Give our keiki a solid start

It’s been a years-long, real-time experiment for the state Department of Education to devise an optimal model for early childhood education. Though still a work in progress, the laudable goal of universal preschool is within reach if this Legislature can prime the path for smart coordination as the DOE prepares to sunset its junior kindergarten program.

Junior kindergarten in the public schools, enacted by law in 2006, has brought mixed results. It was created to better prepare late-born children for kindergarten and first grade — but funding and staffing challenges from school to school made success spotty.

Nearly 5,900 late-born children statewide currently attend junior kindergarten; after a year, they either move into first grade or take another year of kindergarten.

Due to the uneven implementation and results, junior kindergarten will be eliminated. Originally, that was to happen at the end of the 2012-13 school year, but state lawmakers are rightly looking at a one-year delay to first develop a better system in its place. Senate Bill 2545 also spells out that students entering kindergarten be at least 5 years old by July 31 for the 2014-2015 school year.

Research repeatedly confirms that learning at the preschool level increases a child’s chances for educational success later in life. With that in mind, lawmakers are looking to channel $30 million from junior kindergarten’s elimination into a universal preschool system, a public-private partnership that ideally would link together a constellation of early-childhood programs already in existence.

The keys to making it come together? Accessibility, affordability and efficient coordination.

Realizing the need for a coordinated game plan, SB 2545 is on the right track in aiming to establish an authoritative Executive Office on Early Learning, bolstered by an early learning advisory board, with an appropriation of $500,000.

Creating the universal preschool network will be a formidable task, but at least two major factors work in its favor: A myriad of good programs already exists in the community, as does the shared conviction among educators that early learning positively affects a student’s future learning.

Early on, the Abercrombie administration vowed that "a comprehensive early childhood education plan will address the needs of 0 to 5-year-olds for the school work to come and will be integrated into the public school system," with particular emphasis on "the most at-risk children in the population."

It’s now time to sow better seeds to make that happen. Among the solid shoots from which a state universal preschool system could grow:

» The Pre-Plus program, which houses preschools on 17 elementary school campuses. The state offers providers with sites rent-free in exchange for efforts to promote school readiness and transition to kindergarten.

» Hawaii’s Head Start preschool program for low-income families.

» The Linapuni Early Education Center, which provides preschool access to at-risk 4-year-olds.

» DOE preschool services for special-needs kids from ages 3 to 5.

» The Preschool Open Doors program, state-offered tuition subsidies for low-income children to attend preschool.

» Tuition subsidies that help defray child-care costs via the state Department of Human Services.

» Family-child interaction learning programs such as Tutu and Me Traveling Preschool, which support families with children up to age 5. These programs require parent or adult involvement, and serve a "gap group" of families that don’t qualify for Head Start but can’t afford preschool.

Granted, it’s no easy task finding the best way to use state funds and resources, and also to sync them with private and nonprofit efforts toward universal preschool. All stakeholders, though, surely see the worthiness of reaching as many Hawaii youngsters as possible, regardless of socio-economic level, in order to give them what they deserve: the best possible start to their education.