The structure of the Park County School District 1 Pre-Kindergarten class may change next year following concern the program is competing with local preschools. 

During the School Board Candidate forum hosted by PCSD1 parents in early November a question was raised about the school district’s Pre-K liaison taking business from local preschools by operating her own class which is funded by the district.

“But the reason why we push kids to the preschools as late as possible into August, is so that we’re not taking them, that we’re putting those kids in the preschools and then we’re taking the kids that aren’t being serviced,” assistant superintendent Jason Sleep said. “The problem is and it’s a real one is preschool providers, they charge, we don’t charge. That’s big, because then preschool providers, they can’t compete against free.”

Sleep added that this has been a persistent concern since he assumed his position in 2018.

The Pre-K class and the duties of the Pre-K liaison

The current model of providing a part-time Pre-K class that meets for six hours a week and has a maximum of 14 students will be reviewed during the spring semester. Sleep said the current model cannot continue because the district wants to avoid competing with preschool providers.

While Sleep said the exact registration date varies, the district avoids opening registration for the PCSD1 class until late August. Pre-K liaison Cristy Hoffert said she does put parents on a waiting list per request but encourages them to look at local preschool providers in the meantime. The PCSD1 class does not advertise enrollment.

“We work closely with Head Start too so if there’s parents who can’t afford a preschool, but also don’t qualify for Head Start, those are the students that I like to take first, because they might not be able to pay for a preschool, but they don’t qualify for Head Start either,” Hoffert said. 

Sleep said classes for each grade level in PCSD1 are between 120 to 145 students, which means that this number of students is eligible for Pre-K education each year. 

“We don’t have enough preschools to provide care,” Sleep said. “You know, if every preschool had a [class size] of 15. We’re still not servicing everybody.”

The class is taught by Hoffert. Her position, which was originally grant funded in 2015 and is now funded by the district, is to coordinate with local preschools and connect children to a local preschool. Hoffert also works with preschool and kindergarten teachers to “better transition those kids and place them in kindergarten classrooms that would be most successful for them,” she said. 

In Hoffert’s role as liaison she also shares “kinder ready skills” developed by kindergarten teachers for local preschools. Additionally, Hoffert offers a kindergarten expo in the spring that offers activities and introductions for parents, children and teachers. 

“Cristy does a really good job of reaching out to preschools, early in the school year, so that if she gets names from parents in the community that are looking for a preschool, she can direct them to different preschools in town, and there’s seven,” Sleep said. “Cristy has a Facebook page that advertises all of the preschools in our town. So the parents can kind of use that as a resource to connect with all the providers.”

Hoffert said Pre-K education is important to expose children to a classroom environment and full day schedule ahead of kindergarten. This teaches children who are used to being close to their parents to function more independently ahead of public school.

“I think the heart of the program is just to get children ready for kindergarten and to make sure that they’re ready when they enter kindergarten in order to ease anxiety, because a lot of people don’t consider children as having anxiety, but they do and it just is shown in different ways, and manifested in different ways,” Hoffert said. 

Sleep said some students also have special needs and Pre-K education helps to identify these needs ahead of time and provide an extra year of assistance. 

While Sleep added that in his personal opinion the PCSD1 class had an advantage due to Hoffert’s access to kindergarten classrooms and preschools, this advantage is shared when preschools invite Hoffert in and are able to get this same information.

Hoffert said the PCSD1 class is only six hours a week where other preschools in town hold class every day for longer. The intention of the PCSD1 class is about exposure rather than a “rigid schedule.” 

“So those preschools that have more of a full time schedule, I think can have more of an advantage in that way. But [the PCSD1 class] is  just kind of meant to be an introduction to school,” Hoffert said.

State guidelines for a preschool 

In addition to competition concerns, Sleep had never considered the PCSD1 class as an official preschool, but according to a letter from the state on Nov. 26 the PCSD1 class is indeed a preschool.

“It actually talked about what a preschool is and really the main purpose behind it was how do preschools in a public school setting handle special ed services,” Sleep said. “So that’s the one component, the second component is that it defined what a preschool is, and that’s, that’s what kind of got me is I didn’t think we were ever preschool, but under their definition, which is part of the attorney general definition, we are a preschool.”

This raised concerns that the PCSD1 class would require preschool licensure. If this was true then PCSD1 would have had to transition out of the Pre-K class to Moms and Tots in the middle of the year. Moms and Tots was offered before the Pre-K class with the purpose of teaching parents how to teach their kids. 

“Where we are now, we don’t have Moms and Tots; it’s more of an instructional classroom. And that instructional classroom helps prepare kids, at least those 14 [in the class], for kindergarten, which is kind of what all our other preschool providers do too,” Sleep said

Sleep met with the Wyoming Department of Education that informed him that as a public school they were not subject to this licensure. Sleep then met with the parents and following their input decided to keep the class for the remainder of the year.

“It’s been a roller coaster for the parents, I’m sure and I feel bad for that,” Sleep said. “But now that we’ve heard from everybody at the State Department and we’ve been given our direction, we’ve stuck with what we’ve done, as is all year, so we’ll do that until the end of this year.”

During the spring semester the district will discuss the liaison program with elementary principals and Mr. Curtis to “explore what our options are.”

The liaison program will continue with Hoffert continuing to visit preschools and provide training. Sleep did not offer comment on what the classroom portion of the Pre-K liaison program would like to avoid speculation. 

“But, we’ve heard from the Pre-K parents, which I think was an important piece for me. [Hoffert] is really well dialed in to the parents, because she works directly with our kids,” he said. “So [Hoffert] will be a big resource for this. Even seeing how other districts around the state [conduct Pre-K programs]. What is working? What’s successful?”