5 in New York City shrank by 18% between 2020 and 2023.

But many advocates and lawmakers say the city still has a long way to go in making families who are here aware of the program and how to apply.

“We’ve talked to parents … who didn’t even know about 3-K,” said Bailin. And even though Adams committed to long-term funding to sustain 3-K in this year’s budget, Bailin argued that years of budget uncertainty has hampered the city’s ability to effectively administer the program.

Adams agreed to add $5 million to the fiscal year 2025 budget specifically for outreach, and included the funding again for this year, but not beyond that. It’s one of several education items council members are fighting to get long-term funding for.

Hawkins agreed with suggestions from several council members that the Education Department should embark on a more wholesale reimagining of the early childhood education system.

“It’s not just about opening new seats … it’s not just about the age of seats, but the type of seats and the people who are supporting these children through their learning trajectory,” she said.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Philadelphia City Council president proposes early childhood task force as workers seek higher wages

2025-05-12T20:39:46+00:00

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Hundreds of Philadelphians rallied at City Hall on Monday demanding more support for what they say is an understaffed, underresourced, and underappreciated field: Early childhood education.

“We are the people raising your kids,” said Tyrone Scott, director of government and external affairs at First Up, an early childhood advocacy group. “Acknowledge us.”

Scott spoke about the challenges for early childhood education as part of the national Day Without Childcare protests. Child care centers in Philly have experienced severe staffing shortages and rising costs in recent years. That’s led to classroom closures and other strains that have restricted families’ access to free public pre-K seats and child care opportunities.

Philadelphia City Council President Kenyatta Johnson, who has used child care services for his two children and spoke at the event, pledged to launch a city task force to figure out how to make child care workers the “number one priority” in the city.

“Our teachers, our workers that come day in and day out, you deserve a high-quality raise. You deserve high-quality benefits,” Johnson told the crowd. “If we can provide subsidies and support for big time developers … then surely we can find ways to support what I believe is the most essential service here in the city of Philadelphia, that’s early childhood development.”

Though Johnson did not lay out how the task force would work, speakers at Monday’s rally said they’ll hold their elected officials to that promise.

To create such a task force, Johnson will need to draft and introduce a resolution laying out what it would do before bringing the measure to fellow council members for a vote.

Johnson wants to put the resolution to a vote before his colleagues leave for summer recess on June 12, said Vincent Thompson, Johnson’s communications director. If it passes, Johnson would then have to appoint people to the group. The soonest the task force could start work would be late summer or early fall.

Early childhood advocates like Scott are also asking Pennsylvania lawmakers to support Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed $55 million for child care workforce recruitment and retention grants that would raise wages for child care workers by about $1,000 per employee.

But state budget negotiations are tense. And Shapiro’s plan is just a start, Scott said. His group estimates that early childhood teachers in most Pennsylvania counties will need at least $5,000 more to earn a living wage.

In Philadelphia County, the estimated full-time hourly rate for these teachers as of 2021 was $14.37 for annual earnings of $29,884.

Philadelphians gathered at City Hall for the national "day without childcare."

Last year, Philly Mayor Cherelle Parker added signing and retention bonuses for some early childhood teachers, but those in the workforce said they need more significant wage increases.

Lisa Burden, administrative director at Your Child’s World child care center, said costs to run a high-quality center are rising. She said many of her teachers rely on federal food benefits and other forms of government assistance to remain in their jobs because they love their work. But she’s lost staff to higher paying jobs at fast food restaurants and retail stores.

“We need more money, not only in order to pay our bills, but also to pay our staff,” Burden said. “There’s a lot of children now with special needs, and because of that, we need more teachers in every classroom.”

Erica Fitzgerald, an educator at Lovie Lee’s Stars of Tomorrow child care center, said “temporary” fixes like grants and bonuses may be nice, but they are no substitute for long-term, sustained wage increases.

“It’s time to stand on business,” she said. “We want stable wages.”

Sharmaine Wims used a day off from work to come to Monday’s rally with her grandson Zah-Fir.

Zah-Fir can be “all over the place” and is learning to manage his emotions, said Wims. Wims’ son, Zah-Fir’s father, was murdered when Zah-Fir was two months old and she’s since had to take care of him, she said.

Wims said Zah-Fir’s early childhood teachers at Whiz Kidz Developmental and Early Learning Academy have been crucial partners in helping her support him and her other grandchildren while she works to earn money for the family.

“It’s horrible, they get paid nothing,” Wims said of Zah-Fir’s educators. “My grandson has learned so much. They’re not babysitting him. He’s [practically] in school.”

Wims said she’s tired of hearing “all these words” from elected officials about how valuable early childhood educators are. She wants to see wages rise for the people who care for her grandson.

“I can’t imagine them not being there,” Wims said.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Eric Adams touts after-school, child care investments in executive budget proposal

2025-05-01T23:15:58+00:00

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Education and youth were front and center in Mayor Eric Adams’ executive budget proposal Thursday as he touted plans to boost spending on child care and after-school programs.

Overall, Adams’ $115.1 billion executive budget proposes roughly $18.3 billion in city funding for the Education Department’s operating budget. That’s a roughly $670 million increase over the city’s education spending this fiscal year and $4.7 billion more than the city allocated in 2019, according to budget documents — increases that have kept the city’s education budget growing as federal aid diminished.

Several of the big ticket items, including reversing plans to let early childhood education funding expire and expanding investment in after-school programs, were already publicized in the days and weeks leading up to Thursday’s executive budget. Officials also committed to supporting several other education programs initially funded by one-time federal aid, which was set to expire this year, and promised funding to boost teacher hiring to shrink class sizes.

“No one will feel the impact more than our students because this is the best budget ever for families and young people,” Adams said during his budget address at Bayside High School in Queens, his alma mater.

Leaders of the City Council, who will negotiate with Adams in the coming months to adopt a final budget, had called for roughly $800 million in new education spending, and said Thursday’s announcement was a good start but only came after sustained pushback from the council and advocates. The final budget is due by the end of June.

“This is how the budget process should work, but it’s disappointing that it took three years for this administration to become tired of being entirely on the wrong side of doing right by New Yorkers,” said Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, a Queens Democrat who is running against Adams for mayor, and Finance Committee Chair Justin Brannan, a Brooklyn Democrat, in a joint statement.

Other city officials questioned whether Adams’ executive budget adequately took into account threats to the city’s budget and economy at the state and federal level.

“Eric Adams’ Executive Budget is from a fantasyland where Trump’s tariffs aren’t increasing the likelihood of an economic downturn and federal budget cuts aren’t looming,” said Comptroller Brad Lander, who is also running for mayor.

Office of Management and Budget director Jacques Jiha countered that the city’s reserves are at record levels and the city’s revenue projections are appropriately conservative.

After-school and child care get big investments

Several of the biggest spending proposals in the executive budget are efforts to shore up child care programs at a time when the city’s increasing unaffordability for families continues to be a major issue in the mayoral race.

Adams previously announced that he would reverse plans to let $112 million for the city’s free preschool program for 3-year-olds — and another $55 million for special education preschool seats — expire at the end of this fiscal year. Adams also announced Thursday that he will continue funding a program providing child care vouchers to undocumented families at $25 million a year, though the City Council has asked for more.

Earlier this week, Adams unveiled a plan he said will set the city on a path to universal after-school care. The plan proposes adding 5,000 K-5 after-school seats by this fall and another 15,000 by fall 2027. Officials said they will conduct a needs assessment in 2027 to see how many additional seats are needed to reach universality and re-bid contracts to improve payment rates for after-school providers. All told, the expansion will cost roughly $331 million a year by 2027, according to budget documents.

Federal and state threats loom

Despite the increase in education spending, budget officials acknowledged some looming threats and uncertainties at both the state and federal level.

A final state budget still hasn’t been officially released a month after the due date, though Gov. Kathy Hochul sketched the outlines of the deal earlier this week. That deal will include a statewide “bell-to-bell” school cellphone ban — a mandate budget officials said would cost the city about $25 million and “have a negative impact on the City’s financial plan.” Officials said the figure was based on Education Department estimates for purchasing cellphone pouches and other implementation costs. But officials did not yet know how much financial support to expect from the state.

Other state threats include a likely change to the school funding formula that would deliver the city roughly $350 million less than the current formula and a gaping budget shortfall for a popular child care voucher program. The state budget deal is unlikely to provide the funding necessary to keep families from losing access to the vouchers, but Adams is continuing to lobby the state to fill the gap, the New York Daily News reported.

Adams told reporters Thursday that the program is still facing a $300 million budget gap.

“No one is talking about the shortchanging of New York City on the state level,” he said.

Budget officials also acknowledged that threats from the Trump administration to cut off federal funding for school districts offering certain diversity, equity, and inclusion programs — currently on hold because of legal challenges — jeopardizes $2 billion for city schools that could result in “staffing reductions, increased class sizes, and cuts to after-school and support programs.”

Some relief for programs propped up by federal COVID dollars

Some education programs previously funded by one-time federal COVID relief money and on the chopping block for next year were given a reprieve in Thursday’s budget.

Those include Project Pivot, a priority of former Chancellor David Banks that gives schools money to work with community-based organizations to prevent violence, which will get $15 million in this and future budgets, according to budget documents.

Other programs getting long-term funding commitments include arts education, computer science courses, and a tutoring program.

A program to provide additional support for students experiencing mental health crises will get $5 million for next year but no commitment beyond that, according to advocates.

Increased teacher hiring budget comes into focus

Thursday’s budget announcement also provided the first clues about how much the city will spend on its upcoming teacher hiring blitz to comply with the state’s class size law.

Adams previously announced that schools will get additional money to hire some 3,700 extra teachers on top of normal hiring for next school year, but officials have been tight-lipped about how much that will cost and where the money is coming from.

According to budget documents released Thursday, the city will commit $150 million for extra teacher hiring this year and $200 million annually in future years. Budget officials said state funding will be “reflected later” but didn’t clarify how much they expect and whether that will be in addition to or instead of the city’s contribution. Union officials said the state money will be in addition to the city funds, but that the precise amount is still unclear.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado’s preschool program ranks high for enrollment, low for quality guardrails, report finds

2025-04-29T04:01:00+00:00

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Colorado’s popular universal preschool program has dramatically increased the number of 4-year-olds who get state-funded preschool, but it’s unfolded largely without guardrails to ensure quality.

A report released Tuesday by the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University highlights these twin realities and provides a more detailed look at where Colorado stands compared to other states.

Overall, the report suggests Colorado has prioritized quantity over quality as it moved from a small tuition-free preschool program for children with certain risk factors to one that’s open to all 4-year-olds. The state’s universal preschool enrollment numbers are impressive, with 70% of eligible children enrolled last year

That number helped Colorado leapfrog from its previous ranking of 27 to third in this year’s “State of Preschool” report. Only Washington, D.C. and Vermont had a larger share of 4-year-olds enrolled in public preschool programs last year.

Leaders at the research institute noted that California added more 4-year-olds to state-funded preschool than Colorado last year — 35,000 compared with 30,000 — but Colorado made far bigger gains than California when it comes to the percentage of children served.

“The progress Colorado made in terms of enrollment and expanding access was pretty remarkable,” said Allison Friedman-Krauss, an associate research professor at the institute.

But Colorado’s showing deteriorated in the quality standards department. In the latest report, it meets only two of 10 benchmarks, down from four in the previous preschool program. The benchmarks, which describe state policies that promote high-quality classrooms, touch on factors such as teacher training, curriculum, and class size.

Colorado officials plan to put new rules governing universal preschool quality in place, but plan to postpone the start date by a year to July 2026. It’s the third time the rules have been delayed.

“They kicked the can down the road one more time,” said W. Steven Barnett, senior co-director of the institute.

Dawn Odean, the state’s universal preschool program director, acknowledged that the state has delayed the rules, but said Barnett’s statement is misleading because Colorado has been working on efforts related to quality for a long time and continues to do so.

She described the state’s approach as “going slow to go fast.”

Colorado leaders repeatedly pledged that universal preschool would provide high-quality classes, starting when they pitched the program to voters, who approved a nicotine tax in 2020 to help fund it.

But currently, the “universal preschool” label doesn’t indicate anything about the caliber of classroom a child will join. Rather, it simply indicates the state is paying for 10 to 30 hours of class time. Of about 2,000 preschools participating in the program, some are excellent and have high state ratings, some are weak and meet only basic health and safety standards, and some are in between.

Experts say high-quality preschool can produce short- and long-term benefits for kids.

In the report, Colorado got credit for meeting two quality benchmarks: having a set of early learning and development standards and providing guidance to preschools on curriculum. While the state has not yet released a list of curriculum approved for use in universal preschool classrooms, that is slated to happen sometime this year.

Texas, Wisconsin, and Indiana are the only other states to hit only two of the institute’s preschool quality benchmarks. More than a dozen states and Washington D.C. meet 9 or 10 of the benchmarks. They include two of Colorado’s neighbors: New Mexico and Oklahoma.

Colorado didn’t meet benchmarks requiring class size caps of 20 and staff-student ratios of 1 to 10. Both limits have prompted heated debate over the last two years. Some private providers have argued they’ll lose money if they have to reduce class sizes below the state’s current cap of 24 and ratios below the current limit of one staff member for every 12 4-year-olds.

By the 2027-28 school year, state officials do plan to require the class size and ratio caps recommended by the research institute for universal preschool. There’s one big exception though: Preschools that have one of the top two state ratings will be allowed to stick with the current caps.

Colorado also didn’t meet benchmarks related to the types of credentials teachers or assistant teachers should have or annual training and coaching for staff.

Lisa Roy, executive director of the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, which administers the universal preschool program, said when Colorado’s rules on preschool quality are fully implemented over the next few years, she anticipates the state will meet at least half of the institute’s benchmarks.

Odean noted that the institute’s 10 benchmarks look at “outputs,” but that Colorado is focused on child outcomes.

“What families tell us consistently, and educators too, is that those outcomes are what’s a priority, and that’s not contemplated in the NIEER ratings,” she said, referring to the institute’s acronym.

The institute’s report describes its benchmarks as “a set of minimum criteria, established by state policy, needed to ensure effectiveness of preschool education programs.”

Barnett said Colorado parents should think carefully before moving their children away from a high-quality program that’s not part of the state’s universal program to a lower-quality provider that is.

“When people did that in Quebec in response to [$10-a-day] child care … kids’ development suffered for a decade,” he said.

Barnett was referring to an effort begun in the 1990s that offered highly discounted child care to Quebec families. While the effort allowed more women to join the workforce, many children were put in low-quality centers. Subsequent studies found negative impacts on children, including increased anxiety and aggression.

A 2019 study that revealed additional negative outcomes as the children became teens and young adults, concluded, “Our findings provide strong support for the argument that the early childhood development environment is a crucial determinant of the long-term success of children.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org

In tough budget year, raises for Colorado child care workers win continued support from lawmakers

2025-04-22T22:53:32+00:00

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What happens when teachers who earn a bit above the minimum wage get a 30% or 40% raise?

They cry, cheer, and dance. Some quit second jobs, worry less about bills, and sign up for retirement plans or health insurance.

These are some of the things that started in 2023 when Colorado used $9 million in COVID stimulus money to boost the wages of more than 300 teachers and assistant teachers at about 20 child care centers across the state. It was part of a two-year pilot program meant to examine how pay increases affected staff recruitment, retention, and well-being in an industry notorious for low wages and high turnover.

With the stimulus money set to run out in June, the program’s future was uncertain. But state officials told Chalkbeat on Tuesday that Colorado lawmakers found $2.9 million to keep the program going for another year. The money is included in the state’s budget, called the “long bill,” which won final approval Monday from the legislature. Gov. Jared Polis hasn’t signed the bill yet.

It’s a big win considering scores of cuts Colorado lawmakers made in recent weeks as they scrambled to close a $1.2 billion shortfall in next year’s budget. Only days ago, continued funding for the program seemed doubtful and leaders at pilot sites were cobbling together plans to keep the wage increases going on their own.

Some planned to increase staff-student ratios or cut the fresh fruits and vegetables budget. Others, like Rosie Evans, director of Evans Early Childhood Center in Fort Morgan, had reluctantly announced big tuition hikes.

She knew it was a hefty ask for families, but she felt strongly about maintaining the $5-an-hour raises for lead teachers and the $3-an-hour raises for assistant teachers. The pilot-funded increases boosted wages for lead teachers to $21-$24 an hour, close to teacher salaries in the local school district.

“I really feel this pilot had a profound impact on our program,” Evans said.

“It starts with the teachers and then it just trickles down to everything when you have stable, consistent caregivers. Children feel safe. They can grow, they can learn. Our turnover was almost non-existent,” she said.

Wage bumps help with school, health insurance, and 401Ks

To qualify for the wage increase pilot, child care centers were required to have one of the state’s top three quality ratings — Level 3, 4, or 5 — and serve a sizable chunk of students from low-income families that receive child care subsidies. Of 74 centers that applied, 22 were selected and 19 have participated throughout.

One of them is Step By Step Child Development Center in Northglenn.

Director Michelle Dalbotten remembers when she learned that her center had been accepted.

“It was like winning the lotto,” she said. “I went around and screamed happiness to everyone.”

At the time, staff salaries ranged from around $14 to $19 an hour, depending on job title and experience. The pilot program gave her lead teachers raises of $7.58 an hour and assistant teachers $5.51, said Dalbotten. Under the pilot, wage increases vary by region of the state.

About 20 staff members got raises through the pilot and Step By Step separately paid for raises for a few other employees, including kitchen and administrative staff, who weren’t covered by the pilot funding.

Like Evans, Dalbotten wasn’t planning to renege on the wage increases if lawmakers didn’t approve more pilot funding for next year. That’s because she’s seen the difference higher pay makes for her staff. Since the pilot began, more of her employees joined the center’s health insurance program, 10 started paying into the retirement program, and several went back to school for additional training, she said.

State officials are currently studying the impact of the pilot, with the final report expected in the fall. Anecdotally, they’ve seen increases in child care workers’ mental and financial well-being and decreases in staff turnover and the number of employees who work second jobs, said Michele Stillwell-Parvensky, early childhood workforce compensation administrator at the Colorado Department of Early Childhood.

Before she knew the pilot funding would continue, Dalbotten brainstormed ways to absorb the loss.

She considered increasing the center’s extremely low staff-student ratios during parts of the day or cutting how often the center offers fresh produce like strawberries, peaches, and broccoli. Another possible cut: the center’s dedicated cleaning employee, who was hired during COVID so teachers wouldn’t have to do so much deep cleaning and disinfecting.

Galvanizing grass roots support for child care

Brooke Gray, who has two young children, teaches part time in the “butterflies” classroom and serves as assistant director at Evans Early Childhood Center.

A classroom at Evans Early Childhood in Fort Morgan in northeastern Colorado.

Thanks to the raise she got through the state pilot program, she was able to contribute enough to the family finances that her husband could quit his exhausting power company job. Instead of 12-hour shifts and frequent weekend and holiday work, he opted for a 9-to-5 job with lower pay.

“He’s home every night, he’s home on weekends, he’s home on holidays. So we are able to spend that time together as a family and … we didn’t lose our new house,” said Gray.

Such stories illustrate the impact of a living wage on child care workers, but also highlight the challenge involved in achieving that goal.

“It’s the hardest part of having a child care center, the balance of paying staff a worthy wage and keeping rates where families can afford it,” said Evans, the center’s director. “It’s enormously hard.”

Earlier this spring, before she knew the state would continue funding the pilot, she announced tuition hikes averaging $300 per child per month. But she also wanted to build grassroots momentum for a better, long-term solution.

On a recent Friday afternoon at the center, she held a brainstorming meeting with more than a dozen parents. They discussed all kinds of options — a spaghetti dinner fundraiser, how to push for a property tax rebate for the center, and the creation of a local early childhood taxing district similar to one that’s slated to go before voters in the Roaring Fork Valley next November.

Evans still plans to pursue these ideas alongside staff and parents, but Tuesday’s happy budget news is “a gamechanger,” she said. It means she can ease up on the big tuition hikes and approach the community campaign more thoughtfully.

“I was thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, how are we going to pull this off in a month before June?’” Evans said. “If we still have another year, then I feel like that gives us adequate time to really prepare.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org

NYC commits $167 million to shore up early childhood education system amid federal threats

2025-04-16T20:30:31+00:00

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After threatening to allow nearly $200 million in early childhood spending to expire, Mayor Eric Adams announced plans Wednesday to keep most of it in the budget for next year and beyond.

The move will restore $112 million for 3-K, the city’s free preschool program for 3-year-olds, and $55 million to help address a chronic shortage of seats for preschool children with disabilities.

Education Department officials also committed to temporarily using city money to sustain some federally funded Head Start programs amid the Trump administration’s efforts to slash the program.

In a press conference Wednesday alongside his predecessor Bill de Blasio, who launched the city’s free universal preschool program, Adams touted the restoration as a historic investment in the early childhood education system.

“This is a Herculean task that we are able to accomplish,” Adams said.

Adams, who faces an uphill battle for reelection this year, promised to make the funding a permanent part of the budget.

The announcement was welcome news for many early childhood education providers who have been deeply concerned about budget threats at both the state and federal level next year.

“Against the backdrop of simultaneous challenges facing early childhood education programs and providers in NYC, including significant funding shortfalls in the State’s child care assistance program and looming threats to Head Start funding at the Federal level, today’s announcement provides much-needed relief,” said Tara Gardner, the executive director of the Daycare Council, which represents dozens of childcare providers.

The move to restore the early childhood funding now instead of at the last minute after negotiations with City Council, as Adams did last year, could also ease political pressure on the mayor.

But leaders of the City Council, none of whom were present at Wednesday’s announcement, were not so quick to praise Adams, noting that he did not restore all of the expiring funding and that he could have avoided the cuts in the first place.

“Taking funding away from children’s programs that our families rely on and only putting some of it back doesn’t make you a champion; it only harms the early childhood education system,” said Council speaker Adrienne Adams, education chair Rita Joseph, and finance chair Justin Brannan in a joint statement.

Mayor Adams said he left the funding out of his preliminary budget in January because of “economic uncertainties.”

Speaker Adams, who is running for mayor, has also called on Mayor Adams to renew funding in his executive budget for a $25 million program that offers families seats with extended hours and $84 million to expand access to child care vouchers. That budget is expected by the end of the month.

A new chapter in yearslong battle to sustain 3-K funding

Wednesday’s announcement is the latest chapter in a battle over early childhood education that has been simmering since Adams took office in 2022, when the system was still reeling from pandemic-driven enrollment declines but flush with federal COVID aid.

De Blasio had used hundreds of millions of dollars of that aid to aggressively expand 3-K in an effort to make it universal, like he’d previously done for prekindergarten. But the Adams administration backed off that promise — swamped by more immediate problems including thousands of vacant seats in some neighborhoods and a severe payment delay crisis that forced some programs to shutter.

Adams officials at the time were not shy about laying the blame for those problems at the feet of the de Blasio administration, with former schools Chancellor David Banks saying “there have been a lot of messes to try to clean up.” Critics countered that many of the problems were self-inflicted and the result of poor leadership that led to a mass exodus in the Education Department’s early childhood division.

De Blasio and Adams put any animosity aside on Wednesday.

“One can have differences on applications, implementations, but we don’t differ on the foundation,” said Adams. “We are joined at the hip, and now we are building on what he started.”

As the federal COVID aid that funded the 3-K expansion expired, funding for early childhood education became a major point of contention with the City Council.

The commitment to make the 3-K and special education funding permanent could ease that battle and create more stability for providers, but challenges with the system remain.

Last year, 3-K enrollment was roughly 44,000, with more than 8,000 unfilled seats, according to city data. Pre-K enrollment was around 59,000 last year — down from a peak of over 70,000 before the pandemic — with 14,000 unfilled seats. Even with all those vacant seats, thousands of students didn’t initially get an offer to one of their preferred 3-K programs last year.

Adams said the city has more work to do in better aligning seats with demand, but said the process of closing seats in areas without high enough demand can be “painful … we have to be sensitive on how do we address that without traumatizing families and children.”

Council members fought last year to get an additional $5 million to improve the city’s outreach efforts to help fill vacant seats, but that money so far has not been restored for next year’s budget.

Students with disabilities face chronic shortage

The city’s promise of universal preschool has for years failed to reach students with disabilities, who have faced a chronic shortage of seats.

Adams vowed to address the problem by boosting funding to help community organizations make their wages more competitive and adding $55 million to open new seats.

Advocates praised the restoration of that $55 million, but it will likely still not be enough to guarantee a spot for every student who has a legal right to one.

About 651 preschool students with disabilities were waiting for placements this spring, Christina Foti, the city’s top special education official, said during a March City Council hearing.

Plus, advocates contend even more aggressive investments are needed to provide those students with a full range of services. More than 7,900 preschool students had not yet received at least one mandated service, such as speech or physical therapy. Nearly 4,600 of them — or 58% — had yet to receive any special education services listed on their learning plan, Foti said at the March hearing.

To address those gaps, advocates have called for $70 million more to beef up evaluations and services — funding that Adams has not yet committed.

Some Head Start providers get some relief, but fears loom large

Officials also promised Wednesday to use city money to help stabilize some Head Start providers facing deep uncertainty because of the Trump administration’s efforts to slash the program.

Head Start, which began in 1965 as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty, funds early childhood programs for roughly 20,000 kids from low-income families across the city, according to federal data.

Providers who offer the program can either contract directly with the federal government, or subcontract from the city Education Department, which holds a Head Start grant for about 6,000 seats.

The program is facing several looming threats in the five boroughs. The grant held by the city Education Department ends in June, and the city was forced to re-compete for its contract because past concerns about its performance led to an audit. The city has not yet heard back on the results of that application, but officials have said they’re expecting big changes — ranging from receiving less money than before, to a change in the age distribution of seats, to losing the grant altogether — creating uncertainty for providers and families.

On top of that, U.S. Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. abruptly closed five of the 10 regional Head Start offices across the country, including New York’s, in late March, leaving providers in the dark about who is reviewing the city’s grant applications and when — or if — they’ll hear back.

“There’s a question of … are they reviewing these applications at all?” said Bridget O’Rourke, the associate executive director of early childhood education at University Settlement.

In the longer term, Project 2025, the conservative blueprint that has guided Trump’s early policy efforts, calls for the elimination of Head Start, claiming it’s “fraught with scandal and abuse” and has little positive impact, despite extensive research showing the opposite. And Trump is proposing to end Head Start’s funding in his initial budget proposal, USA Today reported last week, though a final budget must be approved by Congress.

To help allay some of those concerns, Education Department officials met with providers who subcontract from the city on Tuesday and assured them that if the federal government slashes the city’s grant, the city will use its own money to keep those programs going next year, according to a provider on the call.

City officials didn’t immediately say how much money they’d set aside for that scenario. And while the city’s commitment gives some assurance to providers who subcontract from the Education Department, it doesn’t extend to programs that contract directly from the federal government, according to people familiar with the plans.

Those programs, which serve thousands of city students, are still reeling from the closure of the New York regional office, and many are waiting to hear back on their own grant applications.

“Right now … direct service has not been impacted,” said Rita Santelia, the chief executive officer of Mosholu Montefiore Community Center, which enrolls 400 students across Head Start and Early Head Start programs. “But we as providers are on tenterhooks… we’re not sure when the shoe is going to drop. You can’t operate with this level of fear.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado delays rules aimed at ensuring high-quality preschool — again

2025-04-11T00:12:30+00:00

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Colorado officials are again putting off rules meant to ensure the state’s universal preschool program — now in its second year — offers high-quality classes.

The latest delay, which won initial approval Thursday from a state advisory committee, represents the third time the rules have been postponed and means new requirements on class size, curriculum, and teacher training won’t start phasing in until July 2026. That’s three years after the program’s 2023 launch and nearly six years after Colorado voters approved a nicotine tax to help fund universal preschool.

The state’s slow-going approach to putting quality guardrails around the $344 million program stands in stark contrast to its initial promise that the new preschool program would offer high-quality preschool to every 4-year-old in the state. The repeated delays also raise questions about the effectiveness of the Department of Early Childhood, which is charged with operating the program. The department has recently taken flack from prominent state lawmakers over communication and planning failures related to a different program for young children.

Universal preschool, which is one of Gov. Jared Polis’ key priorities, is popular with families. This year, it enrolls about 42,000 4-year-olds — 65% of that age group in the state. Most get 15 tuition-free hours of class a week, but some get 30.

At a Thursday meeting of the Rules Advisory Council, which gives the state non-binding recommendations on early childhood rules, department officials framed the delay as a move that will help preschools.

“We’ve heard from [preschool] providers that it feels rushed and confusing. We agree,” said Glenn Robinson, deputy director of the state’s universal preschool program.

But the state is also behind schedule on key tasks needed to put new quality rules in place. For example, it hasn’t yet released a list of approved preschool curriculum — even though the state planned to share the list months ago.

Priscilla Hopkins, an advisory council member and the head of early childhood programs for Denver Public Schools, noted the absence of the list, which state officials are calling a resource bank, at Thursday’s meeting.

“I cannot find those anywhere,” she said. “Where are the bank of resources?”

State officials said they’re circulating a “prototype” to various early childhood groups now and will release it publicly at the end of June.

Delays plagued preschool rules from the beginning

The first major delay in rules on universal preschool quality came during the program’s rushed and rocky rollout in the spring of 2023. At the time, state officials told preschools participating in the program there would be no new rules for the program’s first year as they’d originally intended.

“Keep doing what you’re doing,” they told providers.

The new goal date for quality standards was July 2024.

But it took longer than state officials expected to hammer out the new rules, so they pushed the effective date to July 2025. Now, with less than three months until that deadline, they’ve pushed them back again.

Some of the rules, including an eventual class size cap of 20 students and a staff-student ratio of 1 to 10, won’t be fully in place till July 2027, after four classes of 4-year-olds have gone through the program.

Experts say high-quality preschool can produce short- and long-term benefits for kids. But the current quality of preschools in Colorado’s universal program is all over the map.

Some children attend top-rated preschools with small class sizes, excellent teachers, and strong curriculum. Others attend programs that meet only basic health and safety standards, and have the lowest grade on the state’s 5-level rating system, called Colorado Shines.

Class size and ratios remain sticking points

Class size and staff-student ratio proposals have ping-ponged around since state officials began planning the universal preschool program. Early childhood department officials initially proposed sticking with the state’s current child care licensing caps: 24 4-year-olds per classroom and one adult for every 12 children.

But national experts panned the state’s proposal, saying it set a low bar and could lead to bad outcomes for kids. By the fall of 2023, department leaders pivoted to class size caps of 20 and staff-student ratios of 1 to 10. National groups, such as the National Institute for Early Education Research and the National Association for the Education of Young Children, recommend these limits.

Colorado’s previous state-funded preschool program, which was for children from low-income families or those with other risk factors, had even stricter limits.

Some private preschools balked at the change, warning they’d lose money if they had to cut class sizes. After months of debate, the state came up with a compromise.

Most preschools would be required to limit classes to 20 students and ratios to 1 to 10, but would be allowed to phase in the changes over two years. In addition, there would be one major exception to the new limits: Preschools with one of the highest two Colorado Shines ratings — Level 4 or 5 — would still be allowed to have classes of 24 4-year-olds and ratios of 1 to 12.

Thursday’s council meeting showed there’s still resistance to the compromise.

Kelly Beal, the owner of Honey Tree Preschool in western Colorado, asked if the state would provide extra money to compensate centers like hers that would have to reduce class sizes because of the rules.

“The funding that we’re going to lose for four kids … that’s a lot of money for us every year,” she said.

Colin Stewart, a council member and CEO of STEM Child Care in Castle Rock, suggested that preschoolers aren’t that much different from kindergartners, who sometimes have 30 or more classmates.

“Is there evidence to suggest that children’s developmental needs change significantly enough between ages four and five to justify such a drastic shift in staffing standards?” he asked.

State officials on the video call seemed caught off guard by such questions, saying they’d consult with the department’s universal preschool team for answers.

None of the dozen Rules Advisory Council members at the meeting defended the state’s class size and ratio rules, though some other attendees did in the online chat.

“Developmentally there is a difference between 4-year-olds and 5-year-olds,” one attendee wrote. “1:10 ratio is quality. Quality should be a priority.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org

Colorado lawmakers reject bill on child care chains backed by private equity

2025-04-09T21:37:30+00:00

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Child care chains backed by private equity investment firms won’t be subject to new limits intended to protect parents or workers, after a Colorado bill died in the state Senate this week.

Senators initially passed House Bill 25-1011 on Monday, after rejecting a major change made last week in a legislative committee. But by Tuesday, some lawmakers had defected and the bill failed in an 18-16 vote.

Sen. Cathy Kipp, a Democrat from northern Colorado and one of the bill’s sponsors, said, “We were just unable to convince people between second and third reading that they should stick with us.”

The two readings are the initial and final votes on legislation in the full House or Senate.

The legislation represented the first time Colorado lawmakers have considered potential problems posed by private equity firms that buy or invest in child care centers. Experts say private equity backing can hurt child care quality, raise prices for families, and send public dollars meant for classrooms into the pockets of wealthy investors. But leaders of large chains backed by private equity firms say they provide many desperately needed child care seats and that new guardrails would chill investment in Colorado’s child care industry.

About 15% of child care seats for young children in Colorado are housed in centers with private equity backing or ownership, according to a Chalkbeat analysis. These include well-known chains like KinderCare, Primrose Schools, Goddard Schools, The Learning Experience, and brands owned by the Learning Care Group.

Other states, including Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Jersey, have passed laws aimed at such chains in recent years.

Kipp said she’ll meet with the other sponsors after the legislative session to “see if there is potentially a path forward, whether that be next year or the year after.”

The legislation would have required child care chains owned or backed by private equity or venture capital investors to post their tuition and fees online. It also would have required such chains to give families and employees 60 days notice after purchasing a child care center before laying off staff or making enrollment changes.

The original version of the bill also would have prevented a common real estate practice in the private equity world, but that provision on “sale-leasebacks” was stripped out in the House. Experts say sale-leasebacks, which force acquired companies to sell their property and then lease it back from the new owner. can harm companies financially by forcing them to shoulder a new expense.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org

Colorado bill to regulate private equity-backed child care chains undergoes major changes

2025-04-02T23:02:39+00:00

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Some Colorado lawmakers are worried about the growing role of private equity firms in the child care market. They proposed a bill in January to put new guardrails on child care chains backed by such investors, who they say are driven by profits.

But in the space of a few minutes and a couple amendments Tuesday, the legislation changed dramatically. Now, the guardrails would apply to all child care providers, not just those backed by private equity or venture capital firms.

It’s not what the bill sponsors wanted, but it keeps the bill alive so debate can continue. House Bill 25-1011 advanced out of the Senate Business, Labor, and Technology Committee in a 4-3 vote Tuesday.

“We’re not fans of where the bill is at the moment,” Sen. Cathy Kipp, one of the bill’s sponsors, said Wednesday.

The next step is for lawmakers to hammer out the differences between the newly amended bill and the version passed earlier by the House, which retains the original focus on private-equity backed child care chains. If they can’t agree, the legislation may die.

While the bill’s ultimate shape and fate is unclear, it represents the first time Colorado lawmakers have considered potential problems posed by private equity firms that buy or invest in child care centers. It’s an issue lawmakers in other states, including Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Jersey, have acted on in recent years.

Experts say private equity backing can hurt child care quality, raise prices for families, and send public dollars meant for classrooms into the pockets of wealthy investors. But leaders of large chains backed by private equity firms say they provide many desperately needed child care seats and that new guardrails would chill investment in Colorado’s child care industry at a challenging time.

The bill considered at Tuesday’s hearing would have required child care chains with private equity backers to publicly post their tuition prices and fees. They also would have required 60 days’ notice to families and staff members before staff layoffs or enrollment changes following a center’s purchase by a private-equity backed chain.

About 15% of child care seats for young children in Colorado are housed in centers with private-equity backing or ownership, according to a Chalkbeat analysis. These include well known chains like KinderCare, Primrose Schools, Goddard Schools, The Learning Experience, and brands owned by the Learning Care Group.

Experts say some big child care companies make double digit profits, while many mom-and-pop programs earn just 1% to 2%.

Private equity firms, which have a stake in industries ranging from health care to rental housing, typically use a little of their own money plus loans and funding from big investors to buy companies they aim to sell at a profit later, usually within three to seven years.

Before the amendments were added to the bill at Tuesday’s committee hearing, several opponents of the legislation argued that it unfairly singled out certain child care centers because of their ownership structure.

David McMurtry, who with his wife owns a Goddard School location in Denver, said, “While our franchise school may technically fall under the definition outlined in this bill, we are not a corporate entity detached from the children and families.”

He described being involved in the daily work of running the center, including comforting a child who had a medical emergency on the playground and powerwashing the side of the building.

“It is incredibly misleading to state that child care programs not backed by institutional investors are exempt from profit maximization,” he told the committee.

But supporters of the bill say chains backed by private equity firms are fundamentally different from other child care businesses and should be treated as such.

“While the frontline staff at chain programs work just as hard as those at any other programs, and the programs can be high quality, the companies have [a] unique profit maximization motive,” said Elliot Haspel, a senior fellow at the think tank Capita who’s written extensively about private equity in child care.

That’s because private equity owners are ultimately beholden to their investors, not the best interest of staff, students, and families, he said.

He cited the example of Guidepost Montessori, a national chain that in February abruptly announced the closure of all five of its Colorado locations, leaving hundreds of families scrambling for alternative arrangements. Leaders at the chain, which is backed by venture capital, another type of investor covered by the proposed Colorado legislation, cited financial problems for the closures.

State officials don’t currently track whether child care centers are owned or backed by private equity or venture capital firms. In fact, officials from the Department of Early Childhood told the committee on Tuesday that they wouldn’t have the ability to enforce the law if the version focusing on private equity-backed chains passes.

Kendra Dunn, deputy director of the department’s office of program delivery, said the bill gives the department authority to take disciplinary action if private equity-backed providers don’t comply with its provisions, but said that job falls outside the department’s scope and expertise.

The department, “does not have the necessary infrastructure in place to support this legislation,” she said.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

NYC Council wants $800 million more for education than Eric Adams proposed

2025-04-02T20:27:18+00:00

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Leaders of New York’s City Council said Wednesday they will push Mayor Eric Adams to add roughly $800 million in education funding to the city’s final budget.

Of that $800 million, roughly $280 million would go towards early childhood education, around $180 million would support CUNY, and the remainder would go to K-12 schools, according to budget documents.

The council’s total request for additional education-related expenses is about $1.6 billion, once capital projects are included.

Increasing investment in the city’s strained child care system is front and center in the council’s annual budget response. Legislators called on Adams to restore nearly $200 million for the city’s free 3-K and Pre-K programs excluded from the mayor’s January preliminary budget proposal. Council members said they will also push for an additional $84 million to expand access to child care vouchers.

“This year, we’re once again fighting for the resources that are critical to neighborhoods across the city,” said Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, a Queens Democrat who is challenging Adams for the party’s nomination for mayor. “Early childhood education remains a top priority for this council because we know it is critical for children’s development and working families.”

The budget response offers the first full look at the council’s priorities as budget negotiations with City Hall kick off. Mayor Adams is expected to release his executive budget by May 1, and the council and mayor are supposed to agree on an adopted budget by the end of June.

This year, the city is not facing the same acute financial pressures as in recent years when billions in federal COVID relief ended up and the city incurred billions in new costs from the influx of migrants, the council noted. The council also projects billions more in revenues than the Adams administration.

But there are still big financial risks — including the possibility that the state budget could reduce funding for the city in several key areas. The Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to slash federal spending also complicate the city’s fiscal outlook, council members said.

Child care has emerged as a major sticking point in budget negotiations. Mayor Adams has consistently pushed to slash spending, arguing that the city needs a more sustainable plan that cuts down on unfilled seats. But council members and advocates counter that child care access should expand as the city confronts an ongoing affordability crisis.

At issue in this year’s budget is nearly $197 million for 3-K and Pre-K that the city funded this year, but which Adams did not include in his preliminary budget. That includes $112 million for 3-K, $55 million for special education preschool seats, $25 million for extended day programs, and $5 million for outreach.

Many of the education initiatives the council is now fighting to save were previously supported by federal COVID aid that ran dry last year. The council successfully pushed the city to replace the funding for many of those programs — but in some cases only for a year.

Beyond restoring that $197 million, the council is also pushing for an additional $84 million to expand access to child care vouchers, which families can use to subsidize the cost of programs for infants and toddlers or afterschool care.

The city’s main voucher program, the Childcare Assistance Program, reaches nearly 80,000 families and is funded almost entirely by the state. The program now faces a yawning budget gap that could force the city to kick thousands of families out of the program each month unless the state increases funding by nearly a billion dollars in this budget, city officials have warned.

The council’s budget response asks the city to chip in an additional $24 million a year to raise the income eligibility for the voucher program from around $108,000 for a family of four to $128,000.

The council also wants to expand a new city program called Promise NYC, which provides vouchers to undocumented families not eligible for the state-funded program to 3,500 children. That’s a $60 million annual investment.

Rebecca Bailin, the executive director of New Yorkers United for Child Care, called the council’s proposal “a step in the right direction on the path to universal child care for all that will keep families in New York.”

Outside of early childhood, the council is pushing to restore funding to a number of K-12 programs previously funded by federal relief, and renewed in last year’s budget for only a year.

That includes $5 million for a new school mental health program Mayor Adams recently touted at a press conference, $14 million for community schools that bring in outside nonprofits to provide additional services to kids and families, and $41 million for arts education.

The council also calls for $10 million for “affinity” high schools that work with outside networks, and $4 million for tutoring. The council proposes another $65 million for school nurses, $154 million to replace expiring federal funding for custodial services, and $10 million to help recruit more school cafeteria workers.

In addition to the roughly $800 million more the council wants for education programs, legislators are also seeking more than $800 million in education-related capital expenses. That includes an additional $150 million for cafeteria enhancements and $450 million more to make school buildings accessible to students with physical handicaps.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Thousands of NYC families could lose child care vouchers amid nearly $1 billion funding shortfall

2025-03-27T23:10:33+00:00

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Thousands of low-income New York City families could see their child care vouchers abruptly yanked away if the state doesn’t add nearly a billion dollars to the program in the coming budget, advocates and city officials have warned in recent weeks.

The Child Care Assistance Program, which provides vouchers averaging $300 a week to nearly 80,000 families, saw a boom in enrollment across the five boroughs over the past several years thanks to pandemic eligibility changes and an infusion of one-time federal funding.

But the program is now facing a perfect storm of budgetary threats as federal aid dries up, child care costs continue to rise, and COVID-era waivers that likely kept many families home with their kids expire, leaving a massive funding shortfall.

As a result, if state funding for the program doesn’t increase next year, the city may have to begin removing vouchers from between 4,000 and 7,000 low-income families each month, according to an analysis from the Center for NYC Affairs at the New School.

That would be a major hardship for Mansie Meikle, a Queens mother of three who uses the vouchers to subsidize the cost of after-school care. She said she was unable to work before getting the vouchers because she couldn’t afford child care. Now, she worries she could end up “right back at square one.”

“I fought three years to get out of that cycle of not having child care and to just think of being back in that place, it’s really, really not a good feeling at all,” she said.

Overall, the city would need between $823 and $907 million in additional state funding over the next year and a half in order to avoid kicking families out of the voucher program, the New School analysis estimates.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s executive budget proposal includes no increase in funding for the vouchers, while the senate’s plan adds $50 million, and the assembly adds $213 million, according to New York Focus, which first reported the funding shortfall.

The state’s budget is supposed to be finalized by April 1.

Avery Cohen, a Hochul spokesperson, said the governor has “increased funding for childcare subsidies in New York City by 124% while City spending has remained relatively flat.”

“We will continue to support these vital programs and ensure as many families remain enrolled as possible,” Cohen added.

Some city and state lawmakers have criticized Mayor Eric Adams for not being proactive enough about the looming shortfall and failing to make it a priority in budget negotiations with the state.

Allison Maser, an Adams spokesperson, said the “vouchers have been integral to our efforts in reducing the cost of child care.” City officials said they have held nearly 200 meetings with state lawmakers about the voucher program in the last month.

A victim of its own success

The voucher program’s current precarious financial position is, in some ways, a result of its resounding success in recent years, advocates said.

Prior to the pandemic, most vouchers went to families receiving cash assistance, a state welfare program for families out of work or whose jobs don’t pay enough. Typically under that program, parents are required to work, and the state is obligated to provide them child care vouchers.

During the pandemic, the state lifted work requirements for parents receiving cash assistance, which advocates said likely led to more families staying home, leaving them with less need for child care. The number of vouchers for families receiving cash assistance dropped from more than 51,000 in 2017 to a low of just over 19,000 in 2022, according to the New School analysis.

That huge drop, combined with extra federal relief funds, allowed the state and city to open the program to a wider swath of low-income families who do not receive cash assistance. The state raised the eligibility threshold to 85% of the state median income, or about $108,000 for a family of four.

In a city where child care remains unaffordable for all but the wealthiest families, newly-eligible families leapt at the offer. Child care vouchers for families not receiving cash assistance increased from 18,000 in 2021 to 56,000 last year.

“Families have flocked to the program because it’s a really good program,” said Dede Hill, director of policy at Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy.

At the same time, state officials nearly doubled the average value of the vouchers, from $154 in 2019 to $301 last year, to meet the rising cost of child care — a change applauded by families and providers.

But the program now faces a funding cliff.

Federal funds that helped subsidize the program’s growth during the pandemic have dried up. And most importantly, the pandemic waiver allowing families to qualify for cash assistance without work requirements is set to expire.

Analysts and city officials predict the end of the waiver will lead to a surge in employment among families receiving cash assistance. And since the state is required to provide child care vouchers for those families, officials expect a concurrent surge in vouchers for families getting cash assistance — from roughly 23,000 currently to as many as 66,000 by March of 2026, according to the New School analysis.

To create room in the budget to fund all the new vouchers for families getting cash assistance — whose child care the state is legally required to subsidize — the city will have to take them away from families not receiving cash assistance. City officials have estimated that could affect between 4,000 and 7,000 families a month.

Advocates, providers warn of ‘ripple effects’

Beyond the devastating impact for individual families, a mass removal of vouchers could destabilize the child care sector, advocates and providers warned.

“This will have a ripple effect,” said Tiffany Diaz, owner and operator of several Bronx home-based day care programs. “In my sites…85% of our income comes from vouchers. Can you imagine 85% of your wages being pulled from under you? I’m not sure how we would be able to survive.”

And if families are unable to afford child care, “they will not be able to then go out to the workforce and contribute to society and contribute to this, this economy,” Diaz added.

Some families might be able to fill one of the more than 11,000 vacant extended school day and year seats in the city’s publicly funded preschool programs for kids up to four years old, the New School analysis pointed out. But funding for some of those programs also remains in question.

Other families, unable to work without access to affordable child care, may end up relying on additional public assistance — underscoring why advocates say the eye-popping number needed to stabilize the voucher program is a worthwhile long-term investment.

“Research shows that investing in child care has massive returns for society,” said Jason Cone, chief public policy officer at Robin Hood. “We have greater workforce participation, predominantly amongst women, who are able to enter the workforce, generate higher incomes and eventually pay more taxes. And it’s a good thing for children as well.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Colorado parents could get refunds on child care waitlist fees under advancing bill

2025-03-11T20:48:04+00:00

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Colorado parents may soon be able to recover some of the waitlist or application fees they’ve paid to child care programs if their children don’t land a spot within six months.

That’s one of the provisions of a bill that advanced out of the House Health and Human Services committee Tuesday, clearing its third legislative hurdle this winter. The original version of the bill would have capped waitlist fees at $25 and required child care programs to publicly post tuition and fees, but both components have been watered down since then.

Democratic sponsors of the bill said it will still provide some relief to families who pay hundreds of dollars in waitlist fees, sometimes to a dozen or more child care programs. In order to get the fees back, parents would have to make a written request to the child care programs where their children didn’t get seats. In addition, the programs would be allowed to keep part of the fees families paid — an amount that eventually will be determined by the Colorado Department of Early Childhood. Families that are offered a spot at a child care center but decline it, would not recoup any of the fees they paid.

If the bill becomes law, it will take effect Jan. 1, 2026.

Rep. Jenny Willford, one of the bill sponsors, described during Tuesday’s hearing the toll that multiple waitlist fees take on families. She said a friend shared that in her search for child care she’d joined 16 waitlists, with most costing $100 to $200 each.

“The way that we are nickel and diming families to simply sit and wait and hope that they get a spot is not OK,” she said. “This is going to save families money, and at a time when it is so expensive to raise kids, every dollar counts.”

Besides the refund provision, the current version of the bill requires child care programs to disclose their tuition and fees when a prospective family requests pricing information, joins the waitlist, enrolls in the program, or when the provider changes the fee schedule. It doesn’t require that tuition and fees be posted publicly.

Changes to the bill came earlier in the legislative process after a number of child care providers pushed back against the original provisions, particularly the $25 waitlist fee cap. Several said their waitlist fees cover a host of expenses, such as marketing costs, technology fees, and staff time used to give tours and call families. Some said they would lose money if the fees were capped.

But shifting from a fee cap to partial refunds for families didn’t satisfy everyone. Some providers said giving refunds still takes administrative time, especially for small child care businesses.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Universal preschool bill dies as some Colorado preschool programs still complain of bumps

2025-03-06T00:54:05+00:00

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Colorado’s $344 million universal preschool program is popular among families, but some providers say they’re still wrestling with problems that make it hard for families to secure seats or for preschools to sustain themselves financially.

Some preschool directors want greater access to the state’s preschool sign-up system. Others want to be paid by the state before kids step into their classrooms — not a month later. Some providers also want more leeway on preschool class sizes, which the state will cap at 20 by 2026 for most preschools.

These are a few of the sticking points that remain a year and a half after the rocky launch of universal preschool. State lawmakers proposed a bill meant to address these and other issues, but it was killed Wednesday at the request of one of its sponsors. The bill would have cost more than a million dollars next year and the state is facing a $1 billion budget shortfall.

Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Weld County Republican who sponsored the bill, said she believed the bill would improve customer services in the universal preschool program, but didn’t want to commit the money, called a fiscal note, that the bill would have required.

“I think I’d be a bit of a hypocrite if I carried a bill forward that had this kind of fiscal note on it,” she said Wednesday.

The original version of Senate Bill 25-119 echoed some of the asks in a lawsuit over universal preschool brought by several school districts in 2023. A judge dismissed the suit last summer.

Opponents of the bill said any major changes to the universal preschool program are premature since a state-mandated evaluation of the preschool program is underway. Heather Tritten, president and CEO of the Colorado Children’s Campaign, urged lawmakers to wait until the evaluation is released in November before making changes.

Even before lawmakers killed the bill, they had significantly watered it down during a hearing in February, signaling a disagreement over how much to meddle in a new program that state officials are still refining.

Dawn Alexander, who heads the Early Childhood Education Association of Colorado, which supported the bill, said her group will continue advocating for change through the Colorado Department of Early Childhood and may consider pushing for legislation in 2026.

Some preschools want changes to ratios, class size rules

The universal preschool program, one of Gov. Jared Polis’ signature priorities, launched in the fall of 2023 and provides children 10 to 30 tuition-free preschool hours the year before kindergarten. It currently enrolls about 42,000 Colorado 4-year-olds — 65% of that age group in the state.

Debate has raged over what class size and staff-student ratios the universal preschool program should allow since shortly after the program launched.

Currently, all state-licensed preschools are allowed to have classes of up to 24 4-year-olds — as long as they have adequate square footage — and ratios of one staff member for every 12 students. But lower limits will phase in over the next two years for preschools participating in the universal program — a 22-student class size cap and 1-to-11 ratio for the 2025-26 school year and a 20-student cap and 1-to-10 ratio for the 2026-27 school year.

There is one major exception to these eventual limits. Universal preschool providers that have earned one of the highest two ratings — Level 4 or 5 — on the state’s Colorado Shines quality rating system, will be allowed to have classes of 24 4-year-olds and staff-student ratios of 1-to-12. A majority of universal preschool providers have one of the lowest three ratings.

Many experts and observers support the transition to lower class sizes and staff-student ratios, saying the current limits are too high and undermine the state’s promise to provide high-quality classes through the universal program.

But many private preschools have pushed back, saying they’ll lose money if they have to cut class sizes and ratios. State Sen. Scott Bright, a Platteville Republican who owns a chain of child care centers in Weld County, put forth an amendment to the universal preschool bill that would allow preschools with one of the lowest three ratings to have 24-student class sizes and 1-to-12 staff-student ratios.

“We’re just offering that to all centers rather than just ones that have gone through the quality rating process,” he said during a February hearing on the bill.

But early childhood groups, including the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University and the National Association for the Education of Young Children, recommend preschool class size maximums of 20 children and staff-to-student ratios of 1-to-10.

Alexander said one problem with allowing only highly rated preschools to get exemptions is the long wait times for state evaluators to rate providers.

“If you try to rate today, you cannot schedule that until next calendar year already,” she said.

Alexander said Wednesday she spoke to a state official who offered a compromise: that preschools impacted by the evaluation backlog will be able to continue with higher group sizes and ratios while they wait for new ratings.

State officials did not immediately confirm that they will seek rules to that effect.

Some preschools want access to state application system

Another point of contention has been who gets access to Bridge Care, the technology platform the state uses for the universal preschool application and selection process.

Melissa Gibson, deputy executive director of the Colorado Association of School Executives, which supported the bill, said parents sometimes struggle to pick or change their child’s preschool placement or get them preschool seats at the elementary school that their older siblings attend.

“Unfortunately, the ability for [preschool] providers to offer assistance is very limited because they don’t have the administrative access to Bridge Care,” she said.

But some preschool providers and early childhood advocates said giving preschools access to the state application system could jeopardize families’ data privacy. They also worried that such access would privilege school districts that operate preschools, allowing them to steer families to their preschools to the detriment of small independent preschools that don’t have dedicated administrative staff.

Even without a law change, Colorado’s universal preschool program will see changes in the coming years. That’s because several rules governing how the program operates are set to phase in over time. Besides the class size and ratio caps, that includes rules requiring a certain amount of training for universal preschool teachers on trauma-informed care and practices related to suspension and expulsion, among other topics.

In addition, starting next fall all preschools in the universal program will be required to use curriculum and assessments approved by the state. Approved programs will be listed in the state’s “resource bank,” but the list has not been posted yet.

The state’s preschool application process may also change somewhat as state officials work toward a “one-stop-shop” application that allows families to see their eligibility for a host of early childhood programs, in addition to universal preschool.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado lawmakers seek to reverse planned cuts to therapies for children with delays

2025-02-28T02:59:10+00:00

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A powerful legislative committee on Thursday expressed an interest in reversing some planned cuts to a Colorado program that provides therapies to babies and toddlers with delays.

While the details are still up in the air, lawmakers on the Joint Budget Committee essentially pledged to find funding to prevent thousands of young children who get services through the state’s Early Intervention program from losing certain therapies starting in March.

The committee’s decision is sure to prompt a sigh of relief from parents and therapy providers, many of whom said they were panicked and heartbroken when they learned of the impending cuts announced by the Colorado Department of Early Childhood earlier this week. The state’s $87 million Early Intervention program serves around 11,000 children from birth to 3 years old each month.

“We are going to get this done and help these kids,” said Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Democrat who represents parts of the Denver metro area and is chairperson of the committee.

The committee voted unanimously to authorize a bill that would lay out possible fixes to the cuts that directly impact children. The meeting was tense at times, with several lawmakers expressing frustration that the Department of Early Childhood’s leaders hadn’t informed the committee about the budget problems that prompted them to plan the cuts.

The cuts would have limited children to four hours of therapy a month, which is a fraction of what some get now. In addition, children who are on Medicaid, a health insurance program for low-income people, would no longer have been allowed to get developmental intervention, which is therapy that can help young children with attention, cognitive development, and learning.

Planned cuts that only affect Early Intervention therapists — for example, not reimbursing them for no-shows — will go forward as planned.

Parents, therapists, and lawmakers all expressed surprise when they heard about the cuts. Leaders from the early childhood department said the cuts were needed to stave off a projected $4 million shortfall caused by a growing Early Intervention caseload, the expiration of federal COVID stimulus funds, and the fact that fewer children are eligible for Medicaid.

But some lawmakers on the Joint Budget Committee were angry they had never been alerted of the impending shortfall or service cuts to babies and toddlers with disabilities.

Rep. Rick Taggart, a Republican from western Colorado, called it “insulting, to say the least.”

Jeanni Stefanik, chief financial officer for the early childhood department, said the funding shortfall “was not fully realized until just a few weeks ago” and called the factors contributing to it “a perfect storm.”

It’s not entirely clear why state officials, who said they routinely monitor the number of children in Early Intervention, weren’t aware of the possible funding shortfall earlier.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Cuts to Colorado Early Intervention program threaten therapies for young children with disabilities

2025-02-27T02:33:02+00:00

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Speech therapy, physical therapy, or other services for some Colorado babies and toddlers with developmental delays could be pared back in less than a week as officials grapple with a $4 million funding shortfall in the state’s Early Intervention program.

Impending cuts to the $87 million program, which evaluates and serves around 11,000 children from birth to 3 years old each month, prompted tears, panic, and outrage among some parents and therapists.

Celia Saravia, a Westminster mother whose 2-year-old daughter has Down Syndrome, said she commiserated on Wednesday morning with one of the three therapists who visits her home weekly through the Early Intervention program.

“We had a little cry about it because it’s just so sad,” she said.

Leaders from the Colorado Department of Early Childhood announced the cuts in a letter to Early Intervention providers around the state Tuesday. The cost-cutting measures take effect March 3 and will limit children to four hours of therapy a month. Some children, like Saravia’s daughter, get triple that amount.

Colorado lawmakers seek to reverse cuts to Early Intervention program

The changes could also prevent children who are on Medicaid, a health insurance program for low-income people, from receiving certain therapies and create longer wait times before eligible children start receiving therapy.

State officials said during a Wednesday morning call with early childhood advocates that the abrupt cuts are needed to address projected cost overruns caused, in part, by a big increase in the number of children eligible for Early Intervention services. In addition, some federal COVID stimulus funding used for the program recently ran out and fewer children are eligible for Medicaid, which covers some Early Intervention costs.

By press time, state officials did not provide additional details about the number of young children who currently get more than one hour of weekly therapy through the program.

Besides Medicaid, funding for the Early Intervention program comes from the federal government, the state government, and private health insurance. Services range from speech and physical therapy to vision, audiology, and psychological services. Experts say providing therapies that help young children catch up early in their lives can prevent the need for more intensive and costly help later on.

Josh Rael, executive director of the nonprofit Alliance, which supports people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, said by email that his group is in talks with the Department of Early Childhood to find “other program cost-savings in hopes of mitigating the worst impacts on low-income families.”

“We understand that Colorado’s budget environment is dire but are also mindful that cutting [Early Intervention] services could produce additional state expenditures down the road,” he said.

Jessica Richardson, the mother of two children who receive Early Intervention Services, said she’s feeling terrified, sad, and angry about the cuts.

She’s most worried about her 11-month-old son, who has Down Syndrome and receives three hours of services a week through Early Intervention — speech, physical, and occupational therapy.

She wonders if she will have to choose which hour of therapy is most important for him as the cuts take effect.

“Is it most important for him to be able to learn how to move like other kids … Is it most important for him to learn how to eat? Is it most important for him to learn how to communicate?” she said.

“I think him developing in all ways is important, not just in some ways, or whatever is most fiscally appropriate for the state,” she said.

Saravia’s daughter started getting weekly home visits from a physical therapist to help with weak abdominal muscles when she was about six months old. Eventually, a speech therapist and occupational therapist started making visits too.

Saravia said the therapists have been a lifeline for her and her daughter, teaching the toddler skills like how to climb the steep stairs in their townhome, balance on one foot to put pants on, and communicate with others using sign language or spoken words.

In March, Saravia’s daughter will turn 3 — the age when Early Intervention services have always stopped and different state services pick up. Although the state cuts will only affect the last few weeks of the little girl’s Early Intervention services, Saravia said it’s upsetting to think about the bullet they dodged.

“Had I lost that earlier, my daughter wouldn’t be nearly as advanced as she is,” she said. “Because all three [therapists] every week really just have an impact for her social development, for her mental development. All of it.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado lawmakers advance bill that would put guardrails on private equity-backed child care chains

2025-02-19T01:21:48+00:00

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Colorado parents and teachers would get 60 days’ notice about staff layoffs or enrollment changes if their child care centers are acquired by chains backed by private equity firms.

That’s one of the provisions in a bill that cleared its first legislative hurdle Tuesday, with an 8-5 vote in the House Health and Human Services committee.

The bill, sponsored by three Democratic representatives, seeks new guardrails for child care centers backed by institutional investors such as private equity or venture capital firms. Experts say such firms aim to generate big profits for their investors, often at the expense of children, families, and workers. Firms do this by cutting costs and charging fees.

The bill, which was significantly watered down from its original version, represents Colorado’s first foray into child care regulations focused on for-profit child care chains with institutional investors. Other states, including Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Jersey have recently taken similar steps.

Rep. Emily Sirota, one of the bill sponsors, noted the proliferation of private-equity backed centers in Colorado in discussing the need for legislation.

“They are distinct among other child care providers because of the profit maximization motive,” she said. “We think it important as the sector grows, that the state actually have an eye on it.”

Private equity in Colorado child care: Experts fear problems, lawmakers take notice

A Chalkbeat analysis identified about 175 Colorado centers currently owned or backed by private equity or venture capital firms — about 15% of the state’s licensed child care capacity for young children. They include big names like KinderCare, The Goddard School, Primrose Schools, and the Learning Experience. Many private-equity backed centers are located in wealthier communities, where families can more easily afford tuition and fee hikes, experts say.

Guidepost Montessori, a national child care chain backed by venture capital investors, recently announced the closure of all five of its Colorado child care centers, leaving many parents scrambling to find other arrangements. Company officials cited financial problems for the abrupt decision.

On Tuesday, the bill’s sponsors proposed — and the committee approved — a major amendment that removed key provisions from the bill. One would have barred private equity-backed chains that get state child care funding from requiring centers to do sale-leasebacks. It’s a common practice in the private equity world that forces acquired companies to sell their property and then lease it back from the new owner. Experts say sale-leasebacks can harm companies financially by forcing them to shoulder a new expense. The amended version of the bill has no language regulating sale-leasebacks.

In addition, while the bill still has the original 60-day notice provision for staff layoffs or enrollment changes, the language requiring centers to abide by that in order to receive state funding is gone. Instead, the bill establishes a complaint-based system in which a parent or teacher would have to submit a complaint to the state if they believe the 60-day notice rule was violated. The state would then investigate the alleged violation and, if found, could apply the same penalties it applies for other types of child care violations.

The amendment approved Tuesday also removed a $25 cap on child care waitlist fees. Finally, instead of containing a requirement that private equity-backed centers publicly post tuition and fees, the private equity bill refers to a separate bill being considered that would require all licensed child care providers to do this.

More than a dozen people testified about the bill on Tuesday, with more in opposition than in support. Among those who opposed the bill were Goddard School and Primrose Schools franchise owners and officials from KinderCare and Learning Care Group, a private equity-backed company that runs La Petite Academy, Everbrook Academy, and Children’s Courtyard centers.

Several said they didn’t think it was fair for certain centers to be singled out for additional regulation.

Allison McMurtry, who with her husband owns a Goddard School franchise in Denver, said, “My main concern with this bill is the principle that anything would apply to only a certain ownership structure and not all schools.”

But Elliot Haspel, a senior fellow at the think tank Capita who’s written extensively about private equity in child care, said different kinds of child care providers — for example, those who operate out of their homes and those who operate in child care centers — are already subject to different rules.

“This would just build on that as part of good governance, of making sure that you’re protecting the government’s investment in child care and protecting families in whatever type of care they want to choose,” said Haspel, who supports the bill.

Some opponents of the bill suggested that selling to private equity-backed chains is the only way independent child care providers can exit the field.

Dawn Alexander, who heads a Colorado group that represents private child care providers, said the bill could have unintended consequences for independent child care providers who want to sell their businesses

“You’re going to limit the pool of who they can sell their program to,” she said.

Mindy Goldstein, who owns a Lakewood child care center called the Applewood School, said, “In an ideal world, I’d sell my business to my loyal assistant of eight years … Unfortunately, with commercial interest rates now exceeding 10%, purchasing my business has become nearly impossible for an individual buyer.”

Instead of private equity in child care, she urged lawmakers to develop the child care workforce, provide low-interest loans for child care buyers, and offer tax incentives for locally owned child care.

Rep. Kyle Brown, a Democrat who chairs the committee and represents parts of Broomfield and Boulder, said he was deeply concerned about some of the problems that have erupted in child care and other industries with private equity involvement.

“I think it is appropriate for us to utilize a different standard of oversight so that we can … make sure that private equity-backed entities are operating in the public interest,” he said.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org

As private equity invests in child care, Colorado lawmakers seek guardrails

2025-02-14T19:04:00+00:00

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Last July, families at a Highlands Ranch child care center received startling news: The center was temporarily closing following a visit from the county health department.

The center’s owners failed to submit required construction plans to the Douglas County health department and get construction permits from the county’s building division.

A state child care licensing inspector also found several safety violations related to the construction: Emergency exits were blocked by tools and debris, and paint and construction materials were accessible to children.

A former teacher and a former aide at the center shared additional details with Chalkbeat. They said the center’s main security doors were propped open at times, allowing workers and others open access to the building. They found concrete chunks on the playground, and a child found a box cutter there on at least one occasion, as well, they said. The former staffers spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of career repercussions.

The renovation was the result of an ownership change: In early July, a national chain called The Nest Schools purchased the center from a small local company. The chain has six child care centers in Colorado — all of which opened after Detroit-based private equity firm Rockbridge Growth Equity invested in the company in 2022.

Some early childhood experts have recently sounded the alarm about the growing footprint of private equity in the child care space. They worry that such investment firms are primarily motivated by outsized profits, not providing quality experiences for young children. But others say private equity-backed child care is already providing many desperately needed seats and that its deep pockets can help a fragile industry during a challenging time.

Gerry Pastor, co-CEO of The Nest, said in an email that private equity investment helped sustain and grow The Nest Schools, including by making much-needed upgrades costing more than $1 million at the Highlands Ranch center.

He said that while the center tried to keep child care operations separate from construction, “a few unintended issues arose” that were corrected immediately. He said children, staff, and families did not use exterior grounds during construction there. He also said some of the allegations that Chalkbeat inquired about “never happened” but he didn’t specify which ones.

A Rockbridge spokesperson had no comment.

Colorado lawmakers are taking notice of private equity’s push into child care. In January, they introduced legislation that would put new limits on private-equity backed centers in an attempt to temper practices that critics say are harmful, including cutting staff and raising tuition. The bill would give the public more information about tuition and fees, provide advance notice of staff layoffs or enrollment changes, and curb a common private equity real-estate practice that can hurt child care centers financially.

“We just want to make sure that as more investors come to the state that they understand they’re coming to the state to invest in high quality [child] care and not simply just to turn a profit,” said state Rep. Lorena Garcia, a Democrat who is sponsoring the bill.

Experts say private equity firms often make swift changes when they invest in child care centers. At The Nest Highlands Ranch, those changes had consequences beyond physical upgrades. The director and assistant director quit within a month, according to letters The Nest sent to parents, and parents said around 10 more staff members also left.

Brooke Aldaz, whose two young children were enrolled at the center, told Chalkbeat she saw problems shortly after renovations on the decades-old building began. She said she became particularly alarmed when she, her 1-year-old son, and his visiting speech therapist were sent to meet in a classroom that had been closed for construction.

Parents Brooke Aldaz (left) and Sara Flater (right), were frustrated by what they experienced at The Nest Schools child care center last summer.

“There was broken glass and old dishes,” she said. “I remember being very uncomfortable that it was even suggested that a 1-year-old child should be in that room.”

The Highlands Ranch center reopened within a couple weeks but Aldaz said it was no longer the place she once considered “idyllic.”

Private equity prizes speed and profit, experts say

Private equity has long had a stake in all kinds of industries, from health care and autism services to rental housing. In recent years, its footprint has grown in the child care sector.

Private equity firms typically use a little of their own money plus loans and funding from big investors — often pension funds, endowments, and extremely wealthy individuals — to buy companies they aim to sell at a profit later.

Experts say one of the hallmarks of private equity is that the firms borrow lots of money to buy companies — debt that can strain the companies financially and increase the risk of default or bankruptcy. But chronic child care shortages make families captive customers who take whatever’s available.

Elliot Haspel, a senior fellow at the think tank Capita who’s written extensively about private equity in child care, said the private equity playbook prioritizes speed.

“The idea is that you want to sort of wring as much profit as you can, usually over three to seven years, and then you want to ditch it off to some other private equity firm,” he said. “There’s an incentive, plausibly, to go really fast.”

Private equity firms use various strategies to turn a profit, including cutting costs and raising prices. Many child care chains backed by such firms buy centers in affluent areas where parents can more easily shoulder tuition and fee hikes. Mom-and-pop child care owners may sell to child care chains because they are retiring or leaving the field.

A Chalkbeat analysis identified about 175 Colorado centers currently owned or backed by private equity or venture capital firms — representing about 15% of the state’s licensed child care capacity for young children. Most are large, with space for more than 100 children.

The state’s child care rating system – which considers factors ranging from staff credentials to certain business practices – shows that about 40% of those centers have one of the state’s top three ratings. By comparison, about 32% of all Colorado child care programs overall hold those top ratings.

While state ratings are a starting point for determining quality, they provide only a snapshot because they are awarded once every three years. Highly rated programs can still be cited by the state for violations, put on probation, or fined.

Some early childhood leaders believe private equity-backed centers are meeting a need and that more regulation, as proposed in Colorado, could be harmful.

“I think we want to be careful about implementing anything that is going to hurt an already distressed system,” said Nicole Riehl, president and CEO of the Colorado business-focused group Executives Partnering to Invest in Children. “It’s like paying attention to the nail that’s sticking out of the fence when the fence is laying on the ground.”

Other groups, ranging from the National Women’s Law Center to the Open Markets Institute, are concerned about the growing role of private equity in child care. A 2024 National Women’s Law Center report notes that center directors in private equity-owned companies report being “pressured to prioritize raising enrollment rates above all other considerations.”

Melissa Boteach, vice president of income security and child care at the law center, said the private equity footprint could expand further as more states pump public dollars into child care and preschool.

“We want those dollars invested in children and the teachers … not going to Wall Street,” she said.

Many states have bolstered public investment in the sector in recent years, including Colorado. Its $344 million universal preschool program, now in its second year, offers tuition-free half-day preschool to all 4-year-olds. It’s too soon to tell whether that will result in more private equity in Colorado child care, or whether more regulations might temper that.

Critics of private equity-controlled child care don’t think it should be expunged from the marketplace. Rather, they say that guardrails, including high state standards for quality, are needed. States, including New Jersey and Massachusetts have recently passed laws regulating large child care chains, many of which are backed by private equity.

“It’s much harder to roll back private equity’s deep entanglement in a sector than it is to prevent it in the first place,” said Boteach.

Big-name child care is backed by private equity in Colorado

The roughly 170 child care centers in Colorado owned or backed by private equity firms include big names such as KinderCare, The Goddard School, Primrose Schools, and The Learning Experience.

The Nest Schools, which will open a seventh Colorado location this summer, is one of the smaller national chains backed by private equity. Pastor said Rockbridge Growth Equity owns 33% of voting stock in the company. The company’s center in Aurora is currently on probation for a series of state violations, including leaving a child unattended in a classroom and allowing hazardous items to be accessible to children.

Chains, including The Learning Experience, Everbrook Academy, Primrose School, and the Goddard School, have backing from private equity firms.

Chalkbeat identified one child care operator, Guidepost Montessori, that’s backed by venture capital investors, another investor type that Colorado’s proposed legislation would cover. Guidepost announced this month that all five of its Colorado centers will close in March “due to financial challenges.”

Typically, there are several minority investors in a venture capital round of funding, while private equity firms tend to take a majority stake in acquisitions, said Azani Creeks, senior research and campaign coordinator for the nonprofit watchdog group Private Equity Stakeholder Project. She said venture capital firms tend to invest in smaller companies, but have a similar profit motive to private equity firms.

Parent Brittney Bokoski, whose infant son and toddler daughter attended Guidepost’s Thornton center, said it was shocking to receive the closure announcement on Feb. 3, just a few days after balloons were put out to celebrate the center’s first anniversary.

One of the biggest problems at the center was staff turnover, said Bokowski, whose family pays about $4,000 a month for care at Guidepost.

Guidepost officials did not respond to Chalkbeat’s request for comment, but said in a letter provided to a local television station, “the labor market crisis of the past four years caught up to us in a big way in 2024

A few other for-profit chains with centers in Colorado were previously backed by private equity firms, but aren’t currently. They include Bright Horizons and Endeavor Schools, which together represent another 1% of the state’s child care capacity. Bright Horizons, which is now traded on the stock market, was previously owned by Bain Capital and Endeavor Schools was previously owned by Leeds Investment Partners.

Chalkbeat’s tally of Colorado child care centers owned or backed by private equity or venture capital firms is likely inexact. Sometimes, a center’s true owner is hidden by layers of parent companies. In addition, while the state recently started asking centers about their “governing body,” many responded with obscure acronyms, a person’s name, or the names of real estate or holding companies.

A spokesperson for Colorado Department of Early Childhood said the replies to that question can provide “limited information about oversight of child care programs” but recommended against using it to determine private equity ownership because the field isn’t required and was only added last August.

Mindy Goldstein owns a child care center in Lakewood called The Applewood School. When interest rates were lower, she said she’d get multiple calls a week from private equity firms interested in her center. Some representatives flew out to Colorado to meet with her.

She listened, but never bit.

“I don’t want to sell to private equity, but if I had to, it would be a really fast transaction,” said Goldstein, who estimated her center’s value at about $3 million. “They are the only ones who have money to buy it.”

She worries that a private equity buyer would lower her program’s quality, cutting back on the extra teachers she employs and the nutritious meals she offers. But she also pointed out that many working parents are desperate.

“I don’t think people care who owns it or who doesn’t own it,” she said. “They need care for their child and they’re on 10 waitlists.”

Colorado considers limits on private equity in child care

While the average parent may not know how corporate owners impact child care, some lawmakers are taking notice.

Garcia and two other Democratic state representatives have proposed new rules for child care companies or franchises that are owned or partly owned by private equity firms, venture capital firms, or other institutional investors. A bill introduced last month would bar such companies from getting state funding unless they agree to provide 60 days notice following the acquisition of a center before laying off staff or changing enrollment or eligibility rules for families.

These companies would also have to let child care centers maintain ownership of their property — a provision aimed at preventing “sale-leasebacks.” It’s a common practice in the private equity world that forces acquired companies to sell their property and then lease it back from the new owner. Experts say sale-leasebacks can harm companies financially by forcing them to shoulder a new expense.

Creeks, of the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, said it’s hard to determine which chains use sale-leasebacks. Companies have to report such transactions on tax filings, but nowhere publicly, she said.

Finally, the bill caps waitlist fees at $25 and requires child care tuition and fees to be publicly posted. (Similar provisions are in a separate bill that would apply to all licensed child care providers.)

Radha Mohan, who heads the Early Care & Education Consortium, a lobbying group for child care chains, said the bill could exacerbate the state’s child care supply crisis.

For example, she said, an investor-backed chain with only four centers — just below the five-center threshold in the bill — might ask, “Why grow my programs in the state of Colorado?”

Mohan said most child care providers are for-profit entities and that it’s deeply problematic to single out the slice of those providers backed by private equity and other institutional investors.

But Haspel, of Capita, said that’s like saying a corner bodega and a Kroger grocery store should be treated the same because they both sell groceries. The profit motive for child care chains backed by private equity or traded on the stock market is qualitatively different than for a mom-and-pop program, and should be regulated differently, he said.

Massachusetts reform law puts guardrails on child care chains

A few other states have also recently taken steps to curb outsized profit-seeking behavior in child care.

Last year, Massachusetts put guardrails on large for-profit child care chains — those with more than 10 sites in the state — as part of a child care reform law that earmarked nearly half a billion dollars in annual state grants for child care providers.

The rules require large chains receiving the grants to serve some lower-income children who receive state child care subsidies. They also require chains to use a certain portion of the grant for teacher pay and meet certain teacher wage minimums set by the state. Chains must also provide the state detailed financial information about how they use the grants. Finally, a single chain can receive no more than 1% of the state’s total grant program allocation, which was $475 million in 2024.

“The goal is not to make [large chains] go away,” said Elizabeth Leiwant, chief of policy and advocacy at Neighborhood Villages, an early childhood advocacy group in Massachusetts.

It’s to make sure teachers get paid fairly, classroom quality is prioritized, and children from lower-income families have equitable access to child care seats, she said.

Leiwant said Massachusetts lawmakers added the child care guardrails around the time Steward Health Care, a hospital group that had been owned by a private equity firm, collapsed financially last year, leading to hospital closures and mass layoffs.

“That just had a huge ripple effect throughout the state, both on communities and then also on the state government having to step in financially,” Liewant said. Lawmakers, she said, became “much more receptive to the idea that … if any industry is kind of allowed to go unchecked, that there can be issues down the road.”

Colorado’s private equity bill wouldn’t go as far as the law in Massachusetts. It doesn’t include requirements for teacher pay or limit the share of state money private equity backed child care centers can receive.

Problems at The Nest

Sara Flater’s 5- and 3-year-old were enrolled at The Nest Schools of Highlands Ranch location when the center was abruptly shut down on August 1.

Families were temporarily reassigned to other centers run by The Nest Schools, and Flater’s children ended up at different centers, one in Littleton and one in Centennial, she said. Flater expected classrooms would be set aside for children coming from the Highlands Ranch center, but that wasn’t the case. The kids were added to existing classes.

“It was very chaotic,” she said.

Flater expressed her frustration over the construction-related problems at the Highlands Ranch center in an email to Nest officials on August 15.

Five hours later, she heard back from The Nest’s co-CEO Jane Porterfield, who wrote that she deeply regretted that the center’s service had not lived up to Flater’s expectations. Porterfield said The Nest had “made many attempts to hear your concerns and thoroughly answer your questions.”

Porterfield went on to say, “Effectively immediately, we will no longer provide services to your family.”

Pastor did not answer emailed questions about why The Nest stopped serving the Flater family or about the company’s policies on such matters. Pastor said he and Porterfield, who are married, own a majority share of The Nest Schools and that Rockbridge Growth Equity has no operational control over The Nest except for C-level positions.

Flater said she didn’t know much about private equity when problems at The Nest began unfolding last summer. But after lots of Google searches, she started to understand how it works.

“I’ve come to the conclusion that private equity is just really bad for kids … It’s bad for families,” she said. “For us, it decimated our daycare, and it was just so sad.”

For a while, Flater cobbled together care for her youngest child after The Nest refused to continue serving her family. Her 5-year-old was in elementary school by that time. When she finally found a center that looked like a good fit for her son — a locally owned business — she had one big question: “Are you guys going to sell?”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org

Some Head Start programs still can’t access federal funds a week after Trump freeze memo rescinded

2025-02-06T19:38:22+00:00

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At least 57 Head Start programs around the country serving more than 21,000 children still couldn’t access federal funding as of Thursday morning, according to leaders from the National Head Start Association.

Their problems stem from a Trump administration order on Jan. 27 that froze all federal grants while officials looked for signs of “Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies.”

Amid widespread confusion and multiple lawsuits, the White House withdrew the budget memo that ordered the freeze, while indicating programs that run contrary to the new administration’s executive orders could still have their money withheld. Since then, nonprofits, health care centers, and other organizations have continued to report problems accessing needed federal funds. The lawsuits seeking to block the freeze continue.

Federal officials said the funding freeze was never intended to apply to Head Start, which provides free preschool, child care, and other services to children from low-income families. But many Head Start leaders reported problems accessing the federal payment portal after the freeze was ordered. For some, the problems ended on Jan. 28, the day before the White House rescinded the budget memo. But others continued to be locked out.

The funding cutoff has real world consequences. At least two Head Start programs — in Wisconsin and New York — have been forced to close their doors temporarily, and more are poised to do so, including in Michigan, if they don’t receive their federal funds by Friday, said Tommy Sheridan, deputy director of the National Head Start Association.

“Children and families are going to be just left totally stranded,” he said. “Parents are going to have to either not work … or be faced with trying to find last minute child care options, or leaving children in potentially unsafe environments.”

Nationwide, there are 1,600 Head Start grant recipients serving about 800,000 children, he said.

Andrew G. Nixon, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said by email on Wednesday there were “technical issues” with the payment portal last week.

“The system is back up and running now, but users may be experiencing lags due to the high volume of requests,” he said.

Sheridan said one Head Start program in Waukesha, Wisconsin that had shuttered last week received its federal funds early this week and has reopened.

He said the association has gotten word that several other Head Start programs were finally able to access funds, too. On Wednesday, 65 programs reported in a National Head Start Association survey that they were still locked out. By Thursday morning, the number had dropped to 57, he said.

Sheridan said the funding uncertainty is destabilizing for Head Start program leaders, who should be focused on serving families and children who face some of the “most challenging uphill circumstances in school in and in life.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Parents of premature babies struggle to get help their children are entitled to

2025-01-23T12:00:00+00:00

This story about early intervention was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

JOLIET, Ill. — After several challenging and stressful months in the neonatal intensive care unit, Karen Heath couldn’t wait to take her triplet sons home. The boys had been born severely premature at 25 weeks, each weighing a bit over a pound. In the early hours, doctors cautioned they would not survive long. The triplets, thankfully, proved the doctors wrong. But for about three months, Heath was not allowed to hold them, satisfying herself with photos, videos, and kisses blown.

The long-anticipated discharge in the early summer of 2019 was joyful, but also rushed, and, as Heath recalls it, somewhat cavalier. An hour before release, a physical therapist showed Heath how to help the babies gain strength by gently stretching their legs out. A nurse gave her a quick tutorial on how to use the oxygen tanks they would need for the next couple of months. And Heath gathered together basic necessities and a few mementos: diapers, pacifiers, blood pressure cuffs, and tiny hospital bands.

But no one at the hospital — one of Chicago’s largest — told Heath or her husband what she felt would have been the most helpful advice in the long run: The triplets’ low birth weight alone meant they were automatically eligible for what’s known as early intervention services, which can include speech, physical, occupational, and other therapies.

“This should have been a conversation way before the boys were even released,” said Heath, who lives in Joliet, a city in the suburbs of Chicago. (She declined to identify the hospital to The Hechinger Report because her children still receive regular treatment there.)

Doctors, and science more broadly, have made astounding gains in their capacity to save the lives of extremely premature babies, defined as those born before 28 weeks. In the 1960s, just 5 percent of premature infants with respiratory distress survived; now it’s about 90 percent.

Despite these encouraging gains, there’s an abysmal record across the country, exemplified by Chicago, of helping these babies after they exit the NICU, particularly with access to the therapies that most reduce their risk of needing intensive, and expensive, special education services as schoolchildren. Many children who receive early intervention do not require special education services in kindergarten, including slightly less than half of those with developmental delays, according to one 2007 study.

“We have so much information on early brain development now,” said Alison Liddle, a physical therapist in Chicago who is part of a team that studied access to early intervention in the city. One of the findings was that the system is difficult for parents to navigate. “Support systems have to catch up. We have a critical window to help families.”

Federal law says children with developmental delays, including newborns with significant likelihood of a delay, can get early intervention from birth to age 3. States design their own programs and set their own funding levels, however. They also set some of the criteria for which newborns are automatically eligible, typically relying on qualifying conditions like Down syndrome or cerebral palsy, extreme prematurity or low birthweight. Nationally, far fewer infants and toddlers receive the therapies than should. The stats are particularly abysmal for babies under the age of 1: Just 1 percent of these infants get help. Yet an estimated 13 percent of infants and toddlers likely qualify.

“It’s like people being told at 65 that they are eligible for Social Security and a year later they are not on either Social Security or Medicare,” said Dr. Michael Msall, a neurodevelopmental pediatrician who has led efforts on early intervention access at the University of Chicago’s hospital system and is on the study team. “We’d have riots in the streets.”

In addition to early exposure to critical therapies, Vasquez says that strong sibling relationships and support has helped her children to thrive.

The stakes are high for these fragile, rapidly growing babies and their brains. Even a few months of additional therapy can reduce a child’s risk of complications and make it less likely that they will struggle with talking, moving and learning down the road. In Chicago and elsewhere, families, advocates, and physicians say a lot of the failures boil down to overstretched hospital and early intervention delivery systems that are not always talking with families very effectively, or with each other hardly at all. “They really put the onus of helping your child get better outcomes on you,” said Jaclyn Vasquez, an early childhood consultant who has had three babies of her own spend time in the NICU.

Hospitals use different processes for educating families about early intervention, which often occurs at an overwhelming time for parents. “That initial connection with the families is tricky, because the families tend to be very busy when they take the baby home,” said Dr. Raye-Ann deRegnier, the lead physician on the study and director of the Early Childhood Clinic at Lurie Children’s.

At Lurie and Chicago’s Prentice Women’s Hospital, where deRegnier works, the physical therapists are generally responsible for informing families of early intervention. “I wouldn’t say that happens in every NICU,” she said. “Sometimes it’s discharge nurses, sometimes discharge coordinators, sometimes others.”

Under the current landscape, it’s helpful when physical therapists have conversations with families early and often, deRegnier said. But even when that happens, miscommunications can occur. The doctor said she recently made a point to talk to a mother about early intervention, and the woman said she had never heard of it. Yet the physical therapist had previously had a lengthy conversation with the mother about the program.

In Illinois three years ago, the state’s Legislative Black Caucus urged the creation of demonstration projects at neonatal intensive care units in hospitals, intended to model how to better connect families to services. The state’s General Assembly supported the idea, but no funding was attached to the recommendation, and it has not become a reality.

However, a coalition of therapists and hospital physicians, including deRegnier, has been working on a pilot study that included a look at barriers that families face after they leave the NICU at several of Chicago’s largest hospitals.

Their findings, published in late December, show that only 13 percent of the 60 families — all of them Medicaid eligible and with infants who automatically qualified for early intervention — were receiving those therapies three to four months after discharge. In Illinois, the therapies are overseen by the state’s Department of Human Services and its Division of Early Childhood. While the specific reasons varied, most of it came down to bureaucracy and bad communication, according to the study team.

“When you make the system so difficult to navigate, families give up,” Liddle said. “There were many families just waiting out there for services that they really need.”

Illinois is in the midst of transitioning the Early Intervention program to a new Department of Early Childhood by July 1, 2026 in an effort to streamline services for the state’s youngest children.

Every weekday afternoon after play time, Karen Heath’s children, including her 5-year-old triplets, read books with their grandmother.

By the end of June 2019, Heath’s triplets were all at home along with their 1-year-old brother. Although her husband had to return to work, Heath’s mother was around to help. The family had little idea of how best to support their growth. Doctors had warned her that the boys might never be able to sit up, walk, or communicate like other children. “My main focus for so long was on coming home,” she said. “Once we got home, I’m like, ‘Now what?’”

About two weeks after the homecoming, a nurse from the county stopped by to check in on the 6-month-olds. Heath can’t say for sure, but she believes that the woman must have made a referral to early intervention because several weeks later, in August, the family got a call saying that the triplets might be eligible for therapy. By that time, they were more than 7 months old.

Heath leapt at the opportunity, but the process moved slowly after the initial call. In October, when the boys were 9 months, the mother got word that they had been automatically eligible all along because of low birth weight. But it wasn’t until early 2020, after the boys celebrated their first birthday, that the therapy was scheduled to start.

Then the pandemic hit, so the initial physical and developmental therapy sessions with three near-toddlers were all attempted over Zoom. “The boys were uninterested,” their mother recalled. “Try doing therapy on an iPad with triplets and (a toddler) hanging around.”

It wasn’t until the summer, when the children were 18 months, that they got their first in-person therapy. “The hospital should have had something in place so these kids could have gotten the services as soon as they came home,” Heath said. “I really feel like they dropped the ball. No one can blame the pandemic because they came home way before COVID started.”

The families participating in the multihospital pilot study had a leg up on Heath: They were at least told about early intervention, with an initial referral made before leaving the NICU. But even that was not enough for most of them to connect successfully with help. A lot of the struggle came down to “logistical and technological barriers,” said Zareen Kamal, a policy specialist in Illinois for Start Early, which advocates on early childhood issues.

The early intervention system in Illinois is decentralized, with 25 coordinating offices across the state. Caseloads are supposed to be capped at 45, but due to underfunding and short staffing, average much higher, with some reports of service coordinators juggling over 100 families. Many of the offices rely on fax for communications, with no statewide electronic system in place. Incoming phone calls to families from the coordinators often register as spam. And most of the offices don’t staff the phones in the evening or weekends, when working parents are most likely to reach out.

All this means that case workers sometimes remove families from their list as “uninterested” when, in fact, the parents are unaware, or unsure how to take the next step.

The state is currently taking steps to ensure equitable access to early intervention, said a spokeswoman for the Department of Human Services in an email. That includes updating the standardized referral form and exploring options for electronic referrals. “We realize that technology needs to be modernized,” wrote Rachel Otwell, the spokesperson.

That said, phone and fax remain the primary means of communication due to privacy concerns, she said.

Otwell said the agency is engaged in ongoing surveys and focus groups with thousands of early childhood community members. The state has made progress with staffing vacancies in early intervention, she added, and remains focused on “lowering caseloads to recommended levels.”

As the early intervention system currently exists in many cities and states, inequities are baked into every step of the process. Lower-income families are less likely to receive timely referrals, get screened and approved expeditiously, and then connect with therapists available for in-person work. Families with private insurance can often bypass the multistep bureaucratic process by having the therapies covered through those benefits. Studies have shown that Black newborns for a host of reasons, including higher poverty rates and weaker early medical care on average, are five times less likely than white ones to receive early intervention services.

For newborns, there is pervasive confusion around who is automatically eligible, even among those who work in the early intervention system, Liddle says. “Some children are turned away from receiving services despite being autoeligible, because they do not show a delay on a specific assessment tool,” she said.

Complicating matters, states have different eligibility criteria: In some states, an infant with lead poisoning or a parent with a mental health diagnosis qualifies for the therapies, whereas in others they do not.

There’s also a disconnect between the medical and early intervention systems, said Msall, the University of Chicago-based physician. His colleagues in NICUs routinely fax referrals over to early intervention, he said, but the information disappears into the ether, with no follow-up or technology in place for the physician to know if the connection was made or what an initial evaluation found. DeRegnier agreed that the follow-up process is complicated, partly because families may need to sign a consent form for information to be shared even with physicians.

Three of Vasquez’ four children received early intervention services as infants and toddlers.

In a nutshell, families too often have to navigate through the system entirely on their own — with only the most knowledgeable and well resourced likely to find their way to a successful outcome.

Vasquez felt immensely grateful her background as a special education teacher made it easier to supplement the work of overstretched hospital staff when her twin daughters were born at 27 weeks four years ago. The smaller of the two spent over a year so medicated in a Chicago NICU that she was essentially in a medical coma. But as soon as possible, Vasquez and her husband stepped in to help provide some early therapies. Following the advice of hospital therapists, they helped her sit up, roll over, learn to play with toys and regularly gave her full body massages. (She didn’t want to name the hospital because she believes any shortcomings were reflective of systemic issues, not specific to that hospital.)

Then, when the baby was finally released after 19 months in the NICU, Vasquez knew to call early intervention without delay. The family wasn’t more than five minutes into their drive home before she picked up her cellphone and rang them up from the back seat. “There was no second to lose,” said Vasquez, whose work as an early childhood consultant focuses on equity.

Within weeks of arriving home, the baby started upward of a half dozen different therapies, including speech, nutrition, and mobility.

Partly because of the quick introduction to therapies, formal and informal, Vasquez’s daughter is thriving today at the age of 4. The girl had to spend only a few months in a self-contained classroom for children with severe disabilities before teachers said she was ready to join the “blended” class. It’s a milestone that seemed unreachable just a couple of years ago.

“After six months (in school), they said she is doing awesome,” Vasquez said. “I was told my child would need a wheelchair by kindergarten. She is running, dancing, chasing siblings, dancing on trampolines — all because of the amount of time we poured into therapies at a very young age.”

Jaclyn Vasquez credits her daughter’s strong start in school partly to the comprehensive therapies she received as an infant.

Physicians, advocates, and families all agree that parents shouldn’t have to wait until leaving the NICU to begin lining up services. The coalition of groups working on the study recommend staff embedded at the hospitals who can help families enroll in early intervention before discharge. Each family who is automatically eligible would also leave the hospital with a legal document entitling them to therapy. “Our ultimate dream is to have the connection between [early intervention] and families be completed before they go home, and have the therapist assigned before they leave,” said deRegnier.

Many advocates also believe that for those babies on an extended stay in the hospital, those therapies should be available in the NICU. “Early intervention is birth to 3 — it shouldn’t matter if you are living in the hospital or at home,” Liddle said. “You are still entitled to those services.”

In Illinois, advocates say they hope to get funding to pilot a program at a few NICUs that would finally create the demonstration sites the Legislative Black Caucus called for years ago. If successful, the model could be expanded statewide. “Even if we are in one or two NICUs and can see how it turns out, that would be helpful,” said Illinois state Rep. Joyce Mason, a Democrat, who chairs the House committee focused on early childhood education.

In the meantime, too many families still find the crucial therapies to be elusive.

Even when Heath’s children finally started in-person therapy, it was limited in scope. The physical therapist, whom Heath describes as an “angel,” quickly recognized that they should also be receiving other help as well, including speech and occupational therapy. Yet by the time the family worked through the bureaucratic machinery to get some of those in place, the boys were nearly 3 — close to aging out of early intervention. They received a few months of speech, but never got the occupational therapy they were entitled to.

If they had gotten the therapies earlier, “they would be in a different place at this point,” Heath says. The boys, who were diagnosed with cerebral palsy shortly before their fourth birthdays, struggle with speech and reading skills, in particular, with one of them requiring a device in order to express himself. “If you don’t know them well, it’s hard to understand what they are saying all the time,” Heath says. “If they had gotten all the services right off the bat, they wouldn’t be as far behind.”

Yet the triplets have long surpassed doctors’ early warnings that they might never sit up, walk or reach other developmental milestones. Newly arrived home from school on a clear fall afternoon not long before Halloween, the triplets, now in kindergarten and dressed as Spider-Man for “superhero” day, played exuberantly in a finished basement space. They cried out gleefully while zooming after each other in miniature bumper cars.

Heath is grateful her sons are progressing with the help of school, devoted family, and the committed physical therapist who still works with the boys. But she looks back at their first nine months and laments that, so focused on how to help the babies survive, no one in a vast team of doctors, nurses, and social workers thought to discuss how the family could best help them thrive. “There was no next step for my family when we left the hospital,” she said. “It was all on us.”

Contact Sarah Carr at carr@hechingerreport.org.

This story about early intervention services was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Carr is a fellow at New America, focused on reporting on early childhood issues.

Former paraprofessional adapts to her role as a Philly pre-K teacher

2024-12-19T17:38:33+00:00

This story is featured in Chalkbeat’s 2024 Philadelphia Early Childhood Education Guide on efforts to improve outcomes for the city’s youngest learners. Throughout the 2024-25 school year, Chalkbeat Philadelphia is following a new teacher, Kahn-Tineta Smith, as she adapts to the joys and challenges of working in the city school district. This is the second of several periodic check-ins we hope will shine a light on the state of the Philadelphia teaching workforce. Read the first entry here.

It was barely 9 a.m., and Kahn-Tineta Smith already had a lot to deal with. One little girl was spinning around like a whirling dervish. Another had wet herself. A few others couldn’t resist the temptation to toss some of their Cheerios — breakfast is served every day in class first thing — onto the floor.

“Your [uneaten] cereal goes into the bucket,” she admonished, gently.

Through all the controlled chaos, Smith, a former paraprofessional who this year fulfilled her dream of becoming a fully credentialed preschool teacher, was unfazed. There are 19 kids ages 3 to 5 in her class at the Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary School in North Philadelphia. This is what they do.

Those are some of the everyday obstacles Smith faces. But overall, Smith had made a smooth adjustment to leading a classroom. For most of her career in the Philadelphia district, she worked as a paraprofessional at Bartram High School. This year, after raising three children, she finally fulfilled her lifelong dream to teach and got her certification from Cheyney University through a program that supports district paraprofessionals who want to become teachers and aims to help address the city’s teacher shortage.

One big difference between being an aide and a teacher is that she feels she has more authority. As a teacher, she can suggest names of families who could use food baskets during the holidays, or children who might need a winter coat, and people listen.

“I love that, to be able to advocate for families and children,” she said. “I remember when I was coming up, my teachers and counselors were advocates for me.”

Kahn-Tineta Smith, a pre-K teacher at Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary School in Philadelphia, leads her students on Monday, Dec. 9, 2024.

She attended city schools, first in her West Philadelphia neighborhood and then in the Far Northeast, where she was bused as part of the district’s voluntary desegregation program. She graduated from George Washington High in 1991.

When she was working with high school students as a paraprofessional, Smith said, “I thought that was my calling. But now that I am working in pre-K, I feel the little ones are my calling.”

Teacher adjusts to small-group instruction, stays calm

In her classroom, Smith keeps a calm demeanor. “I go day by day,” she said. But she still faces serious challenges. She’s negotiated a steep learning curve meeting children’s very different needs. Student turnover is also an issue.

On a recent Monday morning, 14 children were in her classroom. Big, brightly colored letters adorned the walls and half a dozen play stations — from computers to an old-fashioned sandbox, from Play-Doh to building blocks — beckon. After finishing their breakfasts, many of the children ran forward for their hugs from Smith and her classroom assistant, Anita Parker. (A few even threw their arms around the new person in the room: a reporter.)

Then they took their spots on the rug to watch a phonics video in which actors sing letter sounds. They joined in enthusiastically as each letter flashed on the smartboard.

By turns exuberant, timidly curious, seriously listening, and bawling their eyes out, the children clamored for attention from Smith and Parker, who has been working in early childhood classrooms since 2002.

The kids’ behavior and attentiveness vary widely. Some of the older students are in their second year of preschool, some are brand new. Two of her students are virtually nonverbal, others are chatterboxes.

Smith has become adept at prodding students who aren’t making much sense to think harder, while offering lavish praise to those who offer a sage observation. “I love that!” is one of her favorite expressions.

In her first days leading the classroom, Smith worried about mastering the curriculum: its focus areas, question of the day, and detailed instructions on how to conduct small and large group activities.

No worries there. Now she has it down, although she’s modest about it. Asked about any continuing challenges, she said she is “still getting used to small group instruction.” Because the children are at such different developmental levels, she tries to group them sensibly, but she also wants to give them choices.

“While we’re focusing on one group, we have to keep an eye on what the other kids are doing,” she said.

Which kids are around to keep an eye on has fluctuated. Since the beginning of the school year, some students left while others enrolled. One joined just last week. A few might need special education services, but so far, only one has been evaluated for a possible one-to-one aide. She is hoping that person will start by January.

“It takes a long time for them to get support,” she said.

“How I deal with it, I go day-by-day.”

By 9:15, Smith was sitting at a tiny desk with a long sheet of paper as students paraded by her one by one to answer the question of the day: “What do you know about the story ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears?’”

Many students hadn’t yet heard the full story, at least not in class. But they had been able to leaf through the book and look at the pictures, and the point of the exercise was for them to use their imaginations.

She wrote their answers down on a big piece of yellow paper, and would go over them later as she read the story aloud to the sea of upturned faces.

Some responses: “There’s a mommy bear and daddy bear and baby bear.”

“The baby is laughing and they want to eat.”

“Goldilocks eats the porridge and the bear says ‘roarrr.’”

Smith praises them all.

Then Smith poses a new question of the day: “What do you know about clothes.” (Questions for each day are dictated by the district’s preschool curriculum, called Teaching Strategies.) It seems to be a big leap from Goldilocks.

But in fact, they are related. One thing you learn about clothes is what size they are. Several children say that you can read tags. And often that means seeing the letters S, M, and L for small, medium, and large.

That’s just like the story of the three bears.

“I love how y’all are putting on your thinking caps this morning,” Smith tells them.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado parents: Here’s what to know about signing up for free preschool for 2025

2024-12-17T05:33:44+00:00

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Colorado families can start applying for the state’s free preschool program for the 2025-26 school year on Tuesday at noon.

The $344 million program, which launched in the fall of 2023, is open to all 4-year-olds. About 41,000 4-year-olds are currently enrolled in the program — about 65% of that age group in the state. A smaller number of 3-year-olds who need extra help are also enrolled.

The state has made a few key changes to the process this year, including opening the application window two months earlier and offering a phone helpline that offers interpretation in over 100 languages.

Here’s what families need to know about the preschool program and the online application.

Who gets free preschool? How much do they get?

Two groups of children qualify: All 4-year-olds and some 3-year-olds who need extra help.

The preschool program is primarily designed for children in the year before they go to kindergarten. For the upcoming 2025-26 school year, that generally means children who turn 4 before Oct. 1, 2025. (Some districts have slightly different cut-off dates, which you can find using this district-by-district look-up tool.)

Most 4-year-olds will get 15 hours of preschool a week, though some preschool providers offer only 10 hours a week.

In addition, some 4-year-olds will qualify for 30 hours of tuition-free preschool a week. These include children from families with incomes at or below 100% of the 2024 federal poverty level — up to $31,200 for a family of four.

Four-year-olds with two or more of the following risk factors will also qualify for 30 hours a week:

Their family income is between 100% and 270% of the federal poverty level — $31,200 to $84,240 for a family of four.
They speak a language other than English at home.
They have a special education plan, also known as an IEP.
They are homeless.
They are in foster care.

What about 5-year-olds who aren’t in kindergarten yet?

A small number of 5-year-olds are eligible for free preschool in the year before they attend kindergarten. Specifically: Those living in school districts with kindergarten cut-off dates earlier than the state’s Oct. 1 cut-off whose birthdays fall between the two cut-off dates. This look-up tool can help you determine if your 5-year-old will qualify.

Five-year-olds who could go to kindergarten but have been held out by their families — a practice often called redshirting — aren’t eligible for free preschool in that year.

When can I fill out the universal preschool application?

This year’s application opens at noon on Dec. 17, about two months earlier than last year.

Some families of children who will be 4 by Oct. 1 will get to preregister, specifically those who want to send their child to the preschool where the child is currently enrolled, where a sibling is enrolled, or where the parent is employed. These families should fill out the state preschool application, list their current provider as their first choice, and submit. They’ll receive confirmation of their choice and must accept or decline the match between Feb. 3 and 10.

Families not eligible to preregister can still fill out the universal preschool application starting Dec. 17. Those who submit by Feb. 5 will fall into the state’s first round of matching. They’ll find out which program they matched with on Feb. 24. They will have to accept or decline their match by March 3.

Families that submit their choices between Feb. 6 and March 5 will fall into the state’s second round of matching. They’ll find out their match on March 24 and must accept or decline the match by March 31.

What if I apply after the first 2 matching windows?

Families of children who will be 4 by Oct. 1 can still apply for free preschool after the first two rounds of matching are complete through what’s called “direct enrollment.” Contact the preschool you’re interested in to see if they have space. If they do, they’ll assist you with the enrollment process, including filling out the state universal preschool application.

If you don’t have a preschool in mind, you can browse an online list of universal preschool providers on the state’s application website.

What do I need to fill out the state preschool application?

You’ll need to provide an email address or phone number to create an account and start your online preschool application. Most families will need about 15 minutes to fill it out. The application is available in English and 10 other languages, including Spanish, French, Arabic, and Hindi.

Families with incomes at or below 270% of the federal poverty line will need to upload proof of income, such as pay stubs or tax forms, when they apply for universal preschool.

I have a child who will be 3 by Oct. 1, 2025. Should I complete the application?

If your child has an Individualized Education Program or IEP, yes. Otherwise, parents of 3-year-olds should contact their local school district to find out if they qualify for tuition-free preschool.

My child has a disability. Should I complete the application?

Can I pick my 4-year-old’s preschool?

Yes. More than 2,000 preschools across Colorado are part of the universal program. Families who don’t qualify for preregistration or want a program other than the one their child currently attends will be asked on the state application to pick up to five preschools. They can rank their choices. Options include school-based preschools, faith-based preschools, preschool programs inside child care centers, and state-licensed home-based programs.

This year, about 90% of families were matched with their first choice of preschool.

There are some cases where preschool providers can turn down a universal preschool applicant. For example, a school-based preschool might turn away a child who lives outside district boundaries. Faith-based preschools used to have the option to turn down a child who is not part of their congregation, but that’s no longer the case for the 2025-26 school year.

Can I pick my 3-year-old’s preschool?

Do I have to fill out my district’s school choice form too?

Families who want to send their child to a preschool run by their school district may have to fill out two applications: The district school choice form and the state universal preschool application. If you’re not sure if your district has a school choice form or if you are required to fill it out, contact your district.

What if I need more hours than what my preschooler is eligible for?

I have more questions. What should I do?

Do you have a question you don’t see answered here or can’t find the answer to elsewhere? Let us know at co.tips@chalkbeat.org and we’ll do our best to find an answer.

Here’s how Colorado’s doing in bid to meet key early childhood goals

2024-12-14T00:18:13+00:00

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Colorado leaders want to boost enrollment in the state’s already popular universal preschool program, mint more highly rated child care programs, and create more seats for infants and toddlers — the age group hit hardest by child care shortages.

These are a few of the Colorado Department of Early Childhood’s five “wildly important goals,” which spell out specific gains for young children the state hopes to achieve over one to three years. They are among 71 wildly important goals across 20 state agencies. Together, they reflect some of the state’s biggest public policy priorities.

Here’s a look at three of the early childhood department’s goals and the progress toward each one halfway through the state’s fiscal year.

Universal preschool enrollment

Goal: 72.7% of Colorado 4-year-olds will enroll this year, up from 69.2% last year.

Progress: 64.5% of 4-year-olds were enrolled as of Oct. 31.

It’s unclear if Colorado will meet its goal of getting nearly 73% of the state’s 64,000 4-year-olds into state-funded preschool this year. By the end of October, just over 41,000 4-year-olds were enrolled, about 2,400 less than last year’s total. Still, it’s likely additional children will join the program over the next five months.

Universal preschool is one of Gov. Jared Polis’ signature priorities and has been popular since its launch in the fall of 2023. It provides 15 hours a week of tuition-free preschool to most children, with some getting 10 hours and some getting 30 hours a week.

Some experts don’t consider preschool to be “universal” until at least 70% of eligible children participate. If Colorado meets its wildly important preschool goal, it would easily enter that exclusive club. Only Washington, D.C., surpassed the 70% threshold for publicly funded preschool enrollment in 2022-23, the most recent data available from the National Institute For Early Education Research, which puts out an annual state-by-state preschool report.

Six states enrolled more than 60% of eligible 4-year-olds in state-funded preschool during 2022-23. They are Florida, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Iowa, Vermont, and Wisconsin. By contrast, Colorado only enrolled 24% of 4-year-olds in state-funded preschool that year, the last year the state ran a free preschool program focused on children from low-income families or those with other risk factors.

Child care ratings

Goal: 1,215 programs will have one of the state’s top three ratings, up from 1,093 last year.

Progress: 1,133 programs had one of the top 3 ratings as of Dec. 1.

Colorado is a bit behind on this goal, having gotten only one-third of the way there so far. That lagging progress reflects a bigger issue at play: the state’s ongoing struggle to get large numbers of child care providers to climb the ratings ladder. It’s been a challenge since Colorado Shines, the state’s five-level child care ratings system, launched a decade ago. Programs automatically earn a Level 1 rating when they get a state child care license, which means they meet basic health and safety standards. But there’s no requirement to move higher.

The state has pumped lots of money into incentives for providers to earn a Level 3, 4, or 5, all of which require an in-person evaluation and indicate a program is high quality. Still, some providers say the process is too stressful and time-consuming. Others have full classrooms already and don’t feel higher ratings will make much difference.

But experts say high-quality child care is a must if children are to realize the social and education benefits top notch programs generate. Today, about 32% of Colorado’s 3,600 child care providers have one the top 3 ratings, up from 25% five years ago.

Child care for infant and toddlers

Goal: 39,953 licensed seats for infants and toddlers, up from 38,416 last year.

Progress: 39,264 licensed seats for infants and toddlers as of Dec. 1.

Halfway through the fiscal year, Colorado is more than halfway to this goal, having added about 850 seats for children under age 3. Like most states, Colorado desperately needs more child care for infants and toddlers. Currently, the state has only enough licensed child care seats for about 20% of the 191,000 kids in this age group. But far more of them have working parents and need at least some child care. That’s why creating more licensed seats over three years — for a total of nearly 40,000 by this June and more than 43,000 by June 2027 — is a key early childhood goal.

In recent years, state leaders have been working to address this pain point in various ways — for example, offering COVID relief grants to child care programs that create more infant and toddler spots and giving bonuses to new home-based child care programs, which often serve this age group. Local governments, philanthropists, and large employers, including hospitals, ski resorts, and the Denver airport, have also taken action.

But the fact is, basic economics makes this goal an uphill battle. That’s because infant and toddler care is the most expensive kind of care to provide. In contrast, preschool, where one teacher can supervise double the number of children, is far cheaper.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Voters approve lodging taxes for child care in City of Montrose, La Plata and Grand counties

2024-11-06T23:27:47+00:00

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Voters in three western Colorado communities approved lodging tax measures in Tuesday’s election that will send money to efforts aimed at making child care more affordable and easier to find.

The measures passed easily in La Plata and Grand counties and by a slimmer margin in the City of Montrose, according to unofficial election results.

With Tuesday’s lodging tax victories, the three communities join about a dozen others in Colorado’s mountain resort regions where voters have agreed to allow some lodging tax proceeds to be used for child care efforts. Often, the funding is used to help families pay for child care or to boost wages for teachers.

Lodging taxes have recently become an appealing way to generate new funding for local workforce needs such as housing and child care. That’s because of a 2022 state law that allowed Colorado counties and local marketing districts to use lodging taxes for these purposes if they get voter approval. Lodging taxes are often palatable for voters since they are generally paid by out-of-town visitors, not locals.

In La Plata County, where Durango is the county seat, the ballot measure approved Tuesday will reallocate 70% of lodging tax proceeds from tourism efforts to child care and housing. That shift could mean about $500,000 a year for local child care efforts.

Heather Hawk, executive director of the Early Childhood Council of La Plata County, said she was excited about Tuesday’s lodging tax victory, especially its nearly 70% approval rate. She said a group of local advocates will complete a strategic plan for the funding by the end of the year, but the final decision on how it will be distributed will rest with La Plata County commissioners.

Hawk said $500,000 a year is not a huge sum of money, but it will be a reliable stream that can help the county leverage grants and other funding sources that require local dollars. She said the money may help with efforts such as financing construction of a new child care center or boosting wages for hard-to-retain infant and toddler teachers.

Hawk said the money may also help parents with babies and toddlers cover the cost of child care. Infant care can cost up to $21,000 a year in the county, she said.

“We know that we have a serious affordability gap in our community, especially for families that are working in the tourism industry,” said Hawk. “They often are making too much to qualify for child care subsidies or Head Start, but not enough to really afford the cost of care.”

Grand County’s lodging tax measure passed with about 60% of the vote on Tuesday. It will boost the county’s existing lodging tax from 1.8% to 2% and allow the county to use 30% of the proceeds — or about $675,000 a year — for housing, child care, or services that benefit visitors.

A county official previously told Chalkbeat how the money is spent could vary from year to year, with a housing initiative one year, a child care initiative the next, and so on.

Voters in the City of Montrose, the largest city in Montrose County, agreed to raise the hotel room tax from .9% to 6% Tuesday, with 52% of voters in favor of the measure. Of the revenue from that tax, 17% — or about $158,000 a year — will go toward child care initiatives. The rest will fund street maintenance, affordable housing, and tourism services.

A city official previously told Chalkbeat the city would likely draft a plan for spending lodging tax money dedicated to child care by next spring. One of the greatest needs in the area is for more child care slots, he said.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago considers giving pre-K students priority in kindergarten admissions at same school

2024-10-23T19:40:31+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools is considering an enrollment policy change that would give pre-K students priority to stay in the same school for kindergarten, even if they live outside the school’s boundary or are at a magnet school.

Currently, if a pre-K student lives outside a school’s boundary or attends full-day pre-K at a magnet school, they are not guaranteed a seat in kindergarten. If approved, the proposed policy would give current pre-K students priority after siblings and children of staff, but ahead of other applicants. For neighborhood schools, students living in the boundary would still get top priority. After them, siblings of students and children of staff, and then pre-K students would be offered seats before other students from outside the boundary. The policy would not apply to selective enrollment schools.

If approved, the changes would take effect in next year’s application cycle for attendance in the 2026-27 school year.

Full-day pre-K for 4-year-olds in Chicago is a relatively new program. Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel promised universal pre-K in 2018 shortly before announcing he wouldn’t seek a third term. Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot followed through on the promise, and now, the school district offers 4-year-old full-day pre-K across the system.

Leslie McKinily, head of the Office of Early Childhood with Chicago Public Schools, said the goal is to increase the number of pre-K students who remain in the same school for kindergarten.

It’s unclear from the data why families change schools for kindergarten, McKinily said. For some, it may be that their child got an offer in a selective enrollment program or different school the family prefers. But McKinily said there are instances where pre-K students do not want to leave.

“There are a small number of schools that are forced with telling families, ‘No, you cannot stay here for kindergarten because I just don’t have the space,’” McKinily said.

That can be difficult for principals who have used universal pre-K as a recruitment tool to build enrollment at their school, McKinley said.

Seth Lavin, principal of Brentano Elementary Math & Science Academy in Logan Square, said his school has faced this issue. After the school was spared from closure in 2013, they worked to boost enrollment — and offering pre-K helped.

“Even if families have apprehensions about CPS or one particular school, they’ll often feel good when they walk into a preschool classroom and see great preschool teachers doing great preschool work,” Lavin said. “Then once you’ve got a family in your school, and they realize this is a nice place to be, my kid is happy here, it’s easier to convert them to kindergarten.”

But as Logan Square gentrified and Brentano grew in popularity with neighborhood families, Lavin said it’s been harder to continue offering seats to students who live outside the boundary. Because pre-K enrollment is still a lottery based on income and other hardship factors, Lavin said his pre-K classrooms are often more diverse than the kindergarten classes.

“Nothing is magic. This one policy change is not going to entirely stop segregation and inequity and how people can all go access school in Chicago,” Lavin said. “But it can be a step that helps give families facing economic hardship access to schools that are gentrifying when they’re in neighborhoods that are gentrifying.”

The proposed changes to the district’s enrollment policy would also allow students to stay enrolled in their neighborhood school in later grades, even if their family moves out of the attendance boundary.

The proposed policy will be posted for public comment for 30 days and is expected to go before the school board for a final vote in December.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

Low-income families are struggling to get child care aid in many states. Here’s why.

2024-10-21T21:56:53+00:00

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Come January, a new baby is scheduled to enroll at Angel Hugs Early Learning, a top-rated child care program in the suburbs west of Denver. Owner Sarah Hewitt is especially excited because the little boy will be her first grandchild.

There’s just one problem: Hewitt will lose about $18,000 a year by accepting the infant.

That’s because Colorado’s child care subsidy program, which helps low-income families pay for child care so they can work or attend school, is facing a major budget crunch. Although Hewitt’s daughter, who works as a teacher at Angel Hugs, will likely qualify for a subsidy based on her income, she won’t get child care aid. Instead, the single mother will land on her county’s long waitlist.

Since Hewitt doesn’t want to lose her co-teacher, she’ll give her grandson the spot for free.

The challenge Hewitt and her daughter face is playing out in states across the country now as federal COVID aid for child care expires and states gear up to adopt new federal rules aimed at improving the child care subsidy program. In many states, those twin developments mean subsidy waitlists, enrollment freezes, or tighter eligibility requirements. The bottom line is that fewer low-income families will get help paying for child care.

“We’re just going to be serving thousands and thousands less children, which is horrible,” said Barbie Prinster, executive director of the Arizona Early Childhood Education Association. “It’s a bummer for families that want to go to work.”

Advocates like Prinster worry that as subsidies become harder to get, low-income parents will drop out of the workforce or be forced to put their children in unlicensed or even unsafe care. Those decisions will ripple out to employers and the economy.

About 2 million children nationwide, most under 6, receive child care subsidies each year. The federal government provides most of the funding, with states and sometimes counties kicking in smaller amounts.

Advocates say more public funding is needed to bolster child care subsidies.

“A very wise legislator said to me once, ‘Show me your budget, and I’ll show you your values,’” said Mindy Binderman, Executive Director of the Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students. “This is a time for our state legislature to … value kids and families in the workforce.”

Some experts say that while states should do what they can to boost funding for subsidies, the federal government must do the heavy lifting.

“We don’t think this can be solved by states on their own,” said Karen Schulman, senior director of state child care policy at the National Women’s Law Center. “We need significant federal investment.”

Federal rules bring positive but pricey improvements

Advocates praise the new rules from the Biden administration that must be phased in over the next two years. They’ll limit monthly co-pays to no more than 7% of a family’s income and change reimbursement policies so providers get paid before they provide care, not after, and don’t lose money when a child is absent.

The downside is that the rules come with hefty price tag, and there’s no new federal money to pay for them. President Biden’s unsuccessful Build Back Better package would have provided enough aid to cap child care costs for many working parents at 7% of household income. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has made a similar pledge. It’s unclear how Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, would tackle the cost of child care.

Diane Girouard, state policy senior analyst at Child Care Aware of America, said the new federal rules are critically important, but acknowledged that states will face “difficult tradeoffs” over the short term.

Schulman said by paying providers “prospectively” — before care is provided — and basing the reimbursement on enrollment, not a child’s attendance record, the subsidy system is moving closer to how the private child care market operates.

“The goal is to have a child care assistance system look a lot more like that, so that a provider doesn’t look at the two options and say, ‘Well, why wouldn’t I just serve the private pay parent?’” she said.

That doesn’t mean the private pay market is ideal. Far from it, said Schulman, who like many experts describe child care as a broken market — too expensive for many parents even as workers get paltry wages and child care businesses survive on tiny margins.

The subsidy system, she said, “shouldn’t be providing even less stability and fewer resources than a broken market.”

States make efforts to cut caseloads

A number of states have started waitlists for child care subsidies in the last year. Oregon instituted one in November, Nevada in April, and Arizona in August. In Colorado, where the subsidy program is administered by counties, six of 64 counties now have waitlists or freezes, and state officials expect most other counties to have one or the other by June.

Typically, children from certain priority groups can bypass waitlists or freezes. In many states, these groups include children in the foster care system, the child welfare system, or whose parents receive aid through the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.

But for families outside of those groups, the outlook can be grim

Binderman said Georgia was serving 72,000 children a month while the state was flush with COVID relief money. Now, state officials say the rolls must be reduced to 50,000 children.

To get there, Binderman said, the state limited eligibility starting in September to families making 30% of the state median income — about $32,000 for a family of four. Previously, families with incomes up to 50% of the state median income qualified.

Nevada also instituted tougher eligibility requirements this fall. New families qualify for a subsidy with a household income at or below 41% of the state median income — about $39,000 for a family of four. Previously, the threshold was 85%.

Sarah Dawson, who heads Colorado’s subsidy program, said the expiring COVID aid, along with the state’s $20-million-a-year plan to boost subsidy reimbursement rates for providers, will mean a 22% decrease in the number of full-time-equivalent children the state can afford to subsidize.

That doesn’t mean families who currently receive subsidies will be kicked out of the program, but rather fewer new families will be able to enroll.

“This is what keeps me up in the middle of every night, ” she said.

Providers face ‘tough decisions’

Amy Ogilvie, who heads the Wild Plum Center in the northern Colorado city of Longmont, said she currently has 22 open slots for children who receive child care subsidies. But nobody’s coming to fill them because Boulder County, where her program is located, has been on a subsidy freeze since April.

Wild Plum enrolls 220 children, all of them from families living in poverty. Most of the funding comes from government sources, including state child care subsidies. Ogilvie said the center lost about $17,000 in child care subsidy funding this September compared with September 2023.

Children play with colored tiles at Wild Plum Center in Longmont, Colorado.

“As a program, we have to figure out where we’re coming up with $17,000, and if this repeats month over month over month, I’m going to have to start making tough decisions,” she said.

To pay the bills, the center could eventually be forced to increase class sizes or accept families who can afford to pay tuition, she said.

Hewitt, who owns the home-based program Angel Hugs, said without the extra funding her grandson’s subsidy would bring in, she’ll have less money to provide free parent classes on CPR or safe sleep, pay for supplies like paint and markers, or make planned improvements to encourage nature play in her backyard.

“It’s going to be tough,” she said.

States action helps, but not enough

Some states got a jump on the subsidy program changes now required by the federal government because they took action at the state level. Oregon passed a child care subsidy reform law in 2021. Before that, the state often left subsidy dollars on the table.

“Not enough families signed up for child care subsidies, or they did sign up for child care subsidy and [they] couldn’t find a provider who would take it, because it was a really crappy program,” said Dana Hepper, director of policy and advocacy at the Children’s Institute, an Oregon advocacy group.

But with a host of improvements phased in since the 2021 law — mirroring several of the new federal rules — there’s now a waitlist of more than 7,000 families, she said.

“We made all these reforms to make it a better program, and the result of that was families signed up for the program in droves and child care providers were willing to take subsidy,” she said.

Oregon lawmakers increased funding for the subsidy program this year, but it wasn’t enough to eliminate long waits for most qualifying families.

Across the country in Connecticut, state lawmakers also recently sent more money to the subsidy program.

Merrill Gay, executive director of the Connecticut Early Childhood Alliance, said state lawmakers upped spending on child care subsidies from $57 million a couple years ago to $130 million this year. The move allowed the state to clear its subsidy waitlist of about 2,000 children over the summer.

“We’ve made some real progress,” he said. “We’re far from nirvana.”

Only about 20% of eligible families are getting subsidies, he said. There’s little publicity about the program, and many parents don’t learn about it unless they call the 211 social services hotline or hear about it from their child care provider.

Gay’s solution to the perennial struggle to adequately fund subsidies is simple: “Tax rich people and pay for child care.”

He laughed, but he wasn’t joking.

“I know it’s a lot easier to say than to do, but we have, across the country, cut taxes for rich people every way we can think of,” Gay said. “As a result, government has less money to do what it needs to do.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

How this Lawrence Township educator inspires a passion for early childhood education

2024-10-16T11:00:00+00:00

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When Mary Easley was in high school, she took cosmetology classes at the career center. While she still became a licensed cosmetologist, Easley watched her instructors and an interest in teaching grew.

“I can still remember Mrs. Evans pulling me aside and telling me that I was meant to be a teacher. That conversation lit a fire in me, making me realize that teaching was my true calling,” she said.

Now, Easley, who has worked in early childhood education for 20 years, teaches early childhood education to high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors at the McKenzie Center for Innovation and Technology in the Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township — the same career center where she got her start.

This year, her students are participating in the state’s new early childhood education teacher apprenticeship program. Funded by a federal Preschool Development Grant, students combine classroom learning with work experience to earn high school and college credits. After high school, they can start their careers right away, continue their education, or both.

Easley’s students recently attended an apprenticeship signing day, similar to those for athletes, at the Statehouse and were recognized for being in the first cohort of the program.

And just like herself, Easley’s students have found their passion through the program. One student wants to work with students with disabilities, thanks to what she’s learned. Another wants to be an early learning center principal. Several want to teach elementary school students, and several more are in the program working with preschoolers in the same early learning centers they attended as young children.

“Their passion for this field is being nurtured by the real experiences and inspiration they are receiving from this pathway,” Easley said.

She spoke with Chalkbeat about the early childhood education program, the bond between high schoolers and preschoolers, and the best advice she’s ever received.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell me about the early childhood education teacher apprenticeship program in Lawrence Township schools. What does it look like for you and your students?

It’s an amazing opportunity for early childhood education students. The program is designed to support students by providing mentorship, hands-on job experiences, and college credits in the realm of early childhood education. It’s a wonderful foundation for students who are just beginning to start thinking about their next steps after high school.

Once students have completed the 120 hours of class instruction and 480 hours of work experience, they submit a professional portfolio that’s a reflective compilation of their overall experience. In addition to their portfolio, students will take an exam upon completion of all the required work. Students will have earned their CDA, or Child Development Associate, certification. This certification will allow students to apply for a lead teacher, instructional assistant, or site leader position in a preschool setting.

What is your favorite part of having high schoolers work in an early childhood education setting?

The highlight of my day is seeing the love and joy spread from the preschoolers to the high schoolers and vice versa. I see the patience and care from the high schoolers as the preschoolers are developing, growing, and understanding the world around them, while the preschoolers are also giving the high school students a sense of purpose and the opportunity to develop a passion for this career.

Some of my favorite moments are when the high schoolers enter the building, and all of the preschoolers start waving their hands and shouting the high schoolers’ names down the hall. I also love when the preschoolers draw the most colorful picture and hand it to them as a gift or come up to the high schoolers and ask them to read them a book.

What’s your favorite lesson to teach and why?

I just recently wrapped up a chapter focusing on theories and principles. As an early childhood educator, my focus has always been on the socio-emotional well-being of my students, whether you’re big or small. So with that, I like to take time out and explore adverse childhood experiences. I encourage my students to make connections through documentaries, articles, and even music artists that the students listen to. By making those real-life connections, they are able to ask themselves, “What can I do to help?”

We are all carrying something in our invisible backpack, but once we start to unpack it and get to the core of what those issues are, I just believe that then we are able to have a stronger society as a whole. Stronger communities, families, and students.

Tell us about your own experience with school and how it affects your work today.

Oh wow! Well, because of the amazing teachers that I had throughout my upbringing, I carry a little piece of them as I have developed my own style of teaching. I truly believe that being a teacher extends beyond the four walls of a classroom. It’s about showing up, being present, and in the moment with your kids, and not only actively listening but making sure you are hearing them. Making sure to make those meaningful connections that will help sustain them throughout their journey.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received, and how have you put it into practice?

In graduate school, a professor would continuously remind us to earn our own understanding. I don’t think that the advice ever resonated with me until I started working with my high school students. For example, to a preschooler, I may have all the knowledge. However, to a high school student who has already started to navigate their way through life, I am merely a guide to help them earn their own understanding.

How do you take care of yourself when you’re not at work?

Just taking the time to breathe and relax at home. I love to cook and spend time with my family.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

After decision in Catholic preschool lawsuit, Colorado moves to repeal religious preschool rule

2024-10-10T22:23:17+00:00

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Religious preschools that participate in Colorado’s state-funded preschool program are allowed to reserve seats for members of their congregations. But that may soon change.

State officials have proposed a repeal of the so-called “congregation preference” after a recent federal court decision that highlighted problems with that rule. The judge in that case, which was brought by two Denver-area Catholic parishes that run preschools, said the preference could be used to deny children equal access to preschool based on their religion — a scenario barred by state non-discrimination rules.

The repeal, which a state advisory council approved Thursday with little discussion, is the latest development in the state’s fraught effort to include religious preschools in the popular free preschool program without compromising Colorado’s non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ children and families. The rule change could become legal fodder as the Catholic parishes move forward with an appeal of the judge’s June decision. It’s a case some experts believe could wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The universal preschool program launched in August 2023 and provides tuition-free preschool to nearly two-thirds of the state’s 4-year-olds.

Lisa Roy, executive director of the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, will likely approve the rule change in November and it will take effect in January, just before families start signing up for universal preschool for the 2025-26 school year. The new rule will not affect children attending preschool through the state program this year.

Of about 2,000 preschools participating in the state program, more than 40 are religious programs. A spokesperson for the early childhood department said she couldn’t provide numbers showing how often the congregation preference has been used by religious preschools.

Ironically, it was state officials who originally proposed granting the congregation preference, back when they were planning Colorado’s new universal preschool program. They thought it would help address concerns from some religious preschools who wanted to join the preschool program, but didn’t want to accept LGBTQ students or students from LGBTQ families.

The problem, at least for the Catholic preschools at the center of the lawsuit, was that the congregation preference didn’t satisfy them. The preschools wanted exemptions from non-discrimination rules that covered sexual orientation and gender identity. The state refused to grant that request and the preschools never joined the program.

In August 2023, the two parishes that run the preschools, St. Mary in Littleton and St. Bernadette in Lakewood, sued the state. Nine months later, the federal judge, John L. Kane, largely ruled against them, saying if the Catholic preschools joined the state preschool program, they couldn’t turn away LGBTQ children or families.

But Kane ruled narrowly for the parishes on the question of the congregation preference. He said the state couldn’t “have it both ways” by granting the preference only to religious preschools while saying the preference wasn’t tied to religion. State officials said the congregation preference was meant to let religious preschools serve children they had existing relationships with in their congregations, but wasn’t specifically about religion.

The state’s answer to Kane’s critique was eliminating the congregation preference.

An attorney representing the Catholic parishes in the lawsuit called the proposed rule change disappointing, saying the state previously held out the congregation preference as a critical feature that would allow many religious preschools to join the universal preschool program.

“But it also only further confirms what we already knew — unfortunately, the State seems to think it’s more important to try to make sure Catholic preschools can’t participate than it is to make sure that every Colorado family has access to the school that best meets their needs,” Nick Reaves, an attorney from Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said in a statement.

“We’re confident the courts will recognize this targeted action for what it is and uphold the right of Catholic schools and families to participate in [universal preschool] consistent with their beliefs.”

No trial date has been set in the appeal.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

In search of new child care money, more Colorado communities look to hotel guests

2024-10-08T19:19:26+00:00

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Three western Colorado communities hope to raise new dollars for child care through taxes paid by out-of-town visitors who stay in hotels or short-term rental housing.

La Plata and Grand counties and the City of Montrose all have lodging tax measures on the November ballot, with at least some of the proceeds intended to help make child care easier for local residents to find and pay for.

The three communities are the latest in a string of mostly mountain resort areas to ask voters for permission to spend lodging tax dollars on housing and child care. The idea is that local workers power the tourism industry, so visitors should contribute to efforts supporting a stable workforce.

The lodging-tax-for-child-care trend emerged in Colorado after a 2022 state law allowed counties and local marketing districts, which are created by communities to promote tourism, to use lodging taxes to support child care or housing, provided they get voter approval. Lodging taxes don’t typically raise huge sums in the context of local governments. But they offer a new stream of public money for child care at a time when a growing chorus of experts say it should be considered a public good, not a private burden.

Before the 2022 law went into effect, lodging taxes in counties and marketing districts had to be used for tourism efforts. Some Colorado cities and towns have long had the authority to levy a lodging tax to support child care, but few have done so.

Currently, about a dozen counties, towns, or local marketing districts in Colorado levy lodging taxes that can be used for child care initiatives. Some use the proceeds for scholarships to help families pay tuition or wage bumps for teachers.

A few such ballot measures have failed. One such measure in the City of Pueblo in 2023 would have been the first lodging tax for child care in a non-resort region.

Among the lodging tax measures on the ballot this year, only La Plata County’s measure wouldn’t raise taxes. Instead, the measure would reallocate 70% of the existing revenue from the 2% tax to housing and child care. About $500,000 would go to child care each year.

Heather Hawk, executive director of the Early Childhood Council of La Plata County, said the money would help middle-income parents pay for infant and toddler care — the hardest-to-find child care in many communities. It would also boost teacher pay, possibly through annual stipends, and help fund child care center renovations or new buildings.

Hawk said child care is so expensive in the area that it routinely eats up 25 to 30% of family income.

“Being able to reallocate the lodging tax was the perfect opportunity … because it doesn’t increase our local taxes in a way that impacts the families that live here,” she said.

The City of Montrose will ask voters to increase the lodging tax from .9% to 6%, with about 17% of the revenue going to child care initiatives. That’s about $158,000 per year.

William Woody, communications manager for the city’s office of business and tourism, said housing and child care have for years been the two most pressing issues cited by residents who respond to the city’s community survey. The shortage of child care seats has even caused turnover at City Hall.

“We have employees here at the City of Montrose that have had to move to other places in the United States, closer to family ... because of lack of child care,” he said.

Woody said during the pandemic, Montrose saw an “influx of workers who left bigger communities to work remotely and find a place that is rural but still has all the amenities.”

But that growth made housing and child care even harder to find, he said.

Meanwhile, Grand County will ask voters both to boost the lodging tax from 1.8% to 2% and allow the county to use some of the proceeds for housing and child care. If the ballot measure passes, the tax would generate about $2.25 million a year. About 30% of that — or $675,000 a year — would go to housing, child care, or services that benefit visitors.

Christine Travis, the county’s communications director, said how that 30% is spent could vary from year to year, with a housing initiative one year, a child care initiative the next, and so on.

She said Grand County commissioners have considered routing tax revenue to housing and child care for several years.

“Being a mountain resort community, affordable housing for the workforce and childcare to support that workforce has not been getting any easier over the years,” Travis said.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

VP debate tackles school shootings: Vance backs more police, Walz supports gun-control measures

2024-10-02T04:34:51+00:00

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To make schools safer, should America invest more in school security measures and police officers? Or do more to limit access to guns?

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio agreed at Tuesday’s vice presidential debate that gun violence is a scourge on American youth. But they laid out different visions of how to address the problem.

Vance, the Republican running mate of former President Donald Trump, echoed comments he made in the wake of a recent school shooting in Georgia that cast school resource officers and so-called school hardening as the most realistic solution to gun violence. Walz, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, said that red flag laws and better background checks could help keep guns out of the hands of people who would use them to do harm.

Both invoked their perspectives as fathers who send their children into the world each day and hope they return. Walz said that his 17-year-old son recently witnessed a shooting at a community center.

The exchange came during a wide-ranging and largely polite debate that focused heavily on immigration and the economy and included big promises about child care. The nearly two-hour debate was hosted by CBS and moderated by CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, a Face the Nation moderator.

This could be the last debate before the election. When Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump debated on Sept. 10, there was a brief mention of the child tax credit but no discussion of K-12 education. Harris has said she would debate Trump again, but so far Trump has not agreed.

Vance favors more school security, Walz does not

The exchange about gun violence opened with a question to Vance about whether he agreed with the idea of charging parents when their children commit acts of violence, as happened after shootings in Oxford, Michigan, and Apalachee, Georgia. Studies find that most school shooters obtain their guns at home.

Vance said he would defer to local law enforcement on those decisions. Then — as he did throughout the debate — he linked the problem to immigration, in this case by talking about cartels trafficking in guns. He reiterated his belief that keeping guns out of the hands of “bad guys” is not realistic but that schools can be made safer.

“I don’t want my kids to go to school in a school that feels unsafe or where there are visible signs of security,” Vance said. “But I, unfortunately, think that we have to increase security in our schools. We have to make the doors lock better, we have to make the doors stronger. We’ve got to make the windows stronger. And, of course, we’ve got to increase school resource officers,” referring to police in schools.

Walz countered that he had visited schools in Finland and not seen those same kinds of hardening measures, despite high rates of gun ownership. Finland tightened gun regulations in the wake of two school shootings in 2007 and 2008, including requiring a license and gun registration.

“Do you want your schools hardened to look like a fort?” Walz said. “When we know there’s countries around the world that their children aren’t practicing these types of drills. They’re being kids. … You can still keep your firearms and we can make a difference.”

In the wake of high-profile school shootings, U.S. schools have already added many of the “hardening” measures that Vance called for.

Nearly all public schools control access to their doors when kids are in the building with measures like locks and monitoring. Many now use a single point of entry. Around 60% of public schools also control access to their grounds when school is in session with barriers like a locked gate.

And while some school districts have reduced the presence of police on school campuses in recent years, others have brought back school police or added more security. Around 45% of public schools had an armed police officer or other sworn law enforcement officer present at least once a week during the 2021-22 school year, the most recent federal data shows.

Most schools plan for the possibility of an active shooter and conduct lockdown drills, though there’s debate over the right way to do that so that kids aren’t traumatized by the drills.

Last year, an NPR/Ipsos poll found that 88% of K-12 parents supported teaching kids basic lockdown procedures, and 63% agreed that kids should be required to do at least one drill a year starting in kindergarten. There was much less support for using realistic measures like banging on classroom doors or playing the sound of gunshots.

Despite their terrifying frequency and randomness, mass shootings at schools represent a very small share of gun deaths. Vance said law enforcement needs to be empowered to address gun violence in cities, and the country needs to do more to get to the root causes of mental health problems that he said many gun deaths stem from.

Walz noted that many gun deaths, especially in rural areas, are suicides and that children die by suicide when they obtain access to their parents’ guns. Around a third of deaths by gunfire among children and teens in 2021 were suicides, federal data shows. Walz said he would not want to stigmatize people with mental health problems as being more likely to commit violence.

“We start looking for a scapegoat — sometimes it just is the guns,” Walz said.

Walz is a gun owner and describes himself as a supporter of the Second Amendment. As governor, Walz has enacted enhanced background checks and red-flag laws that allow authorities to remove firearms from someone found by a judge to be a threat to themselves or others.

VP candidates discuss paid leave, strengthening child care

The high cost and limited availability of child care is widely viewed as reaching crisis levels, with parents and especially mothers forgoing job opportunities because they can’t find safe people to care for their children.

Meanwhile, child care workers often earn poverty wages, and child care providers aren’t offering as many seats as they could because they can’t find workers. The United States is also the only developed nation to not have a national paid leave policy.

As governor, Walz signed a bill that will provide 12 weeks of paid family leave and 12 weeks of paid medical leave, with the cost covered by a payroll tax, starting in 2026.

Asked how long employers should have to pay for employees to stay home after the birth of a child, Walz didn’t provide a direct answer but said that paid leave policies are good for families and can co-exist with pro-business policies. He also said child care workers need to be paid better.

Both vice presidential candidates highlighted the high cost of child care and lack of options for families. Cities like Detroit have tried to invest in their child care systems with the help of private philanthropy.

Vance said he believes there are bipartisan solutions on child care. He said current federal programs don’t provide enough flexibility for families to choose options like church-based child care and family co-ops. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website and other sources say faith-based and home child care options are eligible for federal funding. Vance had previously suggested grandparents could help out more with child care.

Trump has said that he would fix child care, and that it would be “not very expensive” compared to the trillions the federal government would collect until his tariff proposal. But he has not offered details.

Both campaigns have expressed support for an expanded child tax credit, though they differ on the amount of money families should receive. It’s also unclear if Vance and Trump would support giving the full payment to parents who earn little or no income, as the pandemic-era policy Harris supports reviving would.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Inside Colorado’s high-stakes preschool lawsuit pitting religious liberty against LGBTQ rights

2024-09-19T19:31:39+00:00

At a time when the U.S. Supreme Court has opened the door to greater public funding for private religious schools, a lower court ruling in Colorado could have big implications for the separation of church and state in education.

At the center of the case are two Catholic preschools in suburban Denver that want exemptions from state non-discrimination rules based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The parishes that run the preschools sued the state last year because they didn’t want to have to admit LGBTQ children or children from LGBTQ families if the preschools joined Colorado’s popular new state-funded preschool program.

A federal judge largely ruled in the state’s favor in June. But the preschools are now appealing — and the case could wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Colorado case is one of several unfolding across the country, including in Maine and Vermont, that ask whether religious schools are bound by state non-discrimination rules if they join state-funded programs.

If the Catholic preschools win, it’s possible Colorado children could be shut out of some preschools because of their or their parents’ identities.

Brittany, the mother of a 7-year-old transgender girl, choked up as she talked about the lawsuit.

“It’s so upsetting that there’s so much hate for our kids,” she said. “These kids are just kids. They don’t have a political agenda.”

Brittany’s daughter Naomi is an art-loving, tree-climbing second grader who enjoys reading “Captain Underpants” books and playing pretend with her little sister, who is 4.

The Denver family, who asked that their last name not be used to protect their privacy, is the kind that could be affected by the outcome of Colorado’s Catholic preschools appeal. And if the case — or another one like it — ends up at the Supreme Court, the decision could have a nationwide impact.

Katie Eyer, a law professor at Rutgers University, said, “There are so many of these cases that are currently working their way up through the courts,” she said. “Whether this particular one lands on [the Supreme Court] docket remains to be seen, but it is certainly the type of case that they’ve shown quite a lot of interest in in recent years.”

Colorado invited religious preschools to join state program

As Colorado leaders prepared to roll out universal preschool in the fall of 2023, they invited public and private preschools across the state to join the program. Among them were St. Mary Catholic Virtue School in Littleton and Wellspring Catholic Academy of St. Bernadette in Lakewood, the two schools now at the center of the lawsuit.

The “mixed delivery” approach — meaning both public and private schools can participate — is common in states that fund large preschool programs. In Colorado, it helped ensure there were enough seats available for all of the families that wanted one. This year, about 41,000 4-year-olds are getting half- or full-day tuition-free preschool through the program.

Dozens of religious preschools have joined Colorado’s universal preschool program, including those with Methodist, Lutheran, Jewish, and Muslim underpinnings. One participating preschool is Catholic: St. Columba Catholic Montessori Preschool in Durango.

Experts say that families choose religious preschools for lots of reasons, ranging from a shared faith to factors such as a convenient location, open slots, and high ratings.

But the Archdiocese of Denver wouldn’t let most of the 36 preschools it oversees sign off on the state’s non-discrimination agreement, a requirement to participate.

The big sticking point was the agreement’s protections for people based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Officials from some religious preschools, including from St. Mary, raised their concerns during regular meetings with state preschool leaders before the program launched.

That’s when state leaders mentioned an idea they’d come up with to allow religious preschools who joined universal preschool to reserve some or all of their seats for members of their congregations, according to testimony from the trial last January. But the archdiocese didn’t like that solution because it didn’t want to limit preschool enrollment to only parish members, an archdiocese official testified.

The Catholic preschools instead wanted the state to exempt them from the parts of the non-discrimination rule covering sexual orientation and gender identity. Other religious groups, including an Orthodox Jewish group and a conservative Lutheran group, also expressed interest in exemptions in a letter to Colorado Gov. Jared Polis. State officials refused to grant them, saying non-discrimination protections were part of state law.

“In a sense, church leaders want to have their cake and eat it too,” said Bob Shine, associate director of New Ways Ministry, a Catholic group based near Washington, D.C. that advocates for LGBTQ inclusion.

“They want public funding because in most cases the church cannot sustain a lot of its educational or charitable efforts now, so they need the government money, but they don’t want any of the conditions that come with [it].”

In Denver, the archdiocese this month announced the impending closure of Wellspring and two other Catholic schools due to declining enrollment and financial problems. Last year, the archdiocese closed a K-8 school in Aurora.

Wellspring Catholic Academy of St. Bernadette in Lakewood is one of two Catholic preschools that sued the state of Colorado.

Archdiocese allows some preschools to join state program

While the Denver Archdiocese barred most of its preschools from signing the non-discrimination agreement and joining the state preschool program, there were exceptions. Five preschools under the Archdiocese umbrella signed the form and joined. All serve low-income families and are operated by Catholic Charities of Denver, the Archdiocese’ charitable arm.

Rick Biekers, executive director of early childhood education programs at Catholic Charities of Denver, said the five preschools use a secular curriculum and are open to all families in need.

“We absolutely serve anyone who comes to our doors,” he said in an email.

Lawyers for the Catholic preschools said during the trial that the reason Catholic Charities preschools were allowed to participate in the state preschool program is because they have a different mission than the rest of the Archdiocese preschools. That is, to serve the poor.

In contrast, the other Archdiocese preschools are dedicated to “raising the next generation in the faith,” said Joseph Davis, one of the preschools’ lawyers from the Washington, D.C.-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, during the trial.

Another lawsuit over Colorado’s non-discrimination rules

In June 2023, about two months before the Catholic preschools filed their lawsuit, an evangelical Christian school in the southern Colorado town of Buena Vista sued the state.

Busy Bees Preschool, part of Darren Patterson Christian Academy, had signed the state’s non-discrimination agreement and joined the universal preschool program. But school leaders, who are represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom based in Scottsdale, Arizona, said they feared the state rules on sexual orientation and gender identity would force the preschool to hire employees who don’t share its faith and change school policies related to restrooms, pronouns, and dress codes.

The lawsuit is similar to the Catholic preschool lawsuit, which also cited concerns about hiring LGBTQ employees. But unlike the Catholic preschools, Darren Patterson leaders say all children are welcome to enroll in Busy Bees, including those from LGBTQ and non-Christian families.

In October, Darren Patterson won a preliminary injunction that blocks Colorado from punishing the school for policies that don’t align with state non-discrimination rules.

Federal District Court Judge Daniel Domenico, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, wrote in his decision that those rules force the preschool “into the unconstitutional choice of abandoning religiously motivated practices or foregoing otherwise available public funding.”

No trial date has been set.

Supreme Court grows more sympathetic to religious liberty claims

In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has become more conservative and more sympathetic to religious liberty claims, often at the expense of arguments favoring a strict separation of church and state.

In a landmark 2022 Maine case called Carson v. Makin, the high court ruled that religious schools can’t be excluded from publicly funded programs if secular private schools are allowed to participate. But the court didn’t clearly address whether states could require those religious schools to agree to non-discrimination rules in order to participate.

“That then tees up this tension,” said Robert Kim, executive director of the Education Law Center. “The religious schools are arguing, … ‘Having to abide by those non-discrimination policies violates our religious rights.’”

In the Colorado case, Senior U.S. District Judge John L. Kane, who was appointed by former President Jimmy Carter, disagreed with the Catholic preschools on that point in his ruling.

He wrote of Colorado’s non-discrimination rules: “The purpose of the requirement is not to invade religious freedom but to further the implementation of a strongly embraced public value.”

Scott Skinner-Thompson, associate professor of law at the University of Colorado Boulder, said of the opinion, “He makes absolutely clear that it is constitutional and unproblematic for states and local governments to apply LGBTQ non-discrimination provisions to recipients of state funds.”

Sarah Taitz, constitutional legal fellow at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said court decisions often hinge on whether states apply the rules in a “neutral and generally applicable” way.

In his 101-page opinion, Kane concluded the state met that threshold.

Kane did give the Catholic preschools a narrow win in the case — exempting them from rules banning discrimination based on religion. He did that because of Colorado’s decision to let religious preschools prioritize children from their own congregations. He said the state can’t have it both ways — allowing the congregation preference, which is based on religion, while telling participating preschools they can’t discriminate based on religion.

Mom of trans daughter relieved by ruling on LGBTQ inclusion

Brittany, Naomi’s mother, said she and other parents she’s talked to were relieved by Kane’s decision upholding protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

“We were really happy that the ultimate ruling that came out was that you can’t discriminate against our community,” said Brittany, who runs a monthly park play group for transgender children and started the Denver chapter of the national group TransParent

“That just felt really, really nice to hear, even though we kind of think it shouldn’t have been an argument to begin with,” she said.

Brittany said her family was lucky because when Naomi came out as transgender at age 4, the teachers at her private preschool were supportive. They even helped with her daughter’s social transition at school, including the switch in pronouns and her name change. The family has found the same openness at their public elementary school in Denver, where Naomi is in second grade and their 4-year-old attends preschool through Colorado’s universal preschool program.

In both kindergarten and first grade, Naomi told her entire class — with teachers facilitating the conversation — that she was transgender and answered questions from classmates.

“She came home happy and excited and said, “Mom, I told my whole class that I was trans and they’re all still my friends,” she said.

When sharing about her daughter’s gender identity, Brittany said, “It’s never the kids that we worry about.”

Brittany said her in-laws are practicing Catholics and when she and her husband broke the news about Naomi’s gender identity, they felt a twinge of uncertainty.

“Specifically because of their faith, we weren’t sure what their reaction was going to be,” she said. “They just told us that they love her no matter what and have been champions for her and other kids like her.”

Catholic preschools want to avoid “conflict” and “confusion”

The Catholic preschools in the Colorado case describe their refusal to enroll children from LGBTQ families as a way to avoid confusing children who might hear one thing from their parents and another from their preschool teachers.

An Archdiocese education official addressed a slice of those potential conflicts at the trial — noting that teachers at the Catholic preschools wouldn’t use a transgender child’s preferred pronouns, or let them wear uniforms or use bathrooms not associated with their gender at birth.

But it’s unclear what other conflicts might arise, for example, if a preschooler’s parents are gay. During the trial, Avery Coats, co-principal at one of the Catholic schools, described the preschool’s instruction related to gender and sexual orientation as age-appropriate.

“We do this in vocabulary like mommy and daddy and marriage and family,” she said.

Coats referred an interview request from Chalkbeat to Kelly Clark, director of communications for the Archdiocese of Denver. Clark did not respond to repeated email requests from Chalkbeat asking about such conflicts.

Nick Reaves, an attorney from Becket, sent an emailed statement on behalf of the Archdiocese, saying in part, that Colorado has excluded Archdiocese preschools and the families they serve from the universal preschool program “simply for staying true to their faith.”

Amanda Henderson, director of the Institute for Religion, Politics & Culture at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, said the possibility that children from LGBTQ families will encounter contradictory perspectives at school isn’t a new dilemma.

“Let families navigate that on their own,” she said. “LGBTQ families have been navigating a culture that was counter to their family for a long, long time.”

Ish Ruiz, assistant professor of theology at Pacific School of Religion, said keeping children from LGBTQ families out of Catholic preschools won’t prevent other students from asking about or sharing what they see in their daily lives.

“That 4-year-old will show up to the classroom … saying, ‘My friend Tommy who doesn’t go to this school has two mommies or two daddies,’ or ‘I have an uncle who’s married to his husband,’” he said. “You cannot sanitize the school from reality.”

Catholics have diverse opinions on LGBTQ issues

Despite guidance crafted by the Archdiocese of Denver that calls for the exclusion of LGBTQ students and families from some schools, not all Catholics agree with the stance.

“The church is not a monolith,” said Ruiz. “The church, in and of itself, has a lot of internal disagreement on the matter.”

Henderson said diverse opinions within the church create a thorny job for the courts.

“It becomes really difficult when a specific court is defining … what a religious belief is or whose religious belief is prioritized over others,” she said.

Beth Mueller Stewart and her husband Dan Stewart are practicing Catholics who disagree so strongly with the Catholic preschools’ argument, they urged the Archdiocese to drop the lawsuit.

In a May letter to Aquila and other church officials, published on the New Ways Ministry web site, the couple described the “tough position” they were in.

“The lawsuit forced us to ask: ‘Do we keep our child at Wellspring Catholic Academy and seemingly support the lawsuit, forsaking our values and our consciences? Or do we forgo Catholic education at Wellspring to stand in solidarity and love with our own LGBTQ loved ones?’”

Ultimately, they withdrew their child from the school.

Meanwhile a Catholic family with a preschooler at St. Mary Catholic Virtue School, joined the two Catholic parishes in suing the state over the non-discrimination agreement. The mother, Lisa Sheley, is a front office coordinator at St. Mary school, and testified at the January trial.

She said she and her husband Dan feel it’s important to give their six children a Catholic education. If St. Mary had participated in Colorado’s universal preschool program, her family would have saved nearly $5,000, she said.

“Obviously with inflation, everything is extremely expensive, but even more so for a family of eight,” she said. “So, anything we could save would be extremely helpful.”

Lisa Sheley could not be reached for comment, including through her lawyers.

Will Colorado’s preschool case lead to K-12 impacts?

In the near-term, the outcome of the Catholic preschools case — or the cases unfolding in Maine and Vermont — won’t affect Colorado’s public K-12 education system.

That’s the question at the heart of another lawsuit over Colorado’s preschool program, as well as lawsuits in Maine and Vermont. In those two states, religious schools want exemptions from rules about sexual orientation and gender identity so they can participate in state programs that cover private school tuition for students who live far from public schools.

But there could be spillover eventually, experts say. Considering Colorado’s charter-friendly environment, an unprecedented effort in Oklahoma to create a charter school run by the Catholic church shows one way that might happen. Charter schools are free publicly funded, privately managed schools.

While the Oklahoma Supreme Court in June ruled the Catholic charter school unconstitutional, the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Lurking in that case is this notion that a religious entity could not only seek to participate in public programs, but actually become a public school,” said Kim, of the Education Law Center,

The idea of normalizing public funding for private religious education is concerning, he said “especially if in that process, there’s an erosion or evisceration of non-discrimination principles.”

Already many states have voucher programs that provide students funding for private school tuition, including at religious schools with anti-LGBTQ policies. Colorado has no voucher program, though some experts worry that Amendment 80, a ballot measure up for a vote in November, is a step in that direction.

Despite years of questions about potentially discriminatory practices at voucher-accepting schools, Taitz said the legal questions are a bit different than Colorado’s Catholic preschool case. That’s because in voucher programs, schools don’t get funding directly from the state. Instead, families are the go-between.

“But in terms of some of the principles at stake about discrimination and separation of church and state, vouchers pose a similar, really major problem,” she said.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado infants and toddlers will benefit from 7 grants seeded with MacKenzie Scott gift

2024-09-16T23:01:53+00:00

Stay up-to-date on the latest news in early childhood education and development across the U.S. Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free monthly newsletter The Starting Line.

In November, voters in La Plata County in southwest Colorado will consider reallocating part of the county’s lodging tax to support child care and affordable housing.

Local advocates plan to use a new $100,000 grant to urge a yes vote from residents and think ahead about how to distribute the money if the ballot measure passes.

The grant is one of seven focused on prenatal and birth-to-3 issues announced Monday by the nonprofit Early Milestones Colorado. Other recipients include Hunger Free Colorado, Immunize Colorado, and Mile High United Way. The grants, several of which aim to help Hispanic and immigrant communities, came through Early Milestones’ “Impact on Equity Fund,” a new program seeded with a $2.5 million gift from billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott.

The grant program unfolds at a challenging time for Colorado’s youngest children and their families. Federal COVID relief funds for early childhood have dried up, infant and toddler care is hard to find, and in recent years, much of the state’s energy has gone toward 4-year-olds served by the state’s new tuition-free preschool program.

In La Plata County, the $100,000 Early Milestones grant will fund a bilingual “navigator” to help Spanish-speaking child care providers and families. It will also help leverage a consistent stream of money for child care — about $500,000 a year if the lodging tax measure passes. (Another $200,000 in lodging tax proceeds would go toward housing efforts.)

“It’s a child care desert down here,” said Rachel Landis, executive director of the Good Food Collective, which is part of the La Plata Food Equity Coalition that received the grant. “I know folks with babies are desperate.”

The lodging tax measure money would fund 100 child care scholarships for middle-income families with babies and toddlers and bump up wages for infant and toddler teachers by 6 percent, she said.

Landis credits a group of Latine moms for pushing for more child care support. The mothers began meeting on their own every Friday night to discuss the issue and ultimately raised their idea to the broader coalition, she said.

“I think initially the coalition was like, ‘Huh, that’s interesting, child care. How’s that related to food security?’” Landis said.

The mothers made a compelling case, connecting their ability to work and put food on the table to the availability of child care.

“It was this very systemic, upstream way to try to address multiple issues that feed into … food insecurity,” she said.

Across the state in Jefferson County, another $100,000 Early Milestones grant will support a project focused on early childhood nutrition and mental health.

The grant, awarded to Triad Bright Futures, will fund a yearlong program called Maternal Child Health Leaders for Equity that includes training and leadership opportunities for 20 Hispanic community members. They’ll receive stipends for participating and will practice what they’ve learned by shadowing home visitors who support parents with young children or helping facilitate community meetings on mental health or food access.

Participants will also be part of a “co-mentorship” program in which local community leaders — from home visiting, parent support, and mental health groups — will provide guidance and advice. Participants will also share feedback and suggestions with their co-mentors.

Paulina Erices, director of development and strategic initiatives for Cuenta Conmigo Cooperative, one of the project partners, said the idea is to bridge the gap between local organizations that are working on health and social service efforts and community members with different ideas or approaches.

Often, the two groups are working on the same problems, “but they are not talking to each other,” she said.

At the end of the yearlong program, which will start in January, Erices said she hopes local organizations and community members will have deeper connections and more shared projects.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

They were babies and toddlers when the pandemic hit. At school, some still struggle.

2024-09-05T20:46:53+00:00

Stay up-to-date on the latest news in early childhood education and development across the U.S. Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free monthly newsletter The Starting Line.

One minute, the 4-year-old boy was giggling. The school’s new behavioral specialist made a game of helping him put on his shoes, playfully sniffing them then scrunching up her face in pretend horror.

A minute later, he was inconsolable, an emotional U-turn perhaps sparked by the transition to clean-up time. A teacher cradled the boy in her lap, calmly dodging his small flailing arms. He quieted when he got his pacifier and the shield of a cozy blanket over his head.

Such scenes — of young children struggling to cope — have become more commonplace in Colorado and nationwide as a generation of babies and toddlers whose early life was marked by the pandemic now enter preschool and kindergarten. Experts say many of these children carry more emotional baggage than their predecessors, owing to the stress that coursed through families as isolation, unemployment, sickness, and grief took their toll.

“Any child who was impacted by the pandemic during their first three years of life is bound to have something lingering,” said Karen Wolf, mental health manager at Clayton Early Learning in Denver, where the boy cried under the blanket.

More of Colorado’s pandemic babies and toddlers are showing up with developmental delays than their counterparts born just a few years before. In 2019, about 9,000 children from birth to 3 years old were eligible for free state services because of development delays. By 2023, that number jumped 17% to about 10,600.

There’s also a group of young children who don’t have official delays, but missed out on basic social skills when preschool and playdates stopped during the pandemic. Preschool enrollment in Colorado’s public schools dropped by more than 20% during the 2020-21 school year compared with the year before, according to the Colorado Department of Education.

Early educators say they’re seeing more children who struggle with speech, communication, and managing their emotions than in years past. More students also now struggle with classroom expectations. Jennifer Lussier, a kindergarten teacher at Coyote Ridge Elementary in Broomfield, said a couple years into the pandemic she experienced an unfortunate first: A kindergartner told her, “I’m not doing that. That’s stupid.”

Some teachers and advocates say it’s hard to untangle the effects of COVID from other factors, such as children’s frequent use of smartphones and tablets — a phenomenon exacerbated by the pandemic.

Many schools and child care centers are working to meet students’ extra needs. They’ve added more teacher training or hired new staff to work with children who hit, bite, or have tantrums. They devote more class time to social-emotional skills and call in mental health specialists when big problems erupt.

But some worry that chronic industry problems, including a shortage of therapists who work with young children, high turnover among early childhood educators, and a lack of funding for the field at large, are stunting recovery efforts.

The demands on preschool teachers and daycare workers have grown even as their resources have shrunk, said Lori Ganz, clinical director of The Resource Exchange, which provides early childhood services in El Paso County and nearby counties.

“Their classrooms are larger and the children are more challenging,” Ganz said, “and some days they just can’t do it.”

New parents in pandemic faced an uncertain world

Chmura Smith was in her last semester of community college when the pandemic hit. She was also pregnant with her first child.

“The pandemic kind of shut down my whole life,” she said.

Classes moved online, a format Smith didn’t like. She remembers a chronic feeling of uncertainty. She worried about “getting COVID and it never going away and always being in lockdown.”

A few days after her May graduation, she went into labor much too early. Her son Jadon was just two pounds and two ounces when he was born. He came home healthy after two months in the hospital, but as he grew, he struggled to pronounce words and would sometimes stutter. He’ll say things like “Gween Gwoblin” when talking about his favorite Spider-Man villain.

Jadon, now 4, has a special education plan and gets speech therapy at Clayton Early Learning, where he attends preschool. His 3-year-old brother, born full-term as the world was opening back up in 2021, never had any speech problems.

Chmura Smith and her two sons in Colorado.

For Smith, it’s hard to pinpoint the reason for Jadon’s speech delay. She said her own stress during the pandemic could have sparked his premature birth, which in turn could have contributed to his speech problems.

“That year was a lot,” she said.

Erin and JK Perry, who live in the western Colorado town of Eagle, also wonder about the effects of the pandemic on their 4-year-old son. In so many ways, he’s thriving. He’s an outgoing child with a big vocabulary and good friends.

But he also struggles with anxiety at times — for example, if his parents switch off who’s bringing him to preschool without telling him.

“He will yell. He will refuse to eat his breakfast. He will refuse to put his shoes on,” Erin Perry said.

“I feel like some of that could have been me and JK and just the levels of anxiety we were dealing with,” she said. “It wasn’t just being new parents. It was being new parents in a pandemic. It was like being scared to go to the grocery store.”

Erin Perry said teachers at their son’s child care center talked of behavior post-COVID that they’d never seen before. When their son was 2, one teacher was responsible for shadowing a toddler in the class who continuously acted out. When that teacher turned her back momentarily, the toddler bit their son hard enough to draw blood, she said.

Fewer young children flagged for extra help

During the first year of the pandemic, thousands of babies and toddlers with delays or disabilities missed out on services that would have helped them catch up. They weren’t going to the routine doctor appointments or to child care where professionals might have noticed an issue and referred them for a free state evaluation.

In addition, Colorado temporarily raised the bar in 2020 for the level of delay children needed to receive early intervention services because of a budget shortfall. A version of the earlier threshold was reinstated in 2023.

To make matters worse, early intervention services switched to virtual as the pandemic raged. Some families opted out all together, while others tried them but struggled to realize the benefits. A lag in getting kids set up with therapies and other services can compound their problems, experts say.

Lussier, the kindergarten teacher in Broomfield, said before the pandemic she typically had one or two children with delays in her classroom, but now it’s often double that.

She recalled a boy in her class last year who spoke only in short phrases like, “Bathroom, bathroom. I use bathroom.” Once, she told the boy, “Put your name on your paper.” He looked at her in bewilderment. He didn’t understand that she was asking him to write his name.

A nationwide study conducted by Johns Hopkins University researchers and published this year found modest decreases in screening scores for three developmental areas for children from birth to age 5 during the first two years of the pandemic compared with children the same age before the pandemic. They include communication, problem-solving and personal-social, which includes skills like feeding and dressing.

Researchers said the findings were generally reassuring in the short term and “suggest reason for cautious optimism.” But they warned that more kids with delays could tax the already overburdened system. They noted that the additional deficits translate to about 1,500 more children nationwide being referred for developmental delay evaluations each month.

Classrooms problems aren’t always due to developmental delays

Early educators and mental health specialists say there’s also a growing group of young children who don’t have developmental delays or disabilities, but struggle with classroom norms.

Early in the pandemic, when fewer kids attended child care and preschool — and many adults were constantly sanitizing — some children missed out on the sights, sounds, and textures of a normal classroom: The jumble of classmates finger-painting, playing in sandboxes, and shaping Play-Doh.

When children eventually did experience those things for the first time, it was often overwhelming.

“A typical scenario is a kid who’s pushing and shoving the kids in the line, and it’s because they can’t handle the sensation of touch with other people close to them because they’ve not experienced that before,” said Ganz, of The Resource Center.

Anna Clark, a kindergarten teacher in Cottonwood Elementary in the western Colorado city of Montrose, used to take out a box of fidget toys occasionally when a child needed a calming activity. Now, the box is always out because so many children need sensory breaks.

Taryn Long, who evaluates children ages 3 to 5 to see if they qualify for special education services in the Brighton-based District 27J, said since the pandemic, more children are being referred for evaluations because of “behavior.” Perhaps they pushed a classmate at child care, hit a teacher, or had a meltdown.

“They’re getting kicked out left and right. All sorts of write-ups,” said Long.

But often such children don’t qualify for special education because they are doing fairly well in some ways, she said. They can follow directions, answer questions, and know colors or parts of the body, for example.

Long, and other professionals who work with young children, say some of the struggles young kids have experienced are because in the thick of the pandemic they didn’t have regular interactions with other children and were on screens more than ever.

Parents told Long, “We couldn’t go to the park. The park was taped off. All they had was us.”

Clark, echoing concerns raised by other educators, believes constant stimuli from screens has made it harder for children to enjoy simple things, partake in imaginative play, and even hone their fine motor skills.

With all the one-finger swiping, she said, “They’re not pinching their fingers to turn pages in a book or a magazine as often, and so it kind of just all escalates into these deficits we’ve been seeing.”

Educators say children’s development ‘not a lost cause’

Some early educators say young children today need more practice and more time to pick up key social and emotional skills they would typically learn before kindergarten. Even with early setbacks, children are adaptable and resilient.

“It’s a magical time,” said Wolf, of Clayton Early Learning. “We can have so much good impact still. It’s not a lost cause.”

Earlier this summer, Clayton hired its new behavior specialist — a roving teacher with a background in special education — to help the growing number of preschoolers with challenging behavior. She’s the one who made a silly game of putting on the boy’s shoes.

Last year, Lussier, the kindergarten teacher in Broomfield, spent eight weeks early in the year on lessons and stories about feelings and friendships, not the usual six. She also started going over the rules of afternoon play time, like not grabbing things out of people’s hands, every day.

In the Eagle County school district, all 98 preschool teachers and assistant teachers will receive training this year on how to manage children with the most extreme behaviors — a change from the “as-needed” approach of years past.

Feedback from annual staff surveys prompted the added training, said Shelley Smith, the district’s director of early childhood programs: “It always is a need, but it grew significantly, from ‘I need more resources’ to ‘I don’t feel safe. I can’t keep the other children safe.’”

Several local early childhood leaders said they need more funding for early childhood mental health consultants, specialists who work with parents and teachers to prevent and manage challenging behavior in children.

Ganz, of the Resource Exchange, said the demand for such services far outstrips supply. Her program provides early intervention and early childhood mental health consultation to about 1,200 children at any given time in El Paso County and three nearby counties.

Her mental health consultant budget was recently cut by $300,000 after federal COVID relief funds dried up. Her program turns away five or six callers a week who want mental health consultations, she said

“Now is exactly when those children need the help,” she said. If they land on a waiting list, “we miss a window of opportunity, because for a child, six months is a very long time.”

Asked how much money she’d need to fully staff her early intervention and mental health consultant programs, she said, “We can use a magic wand of a million dollars.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Kara Ahmed, NYC’s head of early childhood education, to leave after turbulent tenure

2024-07-09T21:57:13+00:00

This article is part of an ongoing collaboration between Chalkbeat and THE CITY.

Kara Ahmed, the deputy chancellor who oversaw New York City’s early childhood education programs during a turbulent two-and-a-half year period, is leaving her post, she told staffers in a Tuesday morning video conference.

Ahmed will take over in September as the president of Educare Network, a group of 25 birth-to-5 schools across the country serving approximately 4,000 students, according to a press release. Ahmed told staffers the job would allow her to “help elevate the quality of early childhood education on a national level,” according to a recording of the video call obtained by Chalkbeat.

“While that is extraordinary, and I’m excited and I’m thrilled,” she said, “it certainly does not take away the feelings I have of sadness and just absolute emotion to think about the work that I’m leaving.”

Ahmed’s tenure at the Division of Early Childhood Education, which oversees publicly funded child care for some 140,000 students enrolled in universal prekindergarten (for the city’s 4-year-olds), 3-K (for 3-year-olds), and subsidized programs for infants and toddlers, was marked by upheaval.

Since her start in January 2022, the free 3-K system has grown dramatically, but has also seen budget cuts and thousands of unfilled seats. Ahmed presided over a crisis in payment delays that forced some contracted early childhood to shutter — a problem she said she inherited and has worked hard to fix. She also revamped the way central staffers support programs and introduced a controversial universal curriculum.

Ahmed and schools Chancellor David Banks have steadfastly defended her record, arguing that she took over a deeply flawed system that needed to be rebuilt from the ground up.

“Dr. Kara Ahmed has been with me since Day 1 of this administration,” Banks said in a statement, “and I am immensely grateful to her for her service, dedication, and unparalleled passion for high-quality, equitable Early Childhood Education.”

But critics, including many staffers in the division of early childhood education, say she’s done more harm than good.

“What they did was they came in and dismantled the entire system,” said one early childhood staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “Instead of making it better, they made it more chaotic.”

Ahmed faced battles over payment delays, staff restructuring

Some of Ahmed’s early struggles centered on payment delays for early childhood operators, which crippled many programs and forced some to shutter. In October 2022, the Early Childhood Division official in charge of overseeing those payments left the agency.

Officials blamed the broken payment system on their predecessors and said there were scores of unsubmitted invoices from providers. Some current and former staffers disputed that, arguing that Ahmed and the new leadership drove out long-time staffers with the institutional knowledge to keep the payment systems running smoothly.

In October 2022, officials introduced plans to eliminate the delays, efforts they said have paid off. In his statement Tuesday, Banks credited Ahmed with “removing barriers and delays to provider payments.”

But one leadership coach at the Division of Early Childhood Education, who asked to speak anonymously for fear of reprisal, said that while the payment delay problem was no longer as acute, the issue hasn’t gone away entirely. The leadership coach cited one contracted early childhood provider who recently couldn’t make payroll because they were waiting for a payment from the Education Department.

The payment delay crisis collided with another controversy over a major reorganization of hundreds of centrally employed instructional coordinators who offered coaching and support to early childhood teachers and program leaders. Ahmed argued that the move would help bring the staffers closer to schools. But the reshuffling spurred confusion and fear for many of the staffers, and ultimately prompted the city teachers union to hold a rare vote of no confidence in Ahmed.

(In a statement Tuesday, United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said, “We look forward to working with the DOE and the administration to ensure that there are robust early childhood programs in every neighborhood in the city.”)

Nearly two years after the restructuring, the leadership coach said many of those staffers have left and have not been replaced.

“It has taken support away from classrooms, teachers, children and families,” the coach said.

A new curriculum sparks controversy

In recent months, Ahmed has touted the results of another seismic change that she helped usher in: the introduction of a universal curriculum in the city’s 3-K and pre-K programs.

Similar to the Education Department’s efforts to standardize classroom literacy instruction in elementary schools, the early childhood division has rolled out a single curriculum, called Creative Curriculum, in almost all of its programs, Ahmed recently said.

“It has been thrilling and exciting and absolutely amazing … to see a singular curriculum, a singular assessment system, a singular screening, all of these instructional schools taking place in 90%” of early childhood programs,” she said at a March press conference.

The idea behind the push, Ahmed said, was to “ensure instructional coherency and cohesiveness so all children in all ZIP codes have access to high quality early childhood education.”

But the mandate, and the curriculum itself, have ignited a groundswell of opposition among many early childhood educators, administrators, advocates and parents.

A petition launched by a coalition of opponents of the curriculum called “People’s Early Childhood Education NYC” called on the city to “halt all restructuring and roll out of costly and inappropriate corporate curriculum.” It has garnered more than 900 signatures in about three months.

Lacey Peters, a professor of early childhood education at Hunter College who trains city preschool teachers and has been studying the rollout of Creative Curriculum, said in an email she’s seen how it “prioritizes teaching content over teaching children, and 3 and 4-year-old children are being deprived of opportunities to learn in developmentally appropriate and meaningful ways.”

The new curriculum also came with significant new data reporting requirements. Teachers are now asked to evaluate children on roughly 30 developmental metrics three times a year, early childhood staffers said.

“Teachers are spending more time uploading data than actually having natural interactions with their children and seeing how they progress and seeing their social-emotional needs,” said one early childhood staffer.

Future of 3-K expansion remains murky

The last year of Ahmed’s tenure was marked by clashes between the City Council and Mayor Eric Adams over the budget of the newly expanded 3-K program.

Adams, Banks, and Ahmed have argued that overall, the system has an excess of seats, but that many of them are just located in the wrong places. Banks said Tuesday that Ahmed has helped shift 7,000 of those seats, and has overseen the addition of 800 seats for children with disabilities — though hundreds of children with disabilities were still waiting for a seat as of this spring.

The city commissioned consulting firm Accenture to study where to move seats, but the city has yet to publicly release the $760,000 report.

Despite officials’ promise that every family that wants a seat in 3-K will get one, approximately 6% of the 43,000 who applied on time for 3-K this year, roughly 2,600 students, didn’t get an offer this year, according to the Education Department.

Adams committed this year to using city funding to replace some of the expiring federal pandemic aid that paid for the expansion of the 3-K program, but had still proposed to cut the program’s budget by roughly $170 million next year. Ultimately, Adams and the City Council agreed to add $20 million back into 3-K in the recently-adopted budget, lowering the total amount of the cuts from $170 million to $150 million.

But advocates say it’s not enough, and hope that Ahmed’s successor will push for a more aggressive expansion.

“They’re making a big deal about adding these seats, but it just comes after cutting outreach teams and cutting the seats in the first place,” said Rebecca Bailin, executive director of New Yorkers United for Child Care, a grassroots organizing group. “We need a leader and the mayor to make 3-K a priority because it’s certainly a priority for New Yorkers.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Judge dismisses universal preschool lawsuit brought by Colorado school districts

2024-07-04T02:16:06+00:00

A Denver district court judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit brought by several Colorado school districts over the state’s universal preschool program, ruling that the plaintiffs don’t have legal grounds to sue.

In his 20-page ruling, Judge Jon J. Olafson concluded that the six school districts, two education groups, a cooperative education services board, and two families that sued the state last year had not suffered any “injury” covered by state or federal law. The districts, groups, and families had argued that the universal preschool program administration was harming students with disabilities, in addition to other claims.

The decision is a win for the state and for Gov. Jared Polis, who spearheaded the popular free preschool program, which launched last summer after a rushed and rocky planning process. It comes a month after a partial victory for the state in another universal preschool lawsuit — one brought by Catholic preschools who don’t want to enroll children from LGBTQ families. (The Catholic preschools plan to appeal.)

State officials had no comment on Olafson’s ruling Wednesday evening.

Melissa Gibson, deputy executive director of the Colorado Association of School Executives, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said in a statement Wednesday, “We are disappointed by the court’s decision, but we will continue our focus on doing everything possible to advocate for resolution to the issues impacting students and families in the [universal preschool] system.”

She said filing the lawsuit was “a last resort,” and that the plaintiffs will continue to work with the state to push for solutions and transparency.

In addition to Gibson’s group, the plaintiffs include the Consortium of Directors of Special Education, Centennial Board of Cooperative Educational Services, two families, and the six school districts: Brighton-based 27J, Cherry Creek, Harrison, Mapleton, Platte Valley, and Westminster.

They filed the lawsuit against the state last summer, claiming its administration of the universal preschool program was harming children with disabilities and breaking financial promises to families and school districts. In response, the state asked the court to dismiss the suit. Olafson held a hearing on that motion at the end of April.

Olafson acknowledged that the school district plaintiffs had faced “headaches” in adapting to the new universal preschool system, but said “these growing pains are not legally protected injury.”

He also said that some of the plaintiffs’ concerns would be better addressed through legislative or administrative means, rather than through the courts.

During the 2023-24 school year, about 39,000 4-year-olds received tuition-free preschool through Colorado’s universal preschool program — representing 62% of children in that age group in the state. Enrollment is expected to be even higher next year.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Catholic preschools to appeal ruling in Colorado universal preschool case

2024-07-03T21:57:03+00:00

Two Catholic preschools will appeal a June federal court ruling that would prevent them from barring children from LGBTQ families if they choose to participate in Colorado’s state-funded preschool program.

Lawyers for the preschools filed the notice of appeal in late June, about three weeks after Senior U.S. District Judge John L. Kane rejected most of the claims the preschools made when they sued the state of Colorado last August.

The appeal to the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals means it will take longer to get a final answer to a key question: Can religious preschools exclude children from LGBTQ families when the state is footing the tuition bill?

Currently, the answer is no, but a higher court may rule differently.

The two preschools at the center of the case are run by St. Mary Catholic Parish in Littleton and St. Bernadette Catholic Parish in Lakewood. Neither participated in the first year of Colorado’s universal preschool program last year because preschool leaders said they couldn’t sign off on the state’s non-discrimination rules, which prohibit discrimination based on religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity, among other characteristics. Lawyers for the preschools argued during a January trial that enrolling preschoolers from LGBTQ families would conflict with their religious beliefs.

Colorado’s $322 million universal preschool program, which is funded partly with a nicotine tax, provides 4-year-olds with 10 to 30 hours per week of tuition-free preschool. Families can pick classrooms in public schools, private child care centers, state-licensed homes, or faith-based programs. Of the 1,900 preschools that participated last school year, 40 were faith-based.

Although Kane ruled in the state’s favor on most of the claims, he agreed with the Catholic preschools on one: That religious preschools can reserve seats for students from their congregations. As part of his decision, he issued an injunction allowing the two Catholic parishes to participate in the universal preschool program without having to agree to the part of the nondiscrimination clause about religion.

Becket, the law firm representing the Catholic preschools, focused narrowly on that injunction in its publicity about Kane’s ruling. Its June 4 press release on the decision was headlined, “Federal court blocks Colorado’s discrimination against Catholic preschools.”

But it wasn’t the win the preschools wanted.

Asked about the appeal, Nick Reaves, senior counsel at Becket, said in a statement, “While the district court correctly recognized that the state has no right to prevent Catholic schools from considering religious affiliation in their enrollment decisions, the court still did not permit them to participate in the [universal preschool] program while operating consistently with their Catholic mission.”

Ian McKenzie, a spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, said the state doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

The pandemic set younger kids back. Their struggle to recover is especially acute, data shows.

2024-07-03T20:46:56+00:00

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While older children are showing encouraging signs of academic recovery, younger children are not making that same progress, and are sometimes falling even further behind, especially in math.

New data released Monday points to the pandemic’s profound and enduring effects on the nation’s youngest public school children, many of whom were not yet in a formal school setting when COVID hit.

“It’s showing that these students — who were either toddlers or maybe in preschool — that their learning was disrupted somehow,” said Kristen Huff, the vice president for research and assessment at Curriculum Associates, which provides math and reading tests to millions of students each year and authored the new report. “It’s striking.”

Researchers and other experts have suggested several potential reasons for this trend. One is that the pandemic disrupted early childhood education and made it harder for many kids to learn foundational skills — gaps that can compound over time. Fewer children enrolled in preschool and kindergarten, and many young children struggled with remote learning. Increased parental stress and screen time may also be factors.

It’s also possible that schools targeted more academic support to older children and teens.

“We can see it as a call to action to make sure that we, as an educational community, are prioritizing those early grades,” Huff said. Those are critical years when children learn their letters and numbers and start reading and counting. “These are all the basics for being able to move along that learning trajectory for the rest of your schooling career.”

A slew of recent reports have examined students’ academic progress post-pandemic. Some researchers found that students in third to eighth grade are making larger-than-usual gains, but that most kids are still behind their pre-pandemic peers. Meanwhile, academic gaps between students from low-income backgrounds and their more affluent peers have widened.

The new Curriculum Associates report, which analyzed results from some 4 million students, is unique in that it includes data points for younger children who haven’t yet taken state tests. Researchers looked at how students who entered kindergarten to fourth grade during the 2021-22 school year performed in math and reading over three years, and compared that against kids who started the same grades just prior to the pandemic.

Children who began kindergarten in the fall of 2021, for example, scored close to what kindergartners did prior to the pandemic in reading. But over the last few years, they’ve fallen behind their counterparts. Kids who started first grade in the fall of 2021 have been consistently behind children who started first grade prior to the pandemic in reading.

In math, meanwhile, students who started kindergarten, first grade, and second grade in the fall of 2021 all started off scoring lower than their counterparts did prior to the pandemic. And they’ve consistently made less progress — putting them “significantly behind” their peers.

Younger children made less progress than their pre-pandemic peers regardless of whether they went to schools in cities, suburbs, or rural communities. And the students who started off further behind had the most difficulty catching up.

Schools may want to consider changing up their academic interventions to focus more on early elementary schoolers, researchers said. It will be especially important to pinpoint exactly which missing skills kids need to master so they can follow along with lessons in their current grade, Huff added. This year, many of the report’s struggling students will be entering third and fourth grade.

In Charleston County, South Carolina, where younger students are outperforming others in their state, especially in math, the district is using a few strategies that officials think have helped.

The district made improving reading instruction a top priority. Officials purchased a new curriculum to better align with the science of reading, gave teachers extensive literacy skills training, and started providing families more information about their kids’ academic performance.

Crucially, said Buffy Roberts, who oversees assessments for Charleston County schools, the district identified groups of kids who were very behind and what it would take to catch them up over several years. Taking a longer view helped teachers break down a big job and ensured kids who needed a lot of help got more support.

“We really helped people understand that if our students were already behind, making typical growth is great, but it’s not going to cut it,” Roberts said. “It was really thinking very strategically and being very targeted about what a child needs in order to get out of that, I hate to call it a hole, but it is a hole.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

In search of funding for child care, 2 Colorado regions pursue special taxing districts

2024-05-23T21:24:06+00:00

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Colorado already has lots of special districts that levy taxes for things like fire protection, water sanitation, and libraries. But what about for early childhood programs?

Leaders of the tony Aspen ski resort advocated for a 2019 Colorado law that allows communities to band together to create special districts for that purpose since it can be hard to find child care in that area of western Colorado. Plus, the options available can be expensive for the resort’s employees.

But solving those problems requires regional cooperation since lots of workers live “downvalley” in places like Carbondale and Glenwood Springs, but work “upvalley” in Aspen, one county over, said Maggie Tiscornia, who heads the Confluence Early Childhood Education Coalition.

That’s why her group has led the charge to create one of the state’s first special districts to levy property or sales taxes for early childhood efforts. Another group is trying for a special district on the Front Range. Both will have to win approval from commissioners in each county included in their district’s proposed boundaries before they can ask voters to sign off.

Special taxing districts for children’s services exist in Florida and Missouri. They’ve been possible for five years in Colorado, but none exist yet. While cities and counties already had the ability to levy taxes for preschool or child care, special districts allow communities to take a regional approach to early childhood needs, which, depending on where families live and work, can quickly spill over the boundaries of a single jurisdiction.

Advocates say the special districts can make child care more accessible, affordable, and higher quality by subsidizing teacher training, boosting wages, and helping families cover tuition costs. They say such districts aren’t a cure-all for the underfunded early childhood sector, but can be a partial fix in some communities.

“The biggest thing we see in Colorado writ large is it’s hard to pass things statewide,” said Jason Callegari, senior program officer at the Buell Foundation, an early childhood funder based in Denver. “So, if this is a tool that can get folks to buy into a localized solution, that can be really helpful.” (Chalkbeat receives funding from the Buell Foundation.)

While Colorado did pass a statewide nicotine tax in 2020 to help fund free preschool for 4-year-olds, several other statewide ballot initiatives for education have failed, including in 2019, 2018, 2013, and 2011.

Callegari said the foundation recently created a toolkit and has grants available to help Colorado communities secure dedicated local funding for efforts focused on young children, including through special districts. Although special taxing districts for early childhood are now allowed in the state, there are reasons none have come to fruition yet, he said.

“Special taxing districts are not easy,” he said. “You need to have a lot of governance expertise to figure out how to cross the t’s and dot the i’s.”

Olivia Allen, vice president of strategy and advocacy at the Children’s Funding Project, said local tax levies for early childhood — whether in special districts or a single municipality — can help build trust among voters and momentum for broader public investments.

“These local measures ladder up to state-level support and successes,” she said.

Boulder-St. Vrain leaders seek child care funding again

The push to create a special district encompassing most of the Boulder Valley and St. Vrain Valley school districts grew out of a narrower effort in 2019 aimed at doing more for young children in Longmont, a city of 100,000 where the St. Vrain Valley district is based.

As more nonprofits and government representatives came to the table, leaders realized that focusing just on Longmont risked leaving out too many non-resident children and families who have school or work ties in the area, said Tim Waters, a former Longmont City Council member and a co-founder of the Early Childhood Alliance, the group spearheading the special district.

The group eventually broadened their focus to the two school districts, specifically the portions in Weld and Boulder counties. Leaders excluded a small portion of the St. Vrain Valley district in Larimer County, as well as pieces of the Boulder Valley district in Gilpin and Broomfield counties, to avoid having to win approval from five counties for the new district.

But even with just two counties in the mix, the plan was ambitious.

“We made the decision to go big or go home,” Waters said.

The alliance sought to raise about $60 million a year through a 5 mill property tax levy — the equivalent of $5 worth of tax per $1,000 of assessed value. The money would help child care providers raise teacher wages, expand childhood mental health services, provide more services for children with disabilities, and provide child care subsidies to families, especially for infant and toddler care.

Their bid failed after Boulder County commissioners rejected the plan in 2023, before voters could consider the proposal.

This time around, Waters said, “we’ll make a smaller ask with a more focused scope of work.”

He said the group’s plan for using special district funding will be similar to the first time, though they will seek a levy of less than 5 mills in 2025, He also said they’ll include a sunset date instead of asking to make the tax permanent from the outset.

Rural resort region seeks to bolster child care

A coalition of business, government and nonprofit leaders in the Roaring Fork and Colorado River valleys hopes to create a special district that would raise $10 million a year to help families find child care, provide sliding-scale child care subsidies, and help local providers improve quality.

The district would stretch 84 miles from Aspen to Parachute, and include Pitkin and Garfield counties, and part of Eagle County.

“Our region is very economically and socially interconnected,” said Tiscornia, of the Confluence Coalition. “It really doesn’t make a lot of sense to look at one subregion and provide supports there.”

Hannah Berman, senior manager of sustainability and philanthropy at Aspen Skiing Company, said resort leaders advocated for the 2019 special district law and belong to the coalition because child care — like housing — is a major financial and logistical struggle for many of their 4,000 employees, particularly women.

A recent coalition report found that there are enough licensed child care slots in the region for 47% of children under 5, but that staff shortages prevent some of those seats from being filled.

In addition, child care for one preschool child eats up 15% to 18% of the median family income in the region — more than twice the 7% “affordability threshold” set by the federal government.

Berman said, “We want to make sure our employees and community members have a genuine option to stay in the workforce if they want to, and that means we need to improve child care access and affordability.”

Berman said the biggest challenge in creating a special district in the two valleys isn’t getting prospective voters to understand why child care is a big issue — recent polling shows they do — but rather persuading them to raise taxes. Many already feel stretched financially, she said.

That feedback was part of what prompted the Confluence coalition to hold off on pursuing a special district ballot measure this year.

Tiscornia said the coalition still has some key questions to answer before going forward with a ballot measure in 2025: What kind of tax should it be? What size should it be? And how many years should it last?

As one of the first early childhood special districts under consideration, she said, “it requires a really careful approach.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Outdoor preschools could soon get state licenses in Colorado, unlocking public dollars

2024-05-13T22:54:32+00:00

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Fourteen preschoolers sang “Eggs, larva, pupa, adults,” on a recent morning, curling up on the grass, wriggling around like caterpillars, lying still, and then flapping their arms in search of wildflowers.

The song, along with redwing blackbird calls and a bit of traffic noise, was the soundtrack of their morning circle, which kicked off near a wetland in southeast Denver.

The children weren’t on a field trip. They were attending preschool outside like they always do, under the supervision of teachers from Nature School Cooperative. It was early May and, although the 3- and 4-year-olds didn’t know it, a momentous week for schools like theirs.

Colorado lawmakers were about to pass a bill that would allow outdoor preschools — sometimes called forest schools — to be recognized with state child care licenses adapted to their format.

Advocates say the great outdoors is an ideal classroom, giving young children the chance to move freely, learn about the natural world, and assess risks and solve problems in a way indoor classrooms don’t allow. They say licensing will open the programs to a wider swath of families by unlocking public dollars available through Colorado’s universal preschool and child care subsidy programs.

A child at Nature School Cooperative explores in southeast Denver.

Candace Johnson, whose two children attend Nature School Cooperative five days a week, said the school is a big expense, but worth it because her kids get so much out of it, even on cold, snowy days

She said it would be “invaluable” if the schools could be licensed and access funds to cut costs for parents.

Gov. Jared Polis is expected to sign the bill, which received support from some Republicans, into law in the next few weeks. Colorado will then become the second state after Washington to license outdoor preschools. State officials still have to hammer out detailed rules, so it will be a year or two before Colorado begins handing out licenses.

In the meantime, advocates are celebrating the creation of a clear, state-approved pathway for outdoor preschools.

“We are just very excited and thankful,” said Jennifer Kollerup, who heads the Colorado Collective for Nature-Based Early Education.

Ryan Pleune, who co-owns Nature School Cooperative, said he was thrilled when lawmakers passed the bill. He hopes someday his program can be tuition-free for every family.

State rules aren’t tailored to outdoor preschools

Matt Hebard cried when he was testifying in support of the outdoor preschool bill in February.

He began pushing for state recognition for outdoor preschools more than a decade ago, when he worked for what was then Colorado’s Office of Early Childhood and is now the Department of Early Childhood.

“It just didn’t really get a whole lot of traction,” said Hebard, who now lives in Alaska.

In 2020 Hebard founded Denver Forest School, an outdoor school that serves more than two-dozen children ages 2 to 7 at Bluff Lake Nature Center on the city’s eastern edge.

It’s one of about 45 outdoor early childhood programs in Colorado, according to Kollerup. Some, called hybrid programs, operate in a building part of the time and outdoors part of the time and have a traditional child care license.

Others operate entirely outdoors and follow rules that make them “license exempt” — for example, by having only four children in the group, requiring parents stay for the session, or focusing on a single skill the way a gymnastics class does.

But these arrangements are more or less workarounds since the highly regulated child care licensing system was never designed for outdoor preschools. And since license-exempt programs aren’t generally eligible for public funding, most families have to pay full tuition.

In Washington, which began licensing outdoor preschools in 2019, 17 such programs are licensed. Together, they have space for about 330 children, and 57 children enrolled in them receive state child care subsidies, according to a spokesman for the Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families.

A child holds an insect in their palm at Nature School Cooperative.

Colorado officials say new rules for hybrid programs and part-day outdoor programs will be finalized by the end of 2024, with licenses available in early 2025. Licenses for full-day outdoor programs will take until 2026, in part because rules will be customized based on each program’s geographic location and features. The outdoor preschool bill includes $260,000 for 2024-25 for new licensing specialists who will focus on full-day outdoor preschool programs.

“This legislation actually gives us that staffing and ability to do those site-specific risk-benefit analysis and risk mitigation plans,” said Carin Rosa, director of the licensing division at the Colorado Department of Early Childhood.

The ability to get licensed could bring a variety of benefits to outdoor preschools, including allowing them to enroll more children, extend their hours, and serve more low-income and working families. Licenses may also grant more flexibility in what children can do, potentially allowing activities like tree-climbing, using sharp tools, or gathering around a fire pit.

Although some parents worry their kids will end up miserable in bad weather — with cold hands or wet feet — outdoor educators say with the right gear and planning, that rarely happens.

Parents see the benefits of outdoor schools

Johnson grew up in Houston, a city she remembers as full of concrete. Even when her family moved to Minnesota, aside from fishing once in a while, they didn’t do outdoorsy things. Her parents spent most of their time working.

“We never did vacations, we never went to cabins — that just wasn’t something that we did,” she said.

Johnson, who is Black, wanted to make sure her children felt at home in the outdoors in a way she never did growing up. Nature School Cooperative provides that, giving her 4-year-old and almost-3-year-old the chance to play in streams, jump off rocks, and develop resilience to whatever the day throws at them.

“This school goes above and beyond to make it an inclusive space and make people feel it’s for them,” she said.

The school’s ethos has rubbed off on Johnson. She’ll sometimes use the “deers ears” hand gesture to get her children’s attention when an argument is brewing. She’s also let go of her need for control in every situation, taking “a leap of faith that they can handle things that are challenging.”

Zac Sigl’s 3-year-old son Leonardo attends Nature School Cooperative one half-day a week and a traditional preschool run by the Denver school district the other four days.

Outdoor preschool is his favorite — he likes pulling on his yellow rain boots, digging in the dirt, and climbing anything he can. Sigl said they tried gymnastics, but Leonardo couldn’t focus on it and made a game of running away from the class.

That doesn’t happen when he’s at outdoor school. In fact, teachers there told Sigl that Leonardo is a natural leader, staying with the group and helping other children.

“Every single time after picking him up he’s on cloud nine,” Sigl said.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Preschool is popular, and more Colorado school districts are adding it

2024-05-03T18:21:14+00:00

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Two best friends sat at a small wooden table planning a party on the phone. Would they have cake or cupcakes? Both, they decided.

But the dessert, like the party, was pretend. The girls were 4 years old, the table was knee-high, and the phones were red plastic. The girls sometimes held them up to their ears and other times gleefully spun them like tops on picture books in front of them.

The girls are part of the inaugural class of preschoolers at High Plains Elementary School in the Cherry Creek school district southeast of Denver. Their classroom, tucked inside a portable building, is one of dozens added over the past year as part of the district’s dramatic preschool expansion.

Last school year, the 52,000-student district offered preschool classes at about half of its 44 elementary school campuses. Today, all but one offer preschool.

The district’s growing early childhood footprint has been pushed along by Colorado’s new universal preschool program and the availability of vacant space as elementary enrollment declines. It also fits with broader trends as public schools nationwide increasingly jump into the preschool game — particularly for 4-year-olds.

Two preschoolers at High Plains Elementary School spin their plastic phones while they plan a pretend party.

If the trend persists, “We’ll see what we kind of saw happen with kindergarten over the past 40 years, where kindergarten [became] institutionalized as a fixed part of elementary schools,” said Michael Little, assistant professor of educational evaluation and policy analysis at North Carolina State University.

Generally, experts say adding preschool in public schools is a good thing, expanding options for families, aligning preschool learning to what’s taught in higher grades, and easing the transition for incoming kindergartners. At the same time, they note that administrators and educators must ensure their preschool classrooms are developmentally appropriate, with lots of time for play.

“I don’t want to see preschool become this mini boot camp for third grade reading scores,” said Cathrine Aasen Floyd, director of ideal learning initiatives at the Trust For Learning. “Play isn’t a distraction from learning. Play is the vehicle for learning.”

Cherry Creek is one of four districts among the state’s 15 largest that offer preschool at more than 90% of elementary and K-8 buildings. The others are Aurora, Colorado Springs 11, and the Brighton-based District 27J. Two-thirds of the 15 largest districts also have at least one standalone early childhood center with preschool. Greeley-Evans, a growing district in northern Colorado, offers preschool at the smallest share of schools — 35%.

Cherry Creek spent $6 million to create or retrofit classrooms at 23 campuses for preschool this year. It will add preschool at the last elementary school by August. The district currently enrolls about 1,500 4-year-olds in preschool, and officials say most schools have room for more.

District leaders said expanding preschool districtwide was “the right thing to do” because district families strongly prefer schools near their homes.

“They want to go to their neighborhood school where they’re going to go to kindergarten, where they see their siblings go, where the other kids in the neighborhood are going,” said Scott Smith, the district’s chief financial and operating officer.

While the state’s universal preschool program influenced Cherry Creek to expand its preschool offerings, the district has not been entirely happy with the program. Cherry Creek is among six school districts suing the state, alleging that the officials have broken funding promises and that the program’s administration has harmed special education students.

Preschool students at High Plains Elementary School on Thurs., April 4, 2024 in Greenwood Village, Colorado.

Families want easy access to preschool

Dana Polun and her family live around the corner from High Plains Elementary. She can hear children on the playground from her backyard.

Her youngest son, 5-year-old Dexter, attends morning preschool classes at High Plains four days a week. That part of the day is free because of Colorado’s new universal preschool program, which covers the cost of part-day preschool for 4-year-olds statewide.

The Poluns, who also have a son in third grade at High Plains, pay for Dexter to stay at school for lunch and afternoon “enrichment.” He could have continued at the child care center he attended last year, but convenience was a key factor in the family’s decision.

“Why do two picks-up and two drop-offs, one of them walking, one of them driving?” she said.

She is pleased with Dexter’s experience this year. He’s recognizing letters and numbers, and can write his name. He’s met children from the neighborhood and sometimes her boys hug when they come across each other in the school hallway.

The only downside this year is that Dexter has no school on Fridays. That’s when Polun, who works for an interior designer, tries to arrange playdates with her son’s preschool friends. If that doesn’t pan out, her work on the computer is often accompanied by a constant refrain: “Mom, mom, mom, mom.”

Rachel Rosen, who co-teaches preschool at High Plains Elementary School, reads a book about a mouse who travels into outer space.

Colorado tracks national trends

In the mid-1980s, about 10% of the nation’s elementary schools offered preschool, according to a 2021 Urban Institute report. By 2019-20, that number was close to 60%.

Some early childhood advocates worry the push for preschool in public schools could hurt private child care programs by siphoning off 4-year-olds, leaving them with younger children who are more expensive to serve.

Dawn Alexander, who heads the Early Childhood Education Association, a trade group for private child care providers, said putting preschools in public schools is one of several public policies “undermining the economics of the child care industry.”

While there’s certainly some competition for preschoolers, there are also many thousands of children who don’t attend preschool at all. Only about 40% of 3-year-olds and 60% of 4-year-olds attended in 2022, according to U.S. Census data.

The proliferation of government funded preschool programs has contributed to the growth of preschool in public schools. That’s true in Denver, said Priscilla Hopkins, the district’s director of early education.

Preschool offerings in the district ramped up after voters passed a sales tax hike in 2006 to fund the Denver Preschool Program, a citywide preschool tuition assistance program, she said. At the time, 53 district schools offered preschool.

Today, 77 of 90 district-run elementary and K-8 schools offer preschool. The district also has four stand-alone preschool centers and seven charter schools with preschool.

“One of the things that is really striking to me is how kind of first-on-the-scene Denver was seeing this is something our families want,” Hopkins said.

Falling birthrates have also led public schools to embrace preschool.

“A school begins to be financially impractical” as enrollment declines, said W. Steven Barnett, senior co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. “Nobody in that neighborhood wants you to close that school … Preschool is certainly another way of making the finances work.”

That’s part of the calculus in the Cherry Creek district, which has lost about 3,400 students in the last five years, dropping from nearly 56,000 in 2018-19.

If there’s a benefit to such losses, said Smith, the district’s chief financial and operating officer, it’s that “we can look at space differently and not have a deficit mindset of just saying, ‘Oh, we have to close schools because we’ve got declining enrollment in certain areas.”

There are 18 children in the preschool class at High Plains Elementary School in the Cherry Creek district southeast of Denver.

In the Adams 12 district northwest of Denver, only 17 of 35 elementary and K-8 schools currently offer preschool, but leaders there say they plan to bring preschool to every elementary eventually.

“I don’t think it’s going to happen overnight, but I do know that there are four to six schools on the docket as we think about the next year or so,” said Kim Walsh, the district’s interim preschool director.

All have lost enrollment in recent years, she said. So has Adams 12 as a whole, shrinking by 4,300 students — or nearly 11% — over five years, dropping from 39,000 in 2018-19.

Even growing districts try to provide preschool

Preschool expansion can be a trickier scenario in growing school districts.

The 27J district, just north of Denver, has been one of the fastest-growing districts in the state in recent years. But officials gradually added preschool classrooms at older schools and incorporated them into the floor plan at new schools. By 2018, every elementary and K-8 school had preschool, said Bethany Ager, the district’s early childhood education coordinator.

The streak ended in 2023, when the district opened Discovery Magnet School, a new science-focused school. District officials tried to find a way to shoehorn one preschool classroom into the floor plan, but couldn’t make it work. There simply wasn’t enough space.

While the district has preschool classrooms in nearly every school, plus a stand-alone early childhood center, Ager said demand for preschool seats is outpacing supply, especially in the rapidly developing southern part of the district.

District officials will add five new classrooms across three elementary schools by August. Even so, Ager said, “We’ll make it by the skin of our teeth next year.”

Preschoolers at High Plains Elementary attend class in a spacious portable building just behind the school four mornings a week.

Public school programs can benefit preschoolers

Experts say top-notch preschools exist in both public schools and private centers, and that each setting can meet the needs of families depending on work schedules, location, and the age of other kids in the family.

But public schools have the potential to provide unique benefits in terms of a child’s educational continuity, they say.

Potential is the operative word.

Little, the North Carolina State University professor, said research is generally inconclusive about the benefits of attending preschool in a public school versus a private setting, likely because public schools don’t take full advantage of the opportunities that come with on-site preschool.

For example, they may not include preschool teachers in training and planning sessions, share preschool data with teachers in higher grades, and ensure that preschoolers have chances to visit kindergarten classrooms as part of “moving-up” days.

“We hear often that pre-K programs might just sit down at the end of the hall and there’s no integration and alignment happening,” Little said. “That might be part of why we don’t necessarily see really, really clear advantages in terms of student outcomes.”

Barnett, of the National Institute for Early Education Research, said his research indicates that preschools in public schools offer more developmentally appropriate instruction than private preschools do.

A working paper he co-authored — but has not yet published — found that preschool teachers in both public schools and Head Start programs reported more play-based and child-centered activities and less frequent use of flashcards and math worksheets than did teachers in private preschool programs.

The popular conception that preschool in public schools is more “skill and drill,” he said, “is completely opposite of reality.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado argues in court for dismissal of universal preschool lawsuit

2024-04-30T23:23:00+00:00

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A lawyer for the state of Colorado argued in court Tuesday that a lawsuit filed by six school districts and other education groups over the state’s new universal preschool program should be dismissed because the plaintiffs don’t have legal grounds to sue.

The six districts, which allege in their lawsuit that the state’s new program broke funding promises and harmed preschoolers with disabilities, argued that they do have grounds to sue.

The lawsuit is one of three the state is facing over its new $322 million universal preschool program, which launched in August and offers free preschool to 4-year-olds statewide. A dismissal in the school district case would be a win for Gov. Jared Polis, who’s championed universal preschool since he hit the campaign trail in 2018.

The other two lawsuits were brought against the state last year by faith-based preschools and have not yet been decided. In one of them, a Christian preschool in Chaffee County alleged that a non-discrimination agreement that the state requires preschool providers to accept would prevent it from operating in accordance with its religious beliefs. Two Catholic parishes that operate preschools filed a similar suit.

This year, about 39,000 4-year-olds receive 10 to 30 hours of tuition-free preschool through the universal preschool program — representing 62% of children in that age group in the state. Enrollment is expected to hit 65% next year.

While much of Tuesday morning’s hearing was technical, filled with legal language about how previous court decisions, the state constitution, and federal and state laws apply to the complex case, lawyers for both sides had very different takes on how the new universal preschool is going.

Joe Peters, a lawyer for the state, described the new preschool program as an “extraordinary success” that serves far more Colorado preschoolers than the old state-funded preschool program did.

He said school districts are upset about changes that have come with the new program, including how the state distributes funding and how families apply to and get matched with preschools. He said state officials have already remedied some of the early problems that emerged and are willing to work with school districts to smooth out other issues.

Jonathan Fero, a lawyer for the districts, said, “This isn’t just folks who are upset about change.”

He described the preschool program as failing to serve preschool children and their families, particularly students with disabilities. He also said the program has exposed school districts to legal liability related to special education laws and diverted funding previously earmarked for students with disabilities to private preschools that don’t serve such students.

One of the plaintiff’s key arguments is that the state’s centralized universal preschool application system, which is used to match students with preschools, has created confusion for families and made it harder for school districts to properly place preschoolers with disabilities.

The plaintiffs in the case include the Colorado Association of School Executives, the Consortium of Directors of Special Education, Centennial Board of Cooperative Educational Services, two families, and the six school districts: Brighton-based 27J, Cherry Creek, Harrison, Mapleton, Platte Valley, and Westminster.

The defendants include Gov. Jared Polis, the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, and the Colorado Department of Education.

A ruling on the state’s dismissal motion could come in the next few weeks.

Denver district Judge Jon Jay Olafson, told the courtroom after the briefing, “I do want to move on this. I don’t want to take too long.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Will a child care center at Denver’s airport take off?

2024-04-19T21:53:35+00:00

Denver airport leaders are considering building a child care center — maybe more than one — to help recruit and retain employees at the growing airport campus.

To further study the concept, the airport hopes to win City Council approval Monday for a 3-year, $800,000 contract with a Denver advocacy group that will assist with research and planning. A council committee already approved the proposal on April 10.

The airport’s plan reflects the reality that child care — or the lack thereof — can have big economic consequences for employers that rely on working parents to fill their ranks. More than 40,000 employees, ranging from aviation officials to janitorial staff, work at the airport, which is the country’s third busiest. There are so few state-licensed child care options near the airport in far northeast Denver, it’s considered a child care desert.

Airport officials say they have many questions to answer before committing to a child care center or some other form of employee child care support, but suggested their eventual decision could be momentous.

“We’re on a global stage and we have the ability to do something really special,” said Andrea Albo, deputy chief of staff for Denver International Airport, which is owned and operated by the city.

She said project leaders will carefully consider the needs of the airport’s lowest wage earners and historically marginalized communities in deciding how to proceed. A final decision is likely by spring of 2026.

Nicole Riehl, president and CEO of Executives Partnering to Invest in Children, the group being considered for the $800,000 contract, said employers aren’t a panacea for child care challenges but can help build up child care supply.

“Employers can’t just sit around and wait for the federal government to fix it or the states to fix it,” she said.

Other U.S. airports offer child care

If the Denver airport moves forward with a child care center, it will join a handful of other American airports that already offer on-campus child care, or soon will, including Los Angeles International Airport, Pittsburgh International Airport, and, starting in 2025, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

Sky Harbor’s child care efforts were born during the pandemic, said Matt Heil, the airport’s deputy aviation director for strategy, policy, and administration.

“We had nowhere near the traffic, but we still had to have all the operations up and running,” he said. “It was a priority to make sure we could continue to do what we could to support workers.”

The Phoenix City Council agreed to use $5 million in federal COVID relief money to help fund a two-pronged approach to child care help.

Starting in 2022, Sky Harbor launched sliding scale child care scholarships for employees who earn up to 400% of the federal poverty guidelines — $124,800 for a family of four. About 40 households currently receive the scholarships, which can be used at child care facilities across Maricopa County, Heil said.

The other half of the plan is a soon-to-be-built child care center for up to 100 children on the airport campus. It’s slated to open in 2025.

Placing a child care center at an airport is complicated, Heil said. It needs to be accessible and convenient for employees, while having enough separation from the terminal that long lines, tight security, and abandoned-suitcase incidents won’t jeopardize its operations.

In addition, space is limited on Sky Harbor’s campus in southeast Phoenix. Officials there settled on a site in a courtyard under a Sky Train station near an employee parking lot.

Heil said helping parents with small children secure child care can incentivize them to work at the airport.

“If you talk to other airports, this is definitely an ongoing conversation in the industry,” he said.

How big a role should employers play in child care?

When Stephanie Burke moved to Denver two years ago to start as director of the airport’s Center of Equity and Excellence in Aviation, she struggled to find child care for her two boys, then 11 months old and 3 years old.

She found a spot for her 3-year-old son, but nothing for the baby, so her husband stopped working for 11 months and stayed home with him. At that point, they found a neighbor who was willing to watch him until they found a permanent spot.

“My story is not unique,” said Burke, who is helping lead the airport’s child care effort. “It’s something that we hear from other employees … the wait lists are really long, you have to get on before you even think about having a child or when you’re in your early pregnancy.”

Burke said there are plenty of anecdotal stories, but the airport still needs to collect concrete data on employee needs. About 19,000 of the more than 40,000 employees at the airport fall into the 20- to 39-year-old age group, but it’s not clear how many have young children and need child care. That’s part of what the work with Executives Partnering to Invest in Children, or EPIC, will reveal.

Elliot Haspel, senior fellow at Capita, a child and family policy think tank, said the airport’s plan to study the issue makes sense and praised EPIC as a thought leader on employer-based child care.

But he also sounded a note of caution about the trend of employers launching child care programs — and the growing use of public dollars in the form of tax incentives or grants to help fund such projects. He worries that using those dollars on child care linked to a parent’s job may take away from broader public investment in a child care system that serves everyone.

“For employers writ large, we need to ask them to pay into a universal system via taxation,” he said.

In recent years, there has been a flurry of legislation to encourage employer-based child care, including a 2022 federal law that will allow semiconductor manufacturers who receive federal subsidies to use some of those dollars for child care programs.

“Employers can start to feel like a solution to child care problems, and they are not,” he said. They are “one piece of a larger puzzle.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Half of new state spending on preschool was backed by COVID aid last year, new report finds

2024-04-18T04:01:00+00:00

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After preschool enrollment took a nosedive during the pandemic, a new report offers some encouraging news. A record share of young children enrolled in preschool last school year, and state spending on preschool reached an all-time high.

New universal preschool initiatives in several states contributed to those increases, but federal COVID relief funding also played a crucial role, according to a report released Thursday by the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University.

Half of the new spending on state preschool programs last year was backed by pandemic aid, the researchers found.

That money helped improve access — preschool enrollment was up in nearly every state — but it also raises real questions about whether states will be able to sustain their investments after that federal funding runs out this fall. Some of the 26 states that spent COVID aid on preschool last year have plans to bridge the gap, but others do not.

“It’s important to make sure that they all do, so we don’t move backwards,” said Steven Barnett, the director of the research institute and a co-author of the report. Already, “the nation remains very far away from providing a high-quality preschool education to every child at age 4, much less at age 3.”

The problem of the fiscal cliff isn’t unique to early education — K-12 schools are also grappling with how to fill budget holes left by expiring pandemic aid. State officials and school leaders nationwide are making difficult decisions about whether they can afford to keep many kinds of pandemic-era investments, including school mental health staff, intensive tutoring programs, and expanded summer school. Some districts, such as Chicago and New York City, also expanded preschool access with COVID dollars.

Earlier in the pandemic, COVID aid helped keep preschool teachers employed and child care providers open. But last school year, much of the money was spent to get more kids into preschool. Those strategies included recruiting and training preschool teachers, raising pay for preschool teachers at community-based providers, which typically pay less than schools, and doing more outreach to parents.

States spent at least $571 million in COVID aid on their preschool programs during the 2022-23 school year, the report found, though it’s likely more, as not all of the 26 states were able to say how much pandemic aid they used. That made up a small share of the overall $11.7 billion that states put toward their preschool programs that year. But it accounted for half of the $1.2 billion in new state spending on preschool.

Some states put a large chunk of their COVID dollars toward preschool expansion, but have come up with a plan to at least partially fill that gap.

North Dakota, for example, paid for its Best in Class program for 4-year-olds entirely with COVID relief funds last year. But state lawmakers recently approved putting $12 million in state money toward that program over the next two years, which will more than cover the gap left by expiring pandemic aid.

In Michigan, officials spent $83 million in COVID relief dollars on the state’s Great Start Readiness program, which offers free preschool to 4-year-olds primarily from low-income families. That made up a quarter of all state spending on preschool last year, and helped the program enroll an additional 2,200 children.

For this school year, Michigan lawmakers approved spending an extra $74 million in state funds to help make up for the loss of COVID funding. That investment comes as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer works to fulfill her pledge to make preschool free for all 4-year-olds.

Matt Gillard, the president and CEO of Michigan’s Children, a nonprofit that works on early education policies, said he’s not surprised that Michigan is one of the states that put a lot of COVID aid toward increasing preschool access, and now is using that investment as a springboard to get closer to a universal preschool program.

“Pre-K has been a priority with bipartisan support in Michigan for a long time,” he said. “We have a lot of need in communities, and the COVID relief dollars provided an opportunity for the state to expand that.”

But the picture is less clear elsewhere. Virginia spent around $16.3 million in COVID money last year on the state’s mixed-delivery program, which funds preschool at community-based providers and in other non-school settings. COVID funds make up the bulk of the spending for that program again this school year. Whether the state can sustain that spending will be determined by future budget negotiations, the report notes. (The Virginia Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment.)

That states led by both Republican and Democratic governors used federal COVID aid to expand preschool suggests there could be bipartisan support for the federal government to offer more money for this work, Barnett said. That could be especially important as gaps in preschool access and quality continue to grow between states.

“New state initiatives for universal preschool have already started to reshape the preschool landscape,” said Allison Friedman-Krauss, an assistant research professor at Rutgers and the report’s lead author. “Which states will be left behind as all these other states move forward?”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Gift from billionaire MacKenzie Scott seeds grant program to help Colorado’s youngest children

2024-04-17T22:10:02+00:00

A $2.5 million gift from billionaire MacKenzie Scott will jump-start a new grant program that aims to improve outcomes for Colorado’s youngest children.

Early Milestones Colorado, a statewide policy and research group, received the donation from Scott last year after what leaders there describe as an exciting and mysterious process. They used the gift to create the Impact on Equity Fund, which will begin awarding $100,000 grants this fall to Colorado organizations that work on prenatal and birth-to-3 issues.

The new grant program comes during a challenging moment for Colorado’s youngest children: Federal COVID relief funds for early childhood are drying up, and, in recent years, much of the state’s energy has gone toward 4-year-olds served by the state’s new tuition-free preschool program.

Jennifer Merva Stedron, executive director of Early Milestones Colorado, said the youngest Coloradans and their families need more help. She cited the state’s rising maternal mortality rate, mediocre toddler vaccination rates, and billions in economic losses because working parents can’t find care for babies and toddlers.

“It’s just not good enough,” she said. “We’re a better state than that.”

Merva Stedron said the new Impact on Equity grants — up to 10 this year — will be given to groups that propose innovative local early childhood efforts.

“We feel very, very firmly that those that are closest to the problem really have the solutions,” she said.

Early Milestones was one of at least three Colorado organizations that received gifts last year from Scott, a philanthropist who received a 4% stake in Amazon as part of her divorce settlement with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Valley Settlement, which provides a mobile preschool program and other services to Latino and immigrant families in the Roaring Fork Valley, received $2 million from Scott. Parent Possible, which provides home visiting and early learning programs to families with young children statewide, received $1 million.

Merva Stedron said she learned about the prospect for a major donation — though Scott was not initially named — when Early Milestones received an “out-of-the-blue” email in January 2023. The firm that sent the email, which she later learned vets potential recipients of Scott’s fortune, requested “loads and loads” of documents and an interview.

In the interview that month, staff from the firm told Merva Stedron, “If you don’t hear anything by the end of the year, you didn’t get a grant,” she said.

Even then, the Early Milestones team didn’t know who was giving out the money, how much was being awarded, or how much competition there was for the funds. Several months later, they learned the organization had been selected.

Merva Stedron, who hopes Scott’s donation will help attract another $7.5 million in donations for the Impact on Equity Fund, calls the money “a dream come true.”

Applications for the Impact on Equity grants are slated to open in June. Organizations can sign up here for notifications about the program.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Worries flare over funding cuts to local groups that help run universal preschool in Colorado

2024-04-12T00:20:23+00:00

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Colorado relies on 32 local organizations to help parents and providers navigate its popular new universal preschool program. Now some of them worry that proposed state funding cuts could “cripple” their operations.

More than a dozen of these groups, including those based in Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs and Grand Junction, sent a letter this week to Gov. Jared Polis, the state’s powerful Joint Budget Committee, and other officials expressing concern about potential cuts in each of the next two years.

In the Wednesday letter, the groups said a proposed cut of $1.7 million for next year and an additional cut of $700,000 the following year “will deplete up to 68% of funding for some of us who serve the largest child populations in the state.”

The group’s comments echo concerns raised since universal preschool’s inception about whether there’s enough money to run the program as state leaders envisioned. Some preschool providers and early childhood advocates have worried the state is compromising on its pledge to provide high quality preschool and extra class time for children with the greatest needs as it tries to serve the flood of interested families.

Not all of the local groups involved in the preschool program are concerned about the possible cuts. And if the cuts do occur, the groups would likely be able to recoup some funding through accounting maneuvers at the Colorado Department of Early Childhood. But that backup plan is a promise of future aid, not guaranteed funding.

The $322 million universal preschool program launched in August, and despite a rocky rollout, attracted more families than state leaders expected. This year, 62% of Colorado’s 4-year-olds get 10 to 30 hours a week of tuition-free preschool through the program. Enrollment is expected to hit 65% next year.

The program is funded partly with a voter-approved nicotine tax, and partly with funding from Colorado’s previous smaller state-funded preschool program.

This year, the 32 local groups — which typically have one to four staff members dedicated to universal preschool — received about $5.2 million for their work, which includes helping preschools sign up for the universal program and helping families troubleshoot application and placement problems. That amount is slated to go down to $3.5 million for the 2024-25 school year and, because of expiring federal COVID relief funding, to $2.8 million the year after.

In response, the groups are asking state early childhood leaders to revise the budgeting process that funds them and provide another year of full funding, which would be a total of $5.2 million.

Ian McKenzie, a spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, said department officials are meeting this week and want to respond to the local groups that sent the letter as soon as possible.

“We’re taking it very seriously and want to collaborate with the [local groups] on this,” McKenzie said.

He said the state will be able to partially mitigate next year’s cut through a budget mechanism called a “footnote” that will allow the department to move $1 million to the local groups from another line item if needed.

Mackenzie also said that, collectively, the local groups significantly underspent their state funding allocation last school year, and are on track to do so this year, albeit to a lesser extent.

But leaders of some of the groups, officially called Local Coordinating Organizations or LCOs, say the state’s underspending argument obscures key facts, including that many of the larger groups spent most or all of their state allocations last year and are on track to do the same this year.

They also note that the early childhood department and the 32 local groups were brand new in the 2022-23 school year, and so underspending that year was sometimes because of state administrative lags or the challenge of ramping up a new program.

McKenzie said 28 of 32 local groups underspent their allocations in 2022-23, but said he couldn’t provide numbers showing how many are on track to do so this year.

Christina Taylor, CEO of the Early Childhood Council of Larimer County, one of the 13 local groups that signed the letter, said the budget footnote that would restore some of the lost funding next year will help, but not enough.

Taylor said her group’s state allocation in part funds two employees who are “working their butts off” to help parents and preschool providers figure out how universal preschool works.

If their hours are eventually reduced due to funding cuts, she worries that families would face longer wait times and missed deadlines, and that providers might “throw up their hands” and opt out of the program because they can’t get the necessary support.

Kathleen Merritt, executive director Bright Futures, a local group in western Colorado that didn’t sign the letter, said she is grateful for the early childhood department’s “footnote” money next year, but said, “I do worry that’s not sustainable.”

She said the universal preschool manager she pays with her state allotment works with preschools in a five-county area the size of New Jersey. “They all have her on speed dial,” said Merritt.

Merritt said she’s pleased that state officials recently agreed to start monthly meetings with local groups to look more closely at their costs.

Diane Smith, executive director of the Douglas County Early Childhood Council, another group that signed the letter, said with federal COVID relief now expiring after years in which state coffers were flush with cash, many in the early childhood field feel generally anxious about funding.

When the announcement about cuts to the 32 local groups came down from the state in recent weeks, she said, the feeling was, “Oh here’s another one.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

4 takeaways from Colorado’s new rules on universal preschool quality

2024-03-28T21:48:11+00:00

New rules governing Colorado’s popular universal preschool program could cut class sizes at some preschools, put modest guardrails on curriculum, and require teacher training on trauma-informed care and preschool suspension and expulsion.

But these and most other preschool quality rules adopted by the state Thursday won’t take effect until the third year of universal preschool, which starts in the fall of 2025. In other words, the state’s more than 2,000 universal preschool providers won’t have to make many immediate changes.

The new rules are the culmination of months of debate about how to ensure quality in the state’s new $322 million preschool program without heaping new regulations on already strained providers. Coming a year later than originally planned, the rules are also symptomatic of the program’s rushed and sometimes chaotic rollout.

Despite these stumbling blocks, families have flocked to join. This year, about 39,000 4-year-olds receive 10 to 30 hours of tuition-free preschool through the universal preschool program — 62% of that age group in the state. Next year, enrollment is expected to rise.

Universal preschool is funded with money from Colorado’s previous smaller state-funded preschool program along with proceeds from a voter-approved nicotine tax.

Here are some key takeaways from the new rules:

Class sizes capped at 20, with exceptions

After months of debate about preschool class size, including pushback from private preschools that warned they’d lose money if they had to cut class sizes, Colorado will phase in a 20-student class size cap for most universal preschool providers over the next two years. These limits match recommendations from national early childhood groups.

The current 24-student class size maximum and staff-student ratio of 1:12 will stay in place for the 2024-25 school year, drop to 22 students and 1 to 11 for the 2025-26 school year, and finally settle at 20 students and 1 to 10 for the 2026-27 school year.

There is one major exception to these eventual limits. Universal preschool providers that have earned one of the highest two ratings — Level 4 or 5 — on the state’s Colorado Shines quality rating system, will be allowed to have classes of 24 4-year-olds and staff-student ratios of 1 to 12. Currently, about 40% of Colorado’s more than 1,900 universal preschool providers have ratings of Level 4 or 5.

However, many of these highly rated providers voluntarily keep 4-year-old class sizes lower than 24. For example, Denver Public Schools caps class sizes at 20 at its more than 70 preschool locations, all of which have Level 4 ratings.

In addition to the exception for highly rated preschools, exemptions from class size rules will be available — as they are now — through hardship waivers granted to preschools where larger classes are a key part of the educational model, for example, in Montessori preschools.

Curriculum rules fuzzy, more clarity coming in 2025

When school starts in the fall of 2025, preschools in Colorado’s universal program will have to use curriculums from a state-approved list, according to the new rules adopted Thursday. But that list, which will be housed in an online “resource bank” with lots of other preschool-related material, has not been created yet. In addition, the criteria that will be used to select acceptable curriculum has not yet been established.

The approved curriculum list is the state’s chance to put guardrails on what is now ungoverned territory. Currently — and for 2024-25 school year — universal preschool providers can use any curriculum they want or none at all.

Training on social-emotional health, trauma, and school removal

Starting in July 2025, new universal preschool teachers must have five hours of training above what’s required for their counterparts at preschools that aren’t in the state’s universal program. Those five extra hours must touch on trauma-informed care and the prevention of suspension and expulsion among other things.

“We know those are issues a lot of families are facing right now,” Ian McKenzie, a spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, said of the training topics. “To make those things the requirement feels correct for Colorado.”

Existing universal preschool teachers must also take five hours of training each year covering trauma-informed care, preschool suspension and expulsion, and other topics. While those hours must touch on the topics spelled out by the state, they count toward the 15 hours of training all early childhood teachers are already required to take annually.

New rules don’t come with state funding

With no state money specifically earmarked for preschool quality improvements, it will be up to preschool providers to figure out how to comply with the new rules over the next few years. McKenzie said the early childhood department may have some one-time dollars available for quality improvement efforts, but the amount and timing is not yet clear.

Large or veteran preschool providers may have an easier time complying with new quality rules, but others will have to find money to buy new state-approved curriculum or lower class sizes.

Such costs spotlight the ongoing tension between the lofty ambitions of universal preschool leaders and the reality that there’s a limited pot of funding for the program. Last summer, just weeks before the program launched, thousands of families who had expected the state to cover full-day preschool found out the program would only pay for half-day classes because there wasn’t enough money.

While the state has proposed a partial fix to this problem for the coming school year, some preschool providers and advocates continue to worry there’s not enough funding to provide the caliber of program state leaders, including Gov. Jared Polis, envisioned.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools chancellor hints at reversal of hundreds of millions in preschool cuts

2024-03-18T21:11:10+00:00

New York City Mayor Eric Adams could soon reverse a major budget cut to early childhood education, schools Chancellor David Banks hinted Monday.

Adams previously announced $170 million in cuts from city funding to free early childhood education programs effective next fiscal year as part of sweeping citywide cuts in November and January.

On top of that cut from the city’s coffers, prekindergarten programs are due to lose one-time federal pandemic aid that expires this summer. Roughly $92 million in federal aid is going toward supporting this year’s 3-K program for the city’s 3-year-olds, and another $90 million is helping pay for special education programs for preschoolers.

The city is facing a total “fiscal cliff” of nearly $1 billion next year, and advocates have been sounding the alarm for months on the need to come up with new funding to replace those disappearing federal dollars.

At a City Council budget hearing Monday, Banks called the city cuts “extremely hurtful to the entire enterprise of early childhood,” and said he was “fighting like heck to get these cuts restored.”

Though he didn’t commit to anything specific, Banks said, “I have great confidence in the coming weeks we will have really good news around early childhood.” He added, “The mayor’s office, City Hall, feels the same way.”

Asked later in the hearing by Council member Jennifer Gutiérrez (D-Brooklyn) which specific funding streams he’s fighting to get restored, Banks named the $170 million city cut. He also cited the expiring $92 million in federal funding for 3-K this year. Deputy Chancellor Emma Vadehra mentioned the $90 million in federal money for preschool special education seats that will dry up after this year.

The early childhood cuts, if reversed, would be the latest item slashed by Adams in recent months to get restored thanks to what city officials describe as an improving budget picture.

Adams has also announced restorations of cuts to the police, fire, and sanitation departments, as well as a $10 million cut to community schools that partner with community organizations to provide extra support to families. More recently, the city promised to allocate additional funding to bring back popular food items that were cut from school cafeteria menus in February.

Adams had initially planned another round of city budget cuts in April, but canceled those cuts last month.

Critics of the cuts have long contended that they were never necessary in the first place, and that city officials were being overly pessimistic with their financial predictions to create more pressure on the federal government to boost funding for the city’s influx of migrants.

The cuts and subsequent reversals have created a whiplash that’s been disorienting even for seasoned budget watchers.

Early childhood education advocates have warned that the early education cuts could have devastating consequences and force the city to permanently close seats.

If the city comes up with money to replace the expiring federal money for 3-K and special education preschool programs, it would mark the city’s largest commitment yet to replace an education program at risk from the fiscal cliff.

So far, the city has only committed $80 million to keep Summer Rising, a free academic and recreational summer program, going this year. Promising to prop up 3-K and special education preschool funding after the federal aid expires would prevent significant cuts to seats and drastic pay cuts for preschool special education teachers.

Even if cuts are reversed, preschool program face challenges

City officials conceded Monday that some 600 preschoolers with disabilities are still languishing without adequate preschool seats, despite federal legal mandates and the city’s own promise to get every child a seat.

And even before this year, Adams had already curtailed former Mayor de Blasio’s plans to aggressively expand the city’s free 3-K program to make it universal. De Blasio’s vision was largely funded with one-time federal pandemic aid, raising questions about its sustainability, and when Adams took office, he seemed to be hobbling the program. Program providers complained of rising payment delays and lackluster outreach from city officials.

Adams administration officials have contended that they’ve simply been right-sizing the program, and that they still plan to be able to offer a 3-K seat to any family that wants one. They have also argued that the existing seats aren’t properly distributed, with some neighborhoods seeing lots of open seats, while others have much more demand than supply.

Deputy Chancellor Kara Ahmed, who oversees early childhood education, said the city has cut roughly 8,000 seats that weren’t being used and redistributed 7,000 to other programs to parts of the city where they’re more likely to be filled.

Making matters more complicated, officials said Monday they’re still waiting on the results of a $760,000 study commissioned more than a year ago from the consulting company Accenture mapping out the city’s preschool seat needs. Banks said he expects the Accenture report in early April.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Bill to overhaul Colorado’s child care subsidy program clears first legislative hurdle

2024-03-12T21:15:29+00:00

The price tag of a bill to overhaul a Colorado program that helps low-income families pay for child care shocked some lawmakers Tuesday, but that didn’t stop a legislative committee from giving it initial approval.

House Bill 24-1223 would simplify the application process for the $156 million subsidy program, called the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program or CCCAP. It would also boost subsidy amounts for some families, make the program more attractive to child care providers, and cover child care tuition for the children of some full-time child care employees regardless of family income. Some of the proposed changes wouldn’t take effect until 2026.

The House Health and Human Services Committee approved the bill in an 8-4 vote Tuesday, with the most vociferous opposition coming from Rep. Richard Holtorf, a Republican representing several northeastern Colorado counties. He expressed concerns about the bill’s cost — about $81 million in the first year — among other things.

“When I first saw this bill and the fiscal note, I was shocked,” he said.

Rep. Lorena Garcia, a Democratic co-sponsor of the bill, noted that some of the bill’s provisions are part of new federal regulations and will come with federal money to pay for them.

“This is not the first time that the state has to preemptively pass policy in order to be able to draw down federal dollars,” she said. “In this case … we are extending the timeline out for two years. If something happens where these dollars then do not become available, we have time to correct.”

The bill’s next stop is the House Appropriations Committee.

Key provisions of the amended bill include:

Limiting parent co-pays to no more than 7% of family income, down from the current cap of 14%. An amendment approved Tuesday would delay the effective date of this provision to July 1, 2026.
Creating a uniform statewide application that doesn’t ask for extraneous information, such as custody agreements or child immunization records.
Allowing families to get or continue receiving child care aid for 90 days while their application or renewal paperwork is being reviewed, a provision that will help parents start working immediately and keep children in care. An amendment approved Tuesday would delay the effective date of this provision to July 1, 2026.
Paying child care providers who accept subsidies based on the number of subsidized children enrolled, not on the number of days those children attend. Currently, providers can lose money for days the child is absent beyond the number allowed by their county.
Making child care employees eligible for full subsidies regardless of their family income. An amendment approved Tuesday would limit this benefit to full-time child care employees who work at a facility that accepts CCCAP subsidies.

More than 20 people testified about the bill at Tuesday’s hearing, including single mothers who have used the subsidy program, providers who accept the subsidies, and advocates from groups such as Healthier Colorado, the Colorado Children’s Campaign, and the Women’s Foundation of Colorado.

Most expressed support for the bill, but a few, representing counties, voiced concerns.

Katie First, legislative director at Colorado Counties, Inc., a group that represents county commissioners, said allowing child care employees to access subsidies regardless of family income could take aid away from other families who need it.

“While we appreciate the need to support and recruit child care providers, we fear that prioritizing these providers will decrease the number of low-income families that we would be able to serve in our community,” she said.

Child care is a low-wage, high-turnover industry with many providers facing staff shortages in recent years.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Child care aid: Colorado lawmakers want more parents to get it — and more providers to accept it

2024-03-08T22:19:00+00:00

Colorado helps about 17,000 lower-income families pay for child care each year through its child care subsidy program. That’s only a fraction of the families eligible for assistance, and yet there are millions of dollars left on the table every year.

Theresa Ramirez, a single mother in Fort Collins, can attest to one reason why. Although she submitted her annual renewal paperwork early, a lag in getting it processed forced her to quit working for weeks after her baby’s subsidy was canceled.

Now, lawmakers are considering a bill that would overhaul the program, making it easier for families to access, boosting aid for some families, and making it more attractive for providers who accept subsidies. The bill would also cover full tuition for child care employees with kids in child care regardless of family income — a major benefit given the industry’s chronically low wages.

House Bill 24-1223, sponsored by three Denver area Democrats, will be heard in the House Health and Human Services Committee on March 12.

The proposed improvements to Colorado’s subsidy program — officially called the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program or CCCAP — come at a time when many families are struggling with the cost of living and some child care providers are raising tuition to cover their expanding costs. While lawmakers and advocates say it’s high time for fixes that allow more families to get subsidies and entice more child care providers to accept them, one of the bill’s co-sponsors said the price tag could be large. State legislative staff have not yet released the bill’s fiscal note, a detailed analysis of how much it will cost.

Kyle Piccola, vice president of communications and advocacy at Healthier Colorado, said he’s pleased the state is taking a “big holistic approach” to the child care subsidy bill.

“It’s a program that definitely needs improvement,” he said.

Rep. Lorena Garcia, a co-sponsor of the bill, said she’s encountered no opposition to the spirit of the bill, but acknowledged the cost could be a stumbling block for some lawmakers.

“I’m confident we’ll get it to a place where we’ll get it done,” she said.

Colorado’s $156 million child care subsidy program is funded by the federal government, the state, and counties. It’s available to homeless families as well as lower-income families in which parents are working, looking for work, or going to school. Most families who qualify for subsidies still pay a portion of child care costs in the form of a co-pay.

Several advocates and providers interviewed said the subsidy application, which is different in every county, can be invasive and intimidating. That can lead parents to skip it even if they need the help.

Nearly two-thirds of the state’s 64 counties use less than 75% of their subsidy dollars annually and this year, the program is on track to have up to $7 million in leftover funding, according to the Colorado Department of Early Childhood.

“It’s underutilized,” Garcia said.

More aid for families and incentives for child care providers

The bill would make a number of changes required by newly released federal rules aimed at reducing the cost of child care and some changes that are Colorado specific. Key provisions of the bill include:

Limiting parent co-pays to no more than 7% of family income, down from the current cap of 14%.
Creating a uniform statewide application that doesn’t ask for extraneous information, such as custody agreements or child immunization records.
Allowing families to get or continue receiving child care aid for 90 days while their application or renewal paperwork is being reviewed, a provision that will help parents start working immediately and keep children in care.
Paying child care providers who accept subsidies based on the number of subsidized children enrolled, not on the number of days those children attend. Currently, providers can lose money for days the child is absent above the number allowed by their county.
Making child care employees eligible for full subsidies regardless of their family income.

Overall, the bill aims to better serve families that currently receive subsidies, attract new ones, and incentivize more child care providers to accept subsidies.

This year, nearly 26,000 Colorado children get subsidized care through the program, only about 11% of eligible children, according to estimates from Healthier Colorado. Just over 2,000 child care providers accept state subsidies, fewer than half of the state’s providers.

What parents and providers are saying

Ramirez, who lives with her four children in Fort Collins, described CCCAP subsidies as a lifeline that allowed her to work starting when her youngest child, 13-month-old Sarai, was six weeks old.

Ramirez brings home about $1,300 a month from her work cleaning houses. Her co-pay is $4 a month at The Family Center/La Familia, a family resource center that runs a highly rated child care program in the northern Colorado city. Her daughter loves it there, she said.

But when Ramirez lost her subsidy for a few weeks after her renewal application stalled, she had no choice but to bring Sarai home and decline all cleaning jobs. It’s the kind of wrinkle the subsidy bill could help fix.

Under the bill, such cancellations would be averted by giving families what’s called “presumptive eligibility,” essentially a 90-day grace period in which subsidies would start or continue while officials review applications or renewals.

Ramirez said anything in the bill that streamlines and strengthens the application and renewal process will make a difference for families like hers.

Corinne Bernhardt, executive director of Young Peoples Learning Center in Fort Collins, said the plan to give full subsidies to employees will help about a quarter of her 25 staff members. It will also make it easier to hire new employees amid industry-wide labor shortages.

The center’s current staff discount for child care isn’t always enough to get qualified candidates with young children in the door, she said.

“To have to say, ‘Well, we can give you a 50%-off discount, but it’s still going to cost you $1,500 a month to bring your kid here, but we’re only going to pay you $17 an hour,’ a lot of people are like, ‘OK, I guess I’m just going to stay home,’” she said.

Bernhardt said she also likes the provision requiring that providers be reimbursed based on enrollment instead of attendance because it will reduce administrative hassles for her staff.

Overall, she believes by making much needed improvements to the state’s subsidy program, the bill will help Colorado’s economy.

“Parents can’t go into the workforce, if they can’t find child care,” she said.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Is 24 preschoolers in a classroom too many? Colorado will soon decide.

2024-02-23T16:00:00+00:00

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As Colorado leaders prepare for the second year of the state’s popular new universal preschool program, they’re grappling with a hotly debated question.

How many 4-year-olds in a classroom is too many?

Since the $322 million preschool program launched in August, the state has allowed classes of up to 24 children and required one staff member for every 12 students. But many experts and observers believe those numbers are too high and undermine the state’s promise to provide high-quality preschool. They want class sizes capped at 20 and staff-to-student ratios limited to 1 to 10.

Last fall, state leaders appeared ready to phase in the 20-student class size and 1-to-10 ratio limits by 2025. But they’ve faced months of pushback, mostly from private preschool providers. A state advisory committee has also recommended the rules allowing higher class sizes and ratios stay in place.

The final decision rests with Lisa Roy, executive director of the Colorado Department of Early Childhood. She said in a statement she’s weighing research on the topic and feedback from the advisory committee, and will decide by March 28.

The class size debate highlights one of the key tensions in Colorado’s new preschool program: the need to balance what’s best for young children with cold financial realities. Not only is early childhood education a notoriously low-margin business, but there’s limited state funding for the program.

This year, about 39,000 4-year-olds receive 10 to 30 hours of tuition-free preschool through the program — 62% of that age group in the state. Next year, enrollment is expected to rise.

Because preschool is funded per student, many providers who’ve argued for keeping universal preschool classes of 24 students have warned they’ll lose tens of thousands of dollars annually if they have to drop down to 20 children per classroom and one staff member for every 10 students.

In addition, some say such rules would lead to tuition hikes for hours not covered by universal preschool, push providers to drop out of the universal program, or force them to close their doors permanently.

Dozens of preschool providers and early childhood groups have submitted written comments to the state in recent months about the proposed preschool quality rules. A few providers have endorsed smaller class sizes and lower staff-to-student ratios — but most have not, and several have sharply criticized them.

One private provider suggested that lower class sizes and ratios make sense for preschools run by public schools — which serve most young students with special needs — but not for private preschools. A few commenters noted that Montessori preschools often incorporate 24 or more children of varying ages because students work more independently in such programs.

Ron Montoya, who with his wife owns a Goddard School child care franchise in Westminster, said in an interview that class sizes of 20 would mean he’d have to cut eight universal preschool seats — four from each of his two 4-year-old classrooms.

Fewer spots for children, he said, run counter to “the mandate from the voters and from the governor.”

Universal preschool is one of Gov. Jared Polis’ signature initiatives and is funded partly with a voter-approved nicotine tax. Preschools get about $6,000 for every child enrolled for 15 hours a week. That funding is set to increase by only 2% — about $120 — next year.

Montoya also worries that lost revenue stemming from the proposed class size cap could make it harder to pay teachers a competitive wage.

Class size data hard to pin down

One of the biggest unanswered questions in the class size conflict is how many of the 1,932 preschools in Colorado’s universal program actually have classes of 24 students and staff-to-student ratios of 1 to 12. The state doesn’t track that number.

That makes it hard to know how many universal preschool seats would be lost by changing class size rules. Some preschool providers say thousands of seats would disappear statewide. At the same time, state officials say up to 150 new preschools are poised to join the universal program for the 2024-25 school year, adding new slots to the total.

While Colorado’s licensing rules have long allowed 24 4-year-olds in preschool classes and staff-to-student ratios of 1 to 12, many providers operate with lower numbers for logistical or historical reasons.

Some classrooms simply don’t have the square footage required by the state to accommodate that many kids. Plus, Colorado’s previous state-funded preschool program, which served children with risk factors mostly in public schools, capped class sizes at 16 and staff-student ratios at 1 to 8.

The Durango school district in southwest Colorado continues to run its 13 preschool classrooms with 16 children per class and one staff member for every eight students even though it’s no longer required.

“I think it’s best for kids,” said Jennifer Baufield, the district’s early childhood coordinator. “Our teachers are better able to meet their needs.”

Much is expected of early childhood teachers and smaller class sizes make it easier, she said: “Being a preschool teacher is a stressful job.”

The Denver district, Colorado’s largest, has taken a different tack than Durango. It bumped up class sizes from 16 to 20 when the state’s new universal preschool began last summer.

But Priscilla Hopkins, the district’s executive director of early education, said that’s as high as the district will go except for Montessori classroom settings.

“I like keeping class sizes as manageable as possible because you want strong supervision and high-quality programming and attention for students,” she said.

Denver’s move to a maximum 20 students per class will lead to around 20 preschool classroom closures across the district next year because it will take fewer classrooms to hold the same number of students.

“We are just being efficient and consolidating programs,” Hopkins said.

Experts say smaller class sizes are better

Early childhood groups, including the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University and the National Association for the Education of Young Children, recommend preschool class size maximums of 20 children and staff-to-student ratios of 1 to 10.

Many states with large, publicly funded preschool programs hew to those limits, too.

At a December meeting of the state’s Early Childhood Leadership Commission, co-chair Susan Steele acknowledged the tension in creating high quality preschool with limited funding, but said other states have managed.

“How can they have higher [teacher training] requirements? How can they have lower group sizes? How is that possible other places and not in Colorado? I mean, it doesn’t make sense to me,” she said.

Research on class size is mixed, with some studies finding social, behavioral, or literacy gains for children in smaller classes and others finding no effects. A 2017 study that analyzed decades of research concluded that class size caps of 20 and staff-to-student ratios of 1 to 10 “are largely adequate for most children.”

The same year, another group of researchers that analyzed dozens of studies on staff-to-student ratios concluded that other efforts to boost preschool quality, such as staff training, might yield “better payoffs” than reducing ratios.

Alissa Mwenelupembe, managing director of early learning at the National Association for the Education of Young Children, said it’s clear that young children profit from deep connections with trusted adults.

“There is a point in the size of the group where those deep connections cannot happen,” she said. “The reality is the smaller the group size, the more individual attention and support children can get in the classroom.”

But Mwenelupembe is also sympathetic to preschool providers who’ve long operated with 24 children per class and fear losing money if Colorado’s proposed stricter limits come to pass.

“I think it’s really challenging to turn a ship,” she said. “At the end of the day, we do think lower ratios are better, but we also can’t let go of the fact that early learning programs have to be able to be viable businesses.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

This Colorado county aimed to create thousands more child care slots. Here’s how it went.

2024-02-03T00:14:19+00:00

A little over a year ago, Grace Luchavez opened a child care program in her Grand Junction home in western Colorado. Today, the former nursing assistant cares for a handful of children in a living room accessorized with a colorful alphabet rug and lined with toy bins.

Five miles away, a new state-of-the-art child care center is going up in a former alfalfa field, rising steadily from a skeleton of metal beams and concrete. A longtime local child care provider will operate the center, which will be the first in Clifton, an unincorporated community with more than 1,000 small children, many from low-income families.

Luchavez’s child care business and the future Clifton center represent some of the fruits of an ambitious campaign to double the number of child care slots and boost child care quality in Mesa County. The effort began in 2017 and was originally dubbed Child Care 8,000 for the number of slots county leaders hoped to reach. At the time, the county was losing child care seats by the dozens, parents were hamstrung by long waitlists, and employers were struggling to keep working parents on the job.

Jeff Kuhr, who then headed the county health department and was the chief architect of Child Care 8,000, believed high-quality child care could improve child and family well-being, and by extension, community well-being. It could help address everything from low elementary test scores to high suicide rates and workforce turnover.

Today, leaders and advocates in Mesa County say parents have more child care choices, quality is higher, and it’s easier for prospective child care providers to get into the field. But the county fell short of its ultimate goal: Instead of 8,000 child care slots, it has 5,000. That represents about 800 more slots than there used to be, but still not enough to meet the need.

Child Care 8,000 no longer exists as an official county initiative, but leaders say its message and momentum live on.

“We’re not done for sure, but definitely making strides,” said Stephanie Bivins, director of Mesa County’s early childhood council, a group that supports child care providers and families with young children.

Stephanie Bivins, director of Mesa County's early childhood council, stands last fall in front of the building that will house the new Clifton child care center.

She said Child Care 8,000 created a stronger early childhood ecosystem by getting county agencies, city leaders, local colleges, and businesses to work together on child care in an unprecedented way. The effort brought in new grant money, streamlined parts of the process for opening a child care business, and dramatically expanded free training for child care teachers.

Kuhr said more needs to be done to raise wages for early childhood staff, but he’s proud of what the effort has accomplished.

“It changed the values of Mesa County,” he said, “It put early childhood education on the map.”

Finding child care that’s still far away

Parent Kaycie Crider knows what it’s like to scramble for child care. When she had her first child five years ago, “I ended up rearranging my entire life to stay home,” she said.

She cared for her daughter while working from home in the tiny ranching town of Colbran in eastern Mesa County. She assisted a real estate broker with paperwork on a contract basis. But things got tricky when her second child, a son, grew into a busy, inquisitive toddler.

“He was too active … climbing on counters when I was trying to put on my professional voice and answer the phone,” she said. “It just was too crazy.”

Last summer, Crider, who now sells commercial playground equipment, decided to put her children in child care a few days a week. She found a licensed home-based provider near Grand Junction who’d opened about six months before. She also relied on her father to care for the children one day a week. She and her husband, a lineman for the local power utility, took turns caring for the children on Fridays.

The hard part of Crider’s child care search wasn’t finding open slots, but finding them in a convenient location for an affordable price. Last fall, her commute to work in Palisade was an hour and 20 minutes, partly because she drove 12 miles out of her way to drop the kids at child care each morning.

This winter, she switched her son and daughter to a Grand Junction child care center partly because tuition was lower — $78 a day instead of $110 — and partly so her son could be around more kids his age. Her commute each way is eight miles longer now.

Ideally, Crider said, there’d be more child care options in or near Colbran. The local school district operates a preschool that her 4-year-old daughter now attends tuition-free two days a week through the state’s universal preschool program. But her son, who just turned 3, won’t qualify for more than a year.

Planning for healthy children and a healthy county

When Child Care 8,000 launched in 2017, the 8,000-slot goal represented about 60% of the county’s population of children age 12 and younger — the approximate proportion who needed child care either because both parents work or their household is led by a single parent who works.

Curtis Englehart, executive director of the Grand Junction Economic Partnership, which helps recruit companies to the area, said child care is a big issue for the business community.

“It can be right up there with cost of living,” he said. “If child care remains a huge barrier … then getting businesses to relocate or expand, they won’t have the workforce to do it.”

Bivins, who was early childhood coordinator for Mesa County Public Health before moving to the early childhood council in 2021, started her work on Child Care 8,000 by gathering data at five child care centers. She discovered they were operating at about 70% capacity, not because of a lack of demand, but because they couldn’t find qualified staff.

“There were so many costs associated with entering the field,” she said. “To get [an entry-level Child Development Associate credential] is about two grand and these folks are making minimum wage. They can’t afford that.”

Bivins and the rest of the team set about making it easier and cheaper for people to enter the field and advance once they were in it. They gave out scholarships for training courses, offered stipends so prospective providers could afford to take off work for child care credential exams, and dramatically expanded coaching and technical assistance for new providers.

“Now, we have a full career pipeline that we’ve built over the last few years,” she said.

The work of Child Care 8,000 was funded through a variety of sources, including a state 2Generation Opportunities grant, county health department dollars, and federal COVID aid.

Several employees at the Grand Junction’s Eureka! McConnell Science Museum — which launched a full-day preschool program three years ago — have taken advantage of the free early childhood classes and training.

They include staff who worked at the museum’s reception desk and in other non-child care jobs. The financial help allowed them to land full-time early childhood jobs with benefits, said Jenn Moore, the museum’s executive director.

“They would never have done it without the county providing these financial offsets just because it’s too expensive,” she said.

Englehart said although it’s still particularly tough to find infant care in the county, it’s getting easier for families to find child care generally — and for businesses to take a chance in the region. In 2023, 10 companies relocated or expanded to the Grand Junction area, creating 150 new jobs.

“Progress is definitely being made,” he said.

Employers expand child care options for employees

In a field marked by low pay, high stress, and lots of regulation, Child Care 8,000 was always destined to be a huge lift. And perhaps unsurprisingly, the topline goal of increasing the number of child care seats from 4,200 to 8,000 by the end of 2020 — a 90% jump — never materialized. Instead there was a more modest 20% increase in child care capacity.

“I didn’t ever expect that this was going to happen quickly” said Kuhr, who left his job at the health department last summer. “I feel like we’ve made some headway but we still have a ways to go.”

Mesa County did exceed its goal on child care quality, boosting the proportion of providers with one of the top three ratings on the state’s Colorado Shines rating system from 10% in 2017 to 40% today. That’s higher than the original goal of 30% and the statewide average of 24%.

There have been other high-profile gains, too. In the past few years, several local employers have opened centers to provide child care to their workers. Both Grand Junction and Community Hospital have opened child care centers for their employees — together creating 184 new seats.

Jennifer Knott operates the new child care center at Community Hospital and will also operate the center opening in Clifton later this year.

County leaders also have high hopes for the Clifton project, which will create nearly 200 new child care slots, plus space for early childhood offices, training, and conferences.

In addition, a center that will serve employees of the Eureka museum along with four other nonprofits, is slated to open in 2025, provided the nonprofits can raise enough money for construction.

Several people involved in Child Care 8,000 said it shouldered much of the work that should have fallen to the county’s early childhood council, which was dysfunctional when Child Care 8,000 began. Today, under Bivins’ leadership, the council is well-regarded.

“That council is completely changed and it’s awesome,” said Kuhr.

Giving families flexibility and an attractive setting

One day last fall, Luchavez distracted a toddler who was on the brink of bumping a wobbly baby by asking him to tell a visitor his age.

“How old are you?” she said, from her perch on a blue pillow that looked like a beach ball. “Show your fingers.”

Gazing at Luchavez, who was holding up her own fingers as a hint, the 2-year-old rested his fists on his chin, with both index fingers pointing skyward. Then he hopped on a blue ride-on car and inched around the living room.

Grace Luchavez takes the children she cares for to her yard for outdoor playtime.

As a licensed home-based provider, Luchavez provides the cozy setting and flexible hours that lots of families seek, especially for infants and toddlers. Some days, she starts at 6:15 a.m. and sends the last child home around 7 p.m. — a long day for her, but priceless for parents who work 12-hour shifts.

During the pandemic, Luchavez worked nights as a nursing assistant at St. Mary’s Medical Center. But when a colleague struggled to find child care for her young son after her husband died, Luchavez offered to help out on her days off. From there, she decided to get a state license so she could accept more children and turn it into a full-time business.

Luchavez has a warm personality, calm demeanor, and lots of experience with children. She’s the mother of three adult daughters and used to help out at her sister’s child care program in Montrose. Still, she initially had doubts about whether she could jump through the hoops required to enter the highly-regulated world of licensed child care.

“Maybe I will not be able to pass or maybe I’ll not get that license,” she recalled thinking when she started the journey.

But she credits her coach from the early childhood council for helping every step of the way.

While Child Care 8,000 has encouraged home-based child care providers like Luchavez to enter the field, there are still fewer seats in home settings than before the pandemic. Bivins said the county is still working its way back from a huge deficit of such providers. But 2023 was a good year, with a net gain of 38 home-based child care slots in the county — a 9% increase from 2022.

Today, Luchavez gets calls about twice a week from parents looking for child care.

“Sorry, I’m already full,” she tells them.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.