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New rules governing Colorado’s popular universal preschool program could cut class sizes at some preschools, put modest guardrails on curriculum, and require teacher training on trauma-informed care and preschool suspension and expulsion.
But these and most other preschool quality rules adopted by the state Thursday won’t take effect until the third year of universal preschool, which starts in the fall of 2025. In other words, the state’s more than 2,000 universal preschool providers won’t have to make many immediate changes.
The new rules are the culmination of months of debate about how to ensure quality in the state’s new $322 million preschool program without heaping new regulations on already strained providers. Coming a year later than originally planned, the rules are also symptomatic of the program’s rushed and sometimes chaotic rollout.
Despite these stumbling blocks, families have flocked to join. This year, about 39,000 4-year-olds receive 10 to 30 hours of tuition-free preschool through the universal preschool program — 62% of that age group in the state. Next year, enrollment is expected to rise.
After months of debate about preschool class size, including pushback from private preschools that warned they’d lose money if they had to cut class sizes, Colorado will phase in a 20-student class size cap for most universal preschool providers over the next two years. These limits match recommendations from national early childhood groups.
Also, when school starts in the fall of 2025, preschools in Colorado’s universal program will have to use curriculums from a state-approved list, according to the new rules adopted Thursday. But that list, which will be housed in an online “resource bank” with lots of other preschool-related material, has not been created yet. In addition, the criteria that will be used to select acceptable curriculum has not yet been established.
Starting in July 2025, new universal preschool teachers must have five hours of training above what’s required for their counterparts at preschools that aren’t in the state’s universal program. Those five extra hours must touch on trauma-informed care and the prevention of suspension and expulsion among other things.
Read more at chalkbeat.org.