How About We Go All Day?

As I mentioned last week, if the legislature can quickly dispose of the Supplemental State Aid question at the onset of the legislative session, they can move on to other important issues. I might suggest a good place to start would be in changing the funding formula for the statewide voluntary preschool program. While Hudson is merely entering our third year participating in the statewide voluntary preschool program, we can already see huge benefits from having this programming right here on site. Designed as an inclusive program, our preschool serves special education students right alongside regular education students. This is indeed the epitome of serving students in their least restrictive environment! In the intervening [three] years we have tweaked our staffing of the program and just this year hired an additional instructor. But this was not easy and based on the current funding model will be an ongoing challenge. Because of the way funding is allocated it requires very careful staffing considerations [with per pupil ratios] that limit the amount of instructional time available for our students. 

One of the key elements required in program design is to ensure at least ten hours of instruction a week. If it doesn't sound like very much to you, I would agree. Maybe it would help if I told you our preschool program provided twelve hours of instruction! Does that make you feel a bit better? Perhaps not. To give you a comparison, our regular K-12 instructional program schedules 33.16 hours of instruction per week (when subtracting non-instructional time like lunch). In actuality, the instructional calendar is more a function of the funding model than what is best practice.

It's really quite simple. Preschool students are weighted at .5 the full equivalency rate. Our per pupil cost this year for preschool students is $3,522.50. This makes our ideal scenario of having an all day preschool program a very difficult hill to climb. Here's why an all day preschool program makes sense.

Scholarly research tells us schools can leverage the benefits in a way that pay dividends later in the child's academic development. Because of the fact a child's brain is 90% developed by the age of five (Iowa Department of Education Fact Sheet), it makes clear that early intervention makes tremendous difference. Prior to preschool programming, struggling students were typically identified in need of special education services and planned educational interventions toward the end of kindergarten. This was done only after following a rigorous process of problem solving, intervention, and finally implementation. Consider the impact of early identification and rigorous intervention! Furthermore, our own research here in Hudson suggests students who are identified early in their academic careers are more likely to be 'aged out' of special education programming. Quite simply stated, this means a student who is in a special education program during their primary years may very well not be in a special education program by the time they get to junior high. And keep in mind, the benefits of preschool programming aren't limited to just those students who may be eligible for special education. According to a 2017 study by the Brooking Institute and the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy, (Phillips, D. A., Lipsey, M. W., Dodge, K. A., Haskins, R., Bassok, D., Burchinal, M. R., Duncan, G. J., Dynarski, M., Magnuson, K. A., & Weiland, C.) for every dollar invested in early learning programs, there is a return on investment between $7-$10.

(All Day Preschool, August 10, 2018)

We would support and advocate for all day everyday preschool. While there is no doubt this would require a greater infusion of capital, the research is clear the investment is well worth the dividends it would pay. For certain this would be a heavy lift financially but it can be done. I can remember a time when starting my career we were having a similar conversation about kindergarten. We got that done, and we can do this too!