Easing fiscal burden a priority for officials

Families should be able to apply in March for a slice of the $6 million in additional preschool subsidies state lawmakers approved earlier this year to help a set of children who will be too young to enter kindergarten next year.

The funds aim to help ease the transition to a higher age requirement for kindergarten and the elimination of junior kindergarten at public schools, beginning with the 2014-15 school year. At that time, students will need to be 5 years old by July 31 to enroll in kindergarten.

The money will help pay for an extra year of preschool for about one-fifth of the estimated 5,000 children who will be affected — including those who are from low-income families and considered at risk or underserved.

The kindergarten changes were embraced as the first steps toward establishing publicly funded universal preschool. Hawaii is one of 11 states without state-funded preschool. In hopes of having a program in place for the 2014-15 school year, Gov. Neil Abercrombie last year established the Executive Office on Early Learning to lead the effort.

Earlier this year, lawmakers scaled down the Abercrombie’s early-education initiatives and converted a $25 million school readiness proposal into a $6 million expansion of Preschool Open Doors, an existing child care program under the Department of Human Services.

The nonprofit PATCH, or People Attentive to Children, has been awarded a multiyear contract to administer the subsidy child care program. The law establishing Preschool Open Doors as the state’s school readiness program also calls for learning assessments and new reporting requirements for participating preschools.

State officials and early-education advocacy groups are now looking at ways to try to make preschool more affordable for families who need the most help.

The average cost to attend an accredited preschool in Hawaii is $803 a month, and only about 40 percent of 4-year-olds here attend preschool.

Jacce Mikulanec, policy director for the Good Beginnings Alliance, said the new age requirement is already prompting plenty of questions among parents.

"Thousands of kids won’t have a junior kindergarten program to enter next year. For many parents, realizing their kids are born after the kindergarten cutoff date, it’s an issue that’s becoming very real: Do I send them to preschool for another year? Can I afford it?"

Mikulanec added, "In Hawaii, where we have one of the highest costs for preschool, it becomes a meat-and-potatoes issue."

One idea to help bring down the cost of preschool for needy families involves reconfiguring the Preschool Open Doors subsidy co-payment system.

Currently, eligible families can receive up to $710 a month to attend an accredited preschool. The cost portion for which the family is responsible is based on a sliding-fee scale, using a family’s monthly gross income — which cannot exceed 85 percent of the state’s median income — and the selected preschool’s tuition rate.

The Department of Human Services is considering collapsing its 10-tier system that determines a family’s co-payment amount — from zero up to 90 percent of the cost of tuition — to four tiers.

"It’s about reducing the out-of-pocket burden for families and making preschool more affordable," said Pan­kaj Bha­not, director of the department’s Benefit, Employment and Support Services Division.

Mikulanec, whose organization campaigned for the universal preschool plan as part of its advocacy work for early education, said finding the co-payment "sweet spot" will be critical.

"I think the intent is to offer meaningful assistance, and finding that sweet spot to drive parents to send their child to a high-quality early-education program," Miku­la­nec said. "Right now only the lowest of the low tiers are able to qualify for financial assistance."

Bhanot said families are encouraged to apply for subsidies even if they don’t think they’ll qualify. He said the department may be able to use the data to gauge demand and inform future decisions about financial assistance.

State Sen. Jill Tokuda, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Education, said such data will be key to helping lawmakers make funding decisions.

"Part of the onus is really going to be taking a look at what the demand is out there and what the Legislature will be able to do with limited resources," said Tokuda (D, Kailua-Kaneohe).

"The desire is to perhaps try to increase the subsidies provided to Preschool Open Doors. $6 million was provided last session, but the hope was that we could do more. The supplemental budget process provides us with the opportunity to perhaps increase that."

Tokuda and GG Wei­sen­feld, director of the Executive Office on Early Learning, stress that the subsidy program is just one way to increase access to preschool.

"Subsidies are one solution, but we need to ensure equitable access for all children to attend a program to get ready for school," Wei­sen­feld said.

Weisenfeld said her office is working with the Department of Education to explore the possibility of setting up preschool programs on public school campuses in rural or underserved areas.

"Public preschools could perhaps allow the Preschool Open Doors subsidies to be stretched a little further by pulling out some of those kids into public preschool classrooms in rural or hard-to-serve areas where they may not have private preschool providers," Tokuda said. "But that would be contingent upon funding that would need to come through the Legislature."

Increased access to preschool education could also get a boost if voters approve a proposed constitutional amendment next November to allow spending public money on private early-education programs.

"It would allow us to contract with private preschool providers to build capacity," Wei­sen­feld said.

Her office has set up a website (earlylearning. hawaii.gov) and phone line (586-0796) to help families and preschool providers during the transition to the higher age requirement for kindergarten.

The office is also hosting workshops and curriculum fairs for preschools to ensure providers can offer high-quality programs for children who will be enrolling in an extra year of preschool.