Eleven free preschool classrooms for 3- and 4-year-olds are scheduled to open a year ahead of schedule in August to help low-income families across the islands, Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke said Monday.

The new timetable to renovate existing elementary school classrooms at an estimated cost of $500,000 each belies the criticism that state government projects move slowly and over budget, Luke told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

“We’re trying to set an example of how state government can be,” she said. “We have a situation where we are ahead of schedule at half the cost.”

The original plan that Luke announced in January was to open the first of 465 prekindergarten classrooms in August 2024, using portable or modular units costing a maximum of $2 million each.

But even installing portable classrooms requires county permitting that could take up to two years, she said Monday.

So the new idea is to renovate unused classrooms in communities with the greatest need, based on community outreach that still needs to be conducted ahead of the next school year, Luke said.

The first group of renovated classrooms aimed at 20 students each are the result of $5.5 million that Gov. David Ige released before leaving office in December — out of $200 million that the Legislature approved in 2022 to expand pre-K access, Luke said.

Seven classrooms are planned for Oahu, one on Kauai, one on Hawaii island and two on Maui, Luke said. They will be followed by 50 new classrooms each year over the subsequent 10 years.

But exactly where depends on what works best for parents and guardians.

Previous pre-K classrooms on Kauai and in other rural communities mostly sat empty — an experience that Luke is determined to not repeat.

Parents in Hilo or Puna who commute to hotel jobs in Kailua-Kona might prefer to have their children attend a classroom closer to work. Same thing for parents who live in West Oahu who work in Honolulu’s urban core, Luke said.

Earlier in the day, Luke told the Honolulu Star- Advertiser’s “Spotlight Hawaii” livestream program, “If you’re a working mother or working parent, it would be really difficult to drive about an hour to Ewa, or wherever it is, and then pick up your kid at 1:30 and then provide a safe place where your child can go.”

Just over half of the state’s 35,272 children ages 3 and 4 attend prekindergarten, leaving an estimated 9,297 who are underserved, Luke said.

Many issues need to be resolved before the first phase of “Ready Keiki” becomes reality.

First, underused classrooms need to be identified, community outreach completed and an online portal for parents and guardians has to be set up to gather their location preferences in order to match classrooms with needs.

Luke said she welcomes the challenges.

“We like it this way,” she told the Star-Advertiser. “The fact that we got it this far is surpassing expectation. We’re really happy about the progress. … The state has never been able to ramp up or try to formalize or envision large-scale preschool expansion.”

Eventually, Luke hopes to open pre-K classes on every University of Hawaii campus, which would allow more students in addition to existing keiki at UH pre-K: 125 students at the UH Manoa Children’s Center, 22 at Honolulu Community College, 21 at Leeward Community College and 17 at Kapiolani Community College. Honolulu Community College runs the community college programs.

Luke also told “Spotlight Hawaii” that giving UH education students hands-on experience might lead to reducing “really rigorous” requirements for students who only want to teach preschool.

In a statement to the Star-Advertiser, Kalbert Young, UH’s vice president of budget and finance, said:

“UH has been working with the School Facilities Authority and the Lieutenant Governor on advancing the growth of preschool sites statewide. There are a number of campuses within the UH system that already have preschool and early childhood facilities on them. UH has to look at how to sustain adding or expanding sites on campuses. SFA has been very helpful in addressing some of these types of issues. UH is also important to the broader industry as well, because UH will be the critical program to educate more preschool teachers, aides, and credentialed professionals for our keiki.”