Preschool cash called premature

Some lawmakers are wary of the Abercrombie administration’s plans to move ahead with state-funded preschool, calling a nearly $6 million funding request premature ahead of a constitutional amendment that will be on the November ballot.

The proposed amendment, which lawmakers reluctantly agreed to last session, will ask voters whether public funds should be spent on private preschool programs. Without it the state won’t be able to use public money to build the necessary capacity at public and private preschools to eventually serve all of the state’s 18,000 4-year-olds.

In the meantime the governor’s Executive Office on Early Learning is seeking funds to help more children attend preschool in the fall, when the state makes the transition to a higher kindergarten age and when junior kindergarten (designed for late-born 4-year-olds too young for kindergarten) is eliminated at public schools.

The early learning office is requesting $4.5 million for the next fiscal year to establish pre-kindergarten classes on 30 public school campuses statewide that would serve about 640 low-income 4-year-olds.

It wants another $1 million to contract with so-called "family-child interaction learning pro­vid­ers," programs where parents stay with their preschoolers, to serve an additional 400 children. Another $218,000 would fund three new Executive Office on Early Learning employees.

At a budget briefing Monday before the House Finance and Senate Ways and Means committees, some lawmakers questioned whether the investments would be pointless if the proposed constitutional amendment ends up defeated. The amendment would allow the state to contract with private providers to build capacity.

"You would build a program one way if this amendment passes, (and) you would build it probably a different way if the amendment doesn’t pass. To do some efforts, to build something this year, which may not be either one of those models, then does that get undone?" state Sen. Laura Thielen asked. "Isn’t it premature to be bringing forward this size of an initiative around early childhood education before we get a read from the voters?"

GG Weisenfeld, director of the Executive Office on Early Learning, said she can’t sit back and wait for the outcome of the proposed constitutional amendment. She said her office, established two years ago by the Legislature, needs to be proactive in creating a comprehensive early childhood learning system.

"If the constitutional amendment passes or not, we still need to really look at how can we better utilize our (public school) campuses and teachers to really help with this population," Weisenfeld said. "I don’t think it can be 100 percent in private preschools. I don’t think it can be 100 percent in (Department of Education) public schools. It really does need to be a combination."

Thielen (D, Kailua-Portlock) said the Legislature already funded $6 million last session for tuition subsidies for low-income families who will be affected by the kindergarten changes.

The Department of Education has estimated that 5,100 4-year-olds will be affected in the 2014-15 school year that begins in August. The $6 million in subsidies — to be administered by the existing Preschool Open Doors program under the state Department of Human Services — will assist about 900 of those children.

"The Preschool Open Doors funding is wonderful, but it only funds a fraction of the children … so part of our concern is, How do we help meet the needs of more children and really help them prepare for kindergarten?" Weisenfeld said.

The Department of Human Services in its budget is seeking an additional $2.5 million aimed at reconfiguring the Preschool Open Doors’ co-payment system to help more needy families afford preschool.

Other lawmakers expressed support Monday for the administration’s efforts.

Sen. Jill Tokuda (D, Kaneohe-Kailua), chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, said the proposals to expand preschool access through more subsidies, classes at public schools and family-child interaction learning programs are important steps toward "beefing up the different options and increasing the universe of families we can support."

"These children will not be able to enter kindergarten in August — before people are lining up for the ballot boxes," Tokuda said after the briefing. "There is that sense of urgency. Yes, it’s ambitious, it’s aggressive, but it’s about making sure our kids are ready to enter kindergarten and laying the foundation for an early childhood learning system we’d like to see if and when the constitutional amendment passes."