PreK in community-based programs

Around the country, states are beginning to offer voluntary state-funded PreK programs to 4 year olds, and sometimes 3 year olds. See chart of 10 states leading the way in PreK. Most of these state PreK programs are part-time and delivered through school-based programs just during the school year. The teachers often are required to have a BA or even an MA in early childhood education.

One of the first questions to arise in this scenario is “what about children in child care centers?” or “what about working families who depend on full day care?” Many states have chosen to allow PreK programs to be delivered directly in child care settings. The National Women’s Law Center published a report on this topic, “A Center Piece of the PreK Puzzle”.

Some of the benefits of providing PreK in child care centers:

• Gives a high quality option for families who need all day, year round care
• Children do not have to change locations to participate in PreK programming
• Parents with infants and toddlers as well as PreK aged children can have all of their children receiving care and education at the same center
• Schools often do not have the space to provide PreK for all children in their community, by partnering with child care more children can access PreK
• Child care centers receive stable funding to enhance the quality of all their programs
• Builds on the experience of established centers in the community

Some of the challenges revolve around a variety of issues, including:

• Financing the programs and who will cover which costs
• Compensation and qualifications for teachers, directors, and other staff
• Navigating relationships between school districts and centers
• Programming issues such as curriculum and
• Coordination and community planning

Each state does things a little differently and the way these challenges are tackled varies. Currently, these sorts of child care/school district partnerships are not common in Minnesota (though there are some exceptional partnerships). The only state-funding for PreK in Minnesota comes in the form of School Readiness dollars going to school districts to target children likely to not be ready to learn when they start kindergarten. School districts then combine these resources with other revenue to provide early childhood education.

Earlier this year, the NWLC held a conference call on financing state PreK programs in child care centers. Then, last month the NWLC held a conference call going into further detail about the workforce benefits and challenges of delivering state PreK in community-based settings. Listen to the calls or link to transcripts here.

Both the report and these calls cover all the angles of providing PreK in community-based settings.

What do you think? As a parent, how would you respond if your child care center began offering state-funded PreK? As a child care provider or school district staff, what sorts of challenges do you see? Are you part of a special partnership between a school district and child care? Please share.

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