Families with children who will be entering kindergarten during the 2024-2025 school year have been invited by the State of Colorado — and more specifically, by the newly-formed Colorado Department of Early Childhood — to sign their child up for the new Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK) program, and avail themselves of state-subsidized childcare for the 2023-2024 school year.
The year prior to entering kindergarten.
You can learn more — and sign up — here.
The initial application period ended on February 24, but the UPK website appears to be accepting applications even after the deadline. Pagosa applicants have a choice of three childcare centers.
Pagosa Springs Head Start (open 8am – 3pm)
Seeds of Learning (open 7:30am – 5:30pm)
Wings Early Childhood Center (open 7:30am – 5:30pm)
All three centers are advertising ‘Financial assistance options available’.
The distances shown are presumably from my house downtown, although I never submitted my actual address. Websites seem to know where I live.
It’s my understanding that these three centers do not have enough room to accommodate all of the Pagosa Springs families who might want to apply for the UPK program. But the subsidies promised by the UPK program seem to be encouraging the creation of more classroom space for childcare.
At recent government meetings, Wings Early Childhood Center has been requesting assistance with an ambitious expansion plan, and has managed to win a $94,000 grant from the Town of Pagosa Springs, and a gift of property — adjacent to their existing building — from the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners.
Our overall expansion costs will be nearly $800,000. We hope to raise $200,000 from our community members, donations, and fundraising events to help make this dream become a reality!
Seeds of Learning is also planning an ambitious expansion effort, which was presented to the Pagosa Springs Town Council on April 4. The drawings shown to the Council indicated a doubling of their current classroom space in Phase One, and a large indoor recreation space in Phase Two.
The Council did not immediately endorse the plan, because it would require the Town to give up a large chunk of South Pagosa Park, and the Town has other tentative plans for the park property, including a new roof to enclose the ice rink adjacent to Seeds of Learning.
Pagosa Springs Head Start has not rolled out any expansion plans that I’m aware of.
Meanwhile, Pagosa Peak Open School applied for, and received, a grant from the Town — $20,000 — to help stand up a new Pre-Kindergarten classroom in their school building, to be partly subsidized (hopefully) during the 2024-2025 school year.
Disclosure: I currently serve on the Pagosa Peak Open School Board of Directors as the board secretary. This editorial reflects only my own opinions, and not necessarily the opinions of the Pagosa Peak Open School board as a whole.
What would the best Pre-Kindergarten program provide for four- and five-year-olds?
That’s a subject that’s been hotly debated for decades. The Colorado Department of Early Childhood says:
“The Department of Early Childhood Universal Preschool (UPK) program allows families to choose the right setting for their child, whether it is in a licensed community-based, school-based, or home-based setting…”
So the decision about the “best” program will ideally be left up to the parents. Right now, prospective UPK families in Archuleta County have three choices.
Pagosa Springs Head Start describes their program like this:
We recognize that in order to be successful in school, your children need support from both the home and school. We know a strong partnership with you will make a difference in your child’s education. We ask that you guide and support your child’s learning by ensuring he/she attends school daily and arrives on time, ready for the day’s learning experience.
This suggests an early childhood program centered on “success in school” and “learning experiences”.
The federal Head Start program was created in 1965 as a summer program aimed at children from low-income families — so-called ‘disadvantaged’ children. It’s now overseen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and currently serves about 1 million children annually. That’s about 4% of American children age 0-5.
When I was looking for the total number of American children age 0-5, I came upon the following graph, from 2021:
Looks like we had about 74 million children in our country in 2021. The thing I found most interesting about this graph is the number of children in each 6-year cohort.
We seem to have significantly more children in the 12-17 age group the in the 0-5 age group. It would appear that women bore more children between 2004 and 2009 than they did between 2016 and 2021.
Are we seeing a trend?
But back to the subject at hand. The UPK options in Archuleta County.
Seeds of Learning describes their program like this:
Seeds of Learning students demonstrate a higher readiness for learning at the beginning of kindergarten and continue to grow at a faster rate throughout the school year compared to their peers, according to an Archuleta County School District Kindergarten 2015 DIBELS comparison.
You can learn about DIBELS here.
Like Head Start, Seeds of Learning appears to focus on academic preparation for “success in school”, particularly in terms of reading and math.
If “success in school” is your primary concern for your child, these might be good choices.
Or maybe not.