Issue: Early education

Parents who start their children in preschool in Denver Public Schools are more likely to keep them there - at least through third grade.

Nancy Mitchell, Rocky Mountain News

Thursday, April 19, 2007

A DPS analysis shows the retention rate is about 10 percent higher for families who send their children to DPS preschool versus a non-DPS preschool.

Nearly 73 percent of DPS preschoolers in 2001-02 were still with the district four years later, the most recent analysis found, compared with 63 percent of those who went to a non-DPS program.

So expanding public preschool programs might seem to be one way to attract — and keep — more families in DPS.

Cheryl Caldwell, who heads early childhood education programs for the district, said the need is there.

"In some parts of the community, you have the need but not the space," she said. "That would be Montbello, Green Valley and part of central southwest Denver. There are waiting lists there."

But because Colorado law does not require children to enter school until age 7 — or first grade — the state does not fund preschool or even kindergarten for every child.

DPS receives less taxpayer funding for those programs than for first through 12th grades. Principals who want to expand preschool classes would have to take money from other grades to do it.

Kevin Fletcher, principal of Farrell B. Howell K-8 School in Montbello, has two empty classrooms where he could put preschoolers or more kindergarteners from a waiting list.

"If we get them young, they grow with us and stay with us," he said. "And we know what kind of education they've received."

He could pay for another preschool or kindergarten teacher from his budget, he said, but "the reality is, when I'm sitting on 30 to 35 students in each of my classrooms already, that's hard to do."

Caldwell said individual schools in DPS have asked to add preschool as a marketing tool, and she tries to locate grants and other dollars for them.

"But our primary goal is not marketing," she said. "It's having a high-quality program, which hopefully then is kind of a marketing tool for the school to keep kids."

Some community leaders said DPS could do a lot more to bring in preschool programs and families.

Anna Jo Haynes, executive director of Mile High Montessori, which serves low-income families, said the district has plenty of space that preschool providers could use.

Her group wants to begin a Montessori program starting with 8-week-old babies in a DPS school.

If DPS worked with community organizations, they could have a strong group of kids coming into kindergarten, she said.

Monique Lovato, a DPS parent who chairs the Mile High Montessori governing board and is active in the Whittier Neighborhood Association, said steps as simple as giving preschool providers information about DPS would help.

Mile High Montessori has even paid for substitute teachers so preschool teachers could visit DPS schools, but time and resources for that are scarce, she said.

Preschool teachers are key, Lovato and Haynes said.

"That's who parents trust," Haynes said.

And if the programs are strong, both women said, parents will stay.

Carolyn Miranda said she was surprised by the lack of preschool options when she moved to Denver from Houston a few years ago.

The only preschool she could find in her neighborhood for her young daughter is privately run.

"It was the only option, but I like it so much I might not move her," she said. "Why move her if everything is good?"