Preschool directors, as you might expect, love the idea of preschool for all children. It’s the fine print of Proposition 82 that is causing them some concern. Surprisingly, local preschool directors say they aren’t too worried about Proposition 82 causing increased competition for students or dramatically raising teachers’ salaries.
When the Almanac spoke with officials from five local private preschools to gauge their opinions on Proposition 82, a common theme emerged — they’re in favor of improving teacher salaries, but they are wary of what curriculum standards imposed by the state might look like.
As to whether their preschools would participate in the program, it was a mixed bag. Two said they probably would, one said probably not, and the other two say it depends on details that have yet to be worked out.
It’s safe to say that no one ever got rich on a preschool teacher’s salary. Besides providing free preschool to all 4-year-olds, Proposition 82 would raise the salaries of preschool teachers so that they would be on par with public elementary school teachers.
According to the state legislative analyst, preschool teachers earn an average of $27,000 a year. If Proposition 82 passes, participating preschools, even private preschools, would have to raise salaries to reflect the pay scale at local public schools.
The statewide average for public school teachers is around $60,000, more than twice as much. If you add in benefits, the full compensation package currently hovers around $76,000 a year, according to the state analyst.
Trinity School
“I like that they are pushing for wage increases, and pushing more education for the teachers,” said Pam Harris, the program coordinator of Trinity School’s preschool in Menlo Park.However, she has a wait-and-see approach when it comes to the curriculum.
Proposition 82 would allow parents to choose from public or private preschools, provided that they meet various standards, including those for teacher education, salaries and curriculum.
The state superintendent of schools is charged with setting a “developmentally appropriate” curriculum based on the “academic content” taught in kindergarten through grade 3 classrooms.
Trinity’s preschool philosophy, Ms. Harris said, is firmly in the “whole child” camp, where children engage in dramatic play and learn skills through play activities. The school emphasizes teaching children to socialize with each other.
“We definitely are determined not to turn our early childhood program into an academic program that’s not developmentally appropriate,” Ms. Harris said. “It interests me that the people I’ve seen behind this are not early childhood trained, they are elementary education trained, and there’s a big difference.”
The $6,000 per child that would be provided by Proposition 82 is half of what Trinity charges, and the preschool probably would not participate, she says.
Phillips Brooks
Jon Kulhanek, the director of Phillips Brooks School’s preschool program, says that the Menlo Park-based private school already has high educational requirements for teachers and pays salaries based on their elementary teacher salaries. He said he is very curious to see what a state-mandated curriculum would look like.“As you can imagine, there’s a part of the population that believes in a tremendous push in academics from the earliest age,” Mr. Kulhanek said. “But social, creative learning is the best thing we can provide for young children. There is a window, particularly for creativity, that can be missed.”
He said the school gets this point across through “very careful, thoughtful” parent education to help them understand that flashcards and drills are not the best way for young children to learn.
“The phenomenon of stepping-down curriculum has been around for years,” Mr. Kulhanek said. “What used to be taught in first grade is now taught in kindergarten. We’ve really been battling to let children be children for as long as possible.”
The mistake is thinking that a preschooler’s cognitive skills aren’t being developed because it looks like they are playing, not doing academics, he said.
“We have bright kids; a number of them leave our program reading,” Mr. Kulhanek said. “It’s like walking: if a child’s developmentally ready, that’s great. But just as you can’t force a 4-month-old to walk, you can’t force a child who’s not ready to read to read.”
Tuition for the five-day week program for 4-year-olds at Phillips Brooks is $13,800, he said. He didn’t think Phillips Brooks would participate if it required the school to “sell out” to a state-mandated curriculum that goes against the school’s philosophy.
Ladera Preschool
Pam Krug, the director of Ladera Preschool, said that the curriculum is one of many unknowns that concern her. She said she’s worried that the higher educational requirements will eliminate some segments of the teaching population.“Older people, who are absolutely wonderful teachers, may not want to go out and get bachelor’s degrees in their 50s,” she said.
Ms. Krug said that Proposition 82 doesn’t provide for children who need an additional year of preschool before they start kindergarten. Some children, particularly those with fall birthdays who may start preschool while they are still 3, may not be socially and emotionally ready for kindergarten after just one year of preschool, she said.
“It’s so important to have preschool before they go on to kindergarten, because it really makes it or breaks it for them,” she said. “Everybody is in favor of every child attending preschool, especially those (children) speaking English as a second language.”
With so much still unknown, she said she did not know if Ladera would be interested in participating.
Family Connections
Family Connections, a free parent-participation preschool for low-income families in Belle Haven, is one of the programs currently trying to fill the gap for families that can’t afford to send their kids to preschool. It offers multi-age preschool classes that parents attend with their children.The program pays for itself through adult school tuition, county funding, foundation grants, donors and fundraising, said Ruth Pinkus-Resknik, the education coordinator.
If Proposition 82 passes, Family Connections might lose some of its 4-year-olds, she said.
“Or, what could happen is that children will stay in our (morning) program, but will have access to an afternoon program only for 4-year-olds,” Ms. Pinkus-Resnick said. “Then we won’t have to struggle with the situation we have right now, where (children) don’t qualify for Head Start because the income-bracket is so low,” but their families don’t make enough to send them to private preschools.
Overall, she said she is in favor of Proposition 82, and Family Connections would try to participate.
“We are very hopeful it passes,” said Ms. Pinkus-Resnik.
Creative Children centers
Ty Durekas is the CEO of Sunnyvale-based Children’s Creative Learning Centers, which operates day care, preschool and afterschool programs nationwide, including programs at the Las Lomitas School campus in Atherton.“It will infuse more funding into the system for families to have access to quality programming. I think there are going to be a lot of benefits in that,” Mr. Durekas said.
Along with the preschool programs, CCLC would offer before- and after-care, he said. It’s just a question of how they would juggle the use of classrooms to accommodate two groups of children in half-day programs, rather than one group in a full-day program, Mr. Durekas said.
The state funding that CCLC would receive for holding two half-day preschool classes per day would be more than they currently receive for eight hours of pre-kindergarten programming, he said.
“From that perspective, it’s actually a boon to the industry. Many people lose sight of that, because they are not astute enough to see the benefits, financially speaking.”
He’s not wholeheartedly in favor of Proposition 82, however. He said he doesn’t think it will increase preschool enrollment much in the Bay Area, and he’s worried that with state involvement, it will become too bureaucratic.
“It wouldn’t have been my approach, but it will fill an important need in the state,” Mr. Durekas said. “There’s state-wide benefits, but less local benefits.”
