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Colorado’s $344 million universal preschool program is popular among families, but some providers say they’re still wrestling with problems that make it hard for families to secure seats or for preschools to sustain themselves financially.
Some preschool directors want greater access to the state’s preschool sign-up system. Others want to be paid by the state before kids step into their classrooms — not a month later. Some providers also want more leeway on preschool class sizes, which the state will cap at 20 by 2026 for most preschools.
These are a few of the sticking points that remain a year and a half after the rocky launch of universal preschool. State lawmakers proposed a bill meant to address these and other issues, but it was killed Wednesday at the request of one of its sponsors. The bill would have cost more than a million dollars next year and the state is facing a $1 billion budget shortfall.
Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Weld County Republican who sponsored the bill, said she believed the bill would improve customer services in the universal preschool program, but didn’t want to commit the money, called a fiscal note, that the bill would have required.
“I think I’d be a bit of a hypocrite if I carried a bill forward that had this kind of fiscal note on it,” she said Wednesday.
The original version of Senate Bill 25-119 echoed some of the asks in a lawsuit over universal preschool brought by several school districts in 2023. A judge dismissed the suit last summer.
Opponents of the bill said any major changes to the universal preschool program are premature since a state-mandated evaluation of the preschool program is underway. Heather Tritten, president and CEO of the Colorado Children’s Campaign, urged lawmakers to wait until the evaluation is released in November before making changes.
Even before lawmakers killed the bill, they had significantly watered it down during a hearing in February, signaling a disagreement over how much to meddle in a new program that state officials are still refining.
Dawn Alexander, who heads the Early Childhood Education Association of Colorado, which supported the bill, said her group will continue advocating for change through the Colorado Department of Early Childhood and may consider pushing for legislation in 2026.
Some preschools want changes to ratios, class size rules
The universal preschool program, one of Gov. Jared Polis’ signature priorities, launched in the fall of 2023 and provides children 10 to 30 tuition-free preschool hours the year before kindergarten. It currently enrolls about 42,000 Colorado 4-year-olds — 65% of that age group in the state.
Debate has raged over what class size and staff-student ratios the universal preschool program should allow since shortly after the program launched.
Currently, all state-licensed preschools are allowed to have classes of up to 24 4-year-olds — as long as they have adequate square footage — and ratios of one staff member for every 12 students. But lower limits will phase in over the next two years for preschools participating in the universal program — a 22-student class size cap and 1-to-11 ratio for the 2025-26 school year and a 20-student cap and 1-to-10 ratio for the 2026-27 school year.
There is one major exception to these eventual limits. Universal preschool providers that have earned one of the highest two ratings — Level 4 or 5 — on the state’s Colorado Shines quality rating system, will be allowed to have classes of 24 4-year-olds and staff-student ratios of 1-to-12. A majority of universal preschool providers have one of the lowest three ratings.