In many cases, public preschool in Missouri isn’t quite public school.
It often requires tuition, and there are limited spaces available.
Some St. Louis County school districts charge almost $10,000 a year for full-day preschool, five days a week. Even districts in lower-income areas that provide free preschool using federal, state or local dollars say they don’t have enough space to accommodate all families who want to send their young children to their schools.
Take the Kirkwood School District’s early childhood center. The district offers free preschool to low-income families in one state-funded classroom of 20 children. But overall, just 3 percent of students at the district’s main early childhood center qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, a measure of poverty, said Principal Melissa Sandbothe. It costs $249 a week for five-day preschool, 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., a price that some middle-income families might struggle to afford. Sandbothe said more than 100 people are routinely on a waitlist.
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The Rev. Jeff Moore began a group last year to improve preschool access in Kirkwood for low-income families. His Webster Groves Christian Church is located in Glendale and within the Kirkwood School District footprint.
“I had assumed that if the school district owned and ran an early childhood center that all of the residents in that school district would have affordable access to that childhood center,” said Moore. “What I’ve learned is, throughout the municipalities in the St. Louis area, that’s not the case.”
Last year, Missouri was ranked 41st in preschool access among the states, and 30th in preschool spending by the National Institute for Early Education Research.
Part of the reason is there isn’t enough state or federal money allocated to preschool to cover early education for all families. Missouri provides preschool money through the school funding formula only to districts that lack full accreditation. In the St. Louis area, those districts are Normandy and Riverview Gardens. Starting with the 2019 fiscal year, districts can begin collecting school aid for a small percentage of preschool students from low-income families.
The state also has been providing five-year grants to districts through the Missouri Preschool Project, but that money will dry up.
Most public school districts in the metro area offer preschool. But they are only one narrow slice of the preschool provider pie in Missouri. Schools represent 16 percent of early care providers in the St. Louis region, according to Vision for Children at Risk. Pam Mitchell, chair of the data committee for the St. Louis Regional Early Childhood Council, stresses that the region needs to invest in many different types of early care, not just public preschools. Among other providers are churches, nonprofits, private businesses and private homes.
But as school districts increasingly build early childhood centers and preschool classrooms, some are taking steps to try to ensure children from low-income families are not left out.
Last year, Moore’s church organized a partnership that connects Kirkwood School District with private preschool providers in town to address issues of access. Moore said the Kirkwood Area Every Child Promise has worked to provide:
• Training to teachers who work for private early-care providers.
• More than $50,000 in preschool scholarships for low-income families.
• Dental screenings to Kirkwood students.
• Weekly packages of food for about 60 low-income individuals.
“We know that the achievement gap starts at birth for many of our children because of the lack of opportunities that they will have before kindergarten,” Sandbothe said. Moore’s group, she said, “felt it was not only the responsibility of the school district but also the community.”
Beyond Housing, a comprehensive nonprofit that serves Normandy schools, has been doing similar work for more than four years. It works with United for Children to provide free training for about 40 local teachers at licensed early-childhood providers to earn Child Development Associate credentials. Beyond Housing has also funded facility upgrades for private early-care providers and works to provide trauma-informed training for preschool teachers.
Chris Krehmeyer, president and CEO of Beyond Housing, said there’s often tension between school districts and private providers, because some school districts can provide free of charge what most private providers can’t. While they may be seen as competitors, districts and private providers should be working together, Krehmeyer said.
“It’s not an us-versus-them, it’s not an either-or, it’s ‘and’ and ‘both,’” Krehmeyer said.
Editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect that the nonprofit Kirkwood Area Every Child Promise, not the Kirkwood School District, raised money for scholarships. It has also been updated to reflect the correct city for Webster Groves Christian Church.