It’s Time to Make Pre-K Available for Every Family in Manchester
It’s time to make quality Pre-K available and affordable for every family in Manchester.
Education is one of the greatest equalizers we have available to us. Implementing a robust early intervention program would signal the City’s commitment to equity and child development.
Our early learners are so incredibly important to the future of our city — but too often, because they’re not K-12 students in the Manchester School District, they fall through the cracks. But if our littlest learners don’t enter kindergarten ready to learn, they’re much less likely to be proficient readers by 3rd grade, which makes them much less likely to graduate high school, and to thrive beyond it.
Research has shown that high-quality early intervention and learning opportunities have a significant positive impact on children, and lead to significant savings for the school districts and cities who invest in them. These programs make an even bigger impact on children from disadvantaged backgrounds, delivering a 13% per year return on investment. Today, more than half of the student population in the Manchester School District is considered to be economically disadvantaged.
Yet despite the proven benefits, many 3- and 4-year olds in Manchester, including many of the most economically disadvantaged students who would benefit the most — are not enrolled in or do not have access to Pre-Kindergarten programs, which serve children between the ages of 3 and 5 years and focus on preparing them for kindergarten, providing child care, educational development, socialization, and specialized services.
Few would argue with the benefits of early-learning interventions to children and families.
But when they hear about an initiative like this, most people ask, “Can we afford it?”
My response is, “Can we afford not to invest in it?”
Investing $1 in early-learning programs has been shown to have a return on investment of $7 within 16 years. These savings don’t end upon high school graduation — they continue through the life of students and the next generation. For every dollar spent to help our youngest learners now, we will save $7 in expenses later on, through decreased costs for special education, which can be over half a million dollars for a single student from K-12; improved educational outcomes, including higher rates of completed education; improved health and reduced healthcare costs; lower rates of crime and incarceration; and increased income, as well as increased workforce participation from parents.
In other words, investing in Pre-K can help our schools do better, can make our city healthier, can improve social behaviors in school and beyond, and can benefit our workers and our businesses.
What may be the best part is that we don’t have to start from scratch, and there are federal and state funds available to grow our program.
The Manchester School District already has a Pre-K program in place. Today, that program is available to children with identified disabilities and for children residing in Title I school neighborhoods.
But there’s a disconnect between the number of children who are eligible and the number of children enrolled. Of our 13 elementary schools, 10 qualify for Title I aid, which means children in 77% of our neighborhoods are already eligible for the district preschool program.
These programs are funded by federal dollars, not local taxes, which means the first step in the plan is to help families get the testing they need to determine if their children are eligible for special education, raise awareness of Pre-K for families in our Title 1 neighborhoods, and make the process more accessible for our families and students.
This plan will not mandate students to attend Pre-K, but instead will provide an affordable option for anyone who wants a Pre-K experience for their children.
How will this plan work?
We won’t be able to make Pre-K available and accessible for all families immediately. But here’s my plan to get there within five years:
- Work with leaders from the Manchester School District and its community-based partners to develop a five-year implementation plan, evaluating the current offerings and determining what is needed to grow the program to include all 3- and 4-year olds in the City.
- Raise awareness of our existing Pre-K programs, and work to increase enrollment of eligible children for the 2024-2025 school year.
- Make Pre-K affordable and available to all 4-year-olds in Manchester by the start of the 2026-2027 school year, and to all 3- and 4-year-olds by the start of the 2028-2029 school year.
These are our kids, and this plan is designed to take care of our kids in a way that will benefit us all.
Read more about how I’ll strengthen schools here.
Learn more….
To hear about my vision for Manchester’s Next Era, watch my latest campaign video here.
To hear how we can make a Stronger Manchester for Everyone, watch my first campaign video here.
To hear about how I helped cut crashes in half on Maple and Beech streets, click here.