Now, a year into his second term, Polis — once an at-large member of the Colorado School Board — is finally following through with that promise. But at what cost?
Late changes at the state level in the criteria to determine which kids qualify for free, full-day preschool are forcing Aurora Public Schools to now look through their budget for a whopping $1 million to cover the cost of setting up the governor's universal pre-K program.
"The state is building UPK kind of mid-flight, but so are we," says Brett Johnson, chief financial officer for Aurora Public Schools. "We're kind of riding the same plane."
APS originally expected to reel in $3 million in revenue through state funding for the 1,000 three- and four-year-olds it had enrolled in full-day preschool. School officials are now facing a $1 million shortfall in funding that resulted from the state changing eligibility for universal pre-K just a couple of weeks before the district started classes.
Tuition for APS preschools used to be $400 to send three- and four-years-olds to part-day programming, which offers two hours and 45 minutes of preschool in the morning or afternoon for four days per week; full-day programming offers kids thirty classroom hours a week.
The state has received more than 45,000 applications for free preschool through universal pre-K so far, according to the governor's office.
Universal pre-K — a policy that Colorado voters and legislators helped set up during the past two years — promised to fully fund part-day tuition for three- and four-year-olds in the state and full-day tuition for students who meet certain qualifying factors. Those who meet the criteria would qualify for free full-day programming if they were homeless, a dual-language learner, from foster or kinship care, or enrolled in an Individualized Education Program, which is for children with disabilities.
With universal pre-K, the state would have covered roughly $6,000 in annual tuition per preschooler enrolled in part-day programming and an additional $4,000 per student enrolled for full-day learning — or $10,000.
"We were serving a population in which the vast majority would qualify for one of those [criteria for full day]," Johnson says. "Based on our assumptions that 75 percent of our kids would have at least one qualifying factor, we estimated the revenue benefit of that at about $3 million from that qualifying-factor money or those additional $4,000 per kid who qualified."
However, as the start of classes neared in August, state officials realized that not enough funding would be available to offer as much free full-day preschool as previously thought.
Eager to leverage its low-income student population, APS started offering free full-time preschool programming in the spring. The district served 2,000 preschoolers with part-time programming, but with universal pre-K, it was able to offer half of them full-day programming starting in the fall semester; 1,000 kids enrolled in the full-day classes.
"Aurora has been one of the, if not the, most aggressive in trying to utilize the new UPK construct in our district," Johnson says. "We wanted to look into ways to really grow and expand into UPK, given that we had the infrastructure and the need in our district."
"Aurora has been one of the, if not the, most aggressive in trying to utilize the new UPK construct in our district," Johnson says. "We wanted to look into ways to really grow and expand into UPK, given that we had the infrastructure and the need in our district."
Governor Jared Polis has prioritized universal pre-K, but its rollout in the first year has left Aurora Public Schools $1 million short.
Bennito L. Kelty
The Colorado Department of Early Childhood, which was established in 2022 as state legislators were designing universal pre-K, had tried to project whether funding would come up short much earlier than August, according to spokesperson Ian McKenzie. "We did our best there," he says. "We projected through multiple rounds of budgeting, stat analysts, all those things. It was only when we got to August that we saw enrollment continuing to go up, and once it got past our numbers...we immediately put out comms to providers, families, districts, you name it."
As required by state law, a shortage of funding ultimately triggers stricter criteria for free full-day preschool.
Now, instead of meeting just one qualifying factor, families who want free and full-day pre-K for their kids need to meet two qualifying factors, including being low-income.
"There's a whole section that Johnson and everybody else helped write [in the universal pre-K law] that says, 'Should there not be enough funding, funding will be used to prioritize low-income, plus one qualifying factor," McKenzie says. "It was in the bill when it was first drafted. Aurora Public Schools knew this; they were disappointed the same way that we were."
When state officials announced this change in eligibility in early August, it was already too late for APS, which had told families of more than 1,000 kids in the district that they would get free full-day preschool.
"These families received confirmation that they qualified for full-day back in the late spring and early summer," Johnson says. "All of a sudden, several weeks before the school year is to begin, you're receiving word that this is no longer the case. That was a tough way for that change to have been made."
If Colorado had made those changes in the spring, it "may have been easier for districts and early childcare providers to respond to that change," Johnson adds.
While many districts decided to pull students out of full-day pre-K programs in response, APS chose to bite the bullet and cover the cost of enrolling these additional 1,000 full-time students rather than "go to our families and say, 'I know school starts in two weeks, but we're going to have to reduce the amount of programming that we thought we would have, and some kids are going to be turned away,'" says Johnson.
"We felt like we were too far into the change that we had committed to families," he says. "We're still parsing through the data, but I think that means we will have lost a third of our qualifying factor, or thirty-hour funded kids, which for Aurora could mean we will have lost as much as $1 million in revenue that we otherwise would have received."
Sticking to its word would wind up costing the district, as it now has to cover the tuition for the 1,000 full-day preschoolers with money from its own coffers rather than being backed up by state funding.
"As a result, we stuck with the same programming that we committed to, and that means the district will have to find $1 million to make up the difference," Johnson says. "The cost comes from if you built a program that anticipates that $1 million and then you never receive that $1 million, then it has to come from somewhere else."
APS, a district made up of more than 38,000 students from preschool to grade twelve, already had state-funded preschool enrollment before the set up universal pre-K through the Colorado Preschool Program that was created in 1988. Similar to the qualifying factors for full-day preschool, CPP covered the cost of part-day tuition for students who were considered at risk, which APS defines as "children who lack overall learning readiness skills due to individual and family risk factors," like not speaking English as a first language or being dependent on human services, such as welfare.
APS, a district made up of more than 38,000 students from preschool to grade twelve, already had state-funded preschool enrollment before the set up universal pre-K through the Colorado Preschool Program that was created in 1988. Similar to the qualifying factors for full-day preschool, CPP covered the cost of part-day tuition for students who were considered at risk, which APS defines as "children who lack overall learning readiness skills due to individual and family risk factors," like not speaking English as a first language or being dependent on human services, such as welfare.
"However, there wasn't a substantial amount of funding, and there were a finite number of slots that school districts received," Johnson says about CPP, even though APS had the largest allocation of CPP slots by the state for any district besides Denver Public Schools.
When 67 percent of Colorado voters approved Proposition EE in November 2020, it looked like APS would soon be able to offer tuition-free preschool to every three- and four-year old in the district, not just those at risk.
Proposition EE promised to fund universal pre-K with taxes on nicotine and tobacco products.
"Basically, the funding is now what previously existed under CPP, plus the new tobacco revenue. And as a result, there's a substantial expansion of universal pre-K," Johnson says. "Instead of having a finite number of slots, no different than our other grades, any four-year old has access to universal pre-K in every district."
Polis signed universal pre-K into law in April 2022 with the expectation of having it in every Colorado school district by the fall of 2023. The program promised tuition-free preschool to all Colorado three- and four-year-olds.
APS still "benefited from UPK," Johnson says, because it's allowed the district to expand its preschool offerings either way, even though it came with an unexpected cost.
The Governor's Office notes that because free, part-day preschool is still available, "the reality is that for the first time ever in Colorado, as a result of the voter-approved Proposition EE, every child can now attend preschool."
The Governor's Office notes that because free, part-day preschool is still available, "the reality is that for the first time ever in Colorado, as a result of the voter-approved Proposition EE, every child can now attend preschool."
APS is "very active in the statewide conversation on UPK" with state-level officials about the lost revenue, Johnson says.
The governor's staff confirms that "Polis has visited with providers, students, and parents from across the state about how to make universal preschool even more successful including with schools in Aurora.
"We are proud to see districts like Aurora step up to serve students," Polis's office says, noting how "Coloradans will have the opportunity to add additional funding opportunities for our youngest children and families this November with Proposition II," which is on the ballot now and would add more taxes to nicotine and tobacco products to fund universal pre-K.
The governor's staff confirms that "Polis has visited with providers, students, and parents from across the state about how to make universal preschool even more successful including with schools in Aurora.
"We are proud to see districts like Aurora step up to serve students," Polis's office says, noting how "Coloradans will have the opportunity to add additional funding opportunities for our youngest children and families this November with Proposition II," which is on the ballot now and would add more taxes to nicotine and tobacco products to fund universal pre-K.
However, if universal pre-K continues to take a big bite out of the district's coffers, Johnson tells Westword "there might be some kind of amount of tuition that we might have to build into the program to offset those revenues" or "it may be the case that we can't offer free, full-day pre-K to everyone" in Aurora.
