As the 89th Texas Legislature is set to convene in January, funding for full-day pre-K is top of mind for school districts across the Greater Houston area and public education advocacy organization Raise Your Hand Texas.

The Texas Legislature passed House Bill 3 in 2019, which expanded access to full-day pre-K and established the Early Education Allotment to support early childhood education learning goals. However, despite requiring districts to offer full-day pre-K, the state only provides funding for half-day pre-K.

Michael Webb, Tomball ISD Chief Academic Officer, said it is an increased incentive for families to enroll their students in full-day pre-K because sometimes parents have to come up with daycare options and transportation for half-day pre-K.

“Now that it's a full-day pre-K program, not only have we increased our enrollment due to growth in district enrollment, we're also increasing our enrollment because there's an incentive for families to enroll in a full-day program,” he said.

Funding and enrollment challenges

Most pre-K students in the district meet the state's qualifying criteria for free pre-K, which includes low socioeconomic status, emergent bilingualism, and special education status, among other characteristics.

Qualifying criteria often prevent students across the state from enrolling in free pre-K programming. Income eligibility requires families to be within 185% of the federal poverty line. For example, a family of four would have to have an income of $58,000 or less to qualify for free pre-K programming. Currently, the median family income in Texas sits at $86,000, leaving many students without the ability to enroll. The National Institute for Early Education Research reports that Texas public pre-K programs only enroll 52% of 4-year-old children in the state.

Given the difficulty many families face qualifying for pre-K in Texas, funding for those enrolled in pre-K remains stagnant. According to the National Institute for Early Education Research, state spending per pre-K student is $4,235, which is $1,500 less than what Texas spent in 2002 and $3,000 below the national average.

Although districts are able to use the Early Education Allotment to cover the remaining cost of full-day pre-K, it also means diverting funding from K-3 programs—an approach that has become a delicate balance. One of the changes TISD hopes to see come out of the next legislative session is dedicated full-day funding that would allow for more teachers to be hired to be able to maintain smaller class sizes.

TISD is categorized as one of Texas’ fast-growth districts. A fast-growth district is defined as a school district with an enrollment of at least 2,500 students during the previous school year and enrollment growth over the last five years of at least 10%, or a net increase of 3,500 or more students.

This growth prompted TISD to request a waiver that allowed them to offer half-day pre-K, instead of the state-mandated full-day pre-K for the past four years. As the waiver came to a close this year, the district opened an Early Excellence Academy on the northern side of the district that serves pre-K students all day.

“It’s developmentally designed for 3- to 5-year-olds, and because of the environment and the way that we've structured the building, the kids are responding very well,” Webb said. “This campus serves as a model because it's an environment designed with the five-year-old in mind. When you walk in it's like you're entering a storybook.”

Although districts can use the Early Education Allotment to cover the remaining cost of full-day pre-K, this also means diverting funding from K-3 programs—an approach that has become a delicate balance. Implementing full-day funding would allow the district to admit more families to full-day pre-K and make it easier for parents to enroll their children.

“Tomball ISD would benefit greatly from a pre-K allotment—or at least a supplement that would help build the strength of our pre-K programming,” Webb said.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic causing some disruptions for students in terms of emotional and academic success, the district has managed to return pre-K classes to the education levels they had before the pandemic. However, the half-day funding structure is exacerbating other classroom challenges that spiked during the pandemic, particularly teacher retention. TISD—and many other school districts across Texas—continues to struggle with retaining full-time pre-K teachers with only half-day funding.

However, the pandemic has affected the district’s ability to keep pre-K classes staffed based on the number of students and funding it receives. The full-day pre-K mandate has resulted in challenges related to retaining full-time pre-K teachers with only half-day funding.

“It is hard to overstate how important literacy is for academic success,” said Charles Cunningham, state representative for House District 127 and member of the House Public Education Committee. “Students need to read and write well to excel in the classroom. High-quality pre-K programs build the foundation for these skills, setting students up for success throughout their schooling and beyond.”

Improving student outcomes

Enrolling students in pre-K has immense cognitive and social-emotional benefits. Early exposure to school routines and learning experiences improves academic readiness and strengthens the transition into elementary school education.

“If you enroll your student in a pre-K program, he or she is going to be ready to take on the rest of school,” said Bob Popinski, senior director of policy at Raise Your Hand Texas. “You're less likely to drop out, less likely to need additional help, more likely to graduate high school, and more likely to persist in a two-year or four-year university degree. All of those are important aspects of a child’s ongoing success in school. Pre-K is one of the best answers to make sure our kids are off on the right foot.”

Part of ensuring student success in TISD also means identifying students who might need extra services at an early age by being able to observe them at ages 3 and 4 through pre-K programs.

“Pre-K instruction is the all-star of intervention,” Webb said. “We start with early intervention in terms of special education. It’s our most effective strategy when we're able to engage students who are 3 or 4-year-olds. We're able to engage a student who might not otherwise be in school for another two years and then we learn they have a disability. Early intervention makes all the difference in the world.”

In addition to serving more students, additional funds could also help Texas reach quality pre-K benchmarks associated with improved student outcomes. Currently, Texas only meets four of the 10 NIEER quality standards for preschool, including early learning standards; teacher degree requirements; specialized training for early learning; and health screening and referrals for children.

Among other missed benchmarks, Texas does not require a one-to-11 teacher-student ratio, a class size limit of 20 students, degree-holding assistant teachers, or a quality improvement system.

How to get involved

To stay informed about important legislative issues in Texas, sign up for Raise Your Hand Texas’ Across the Lawn Newsletter. You can also sign up here to advocate for Texas public schools during the upcoming legislative session. For more information about Raise Your Hand Texas, visit www.raiseyourhandtexas.org.

The above story was produced by Senior Multi Platform Journalist Sierra Rozen with Community Impact's Storytelling team with information solely provided by the local business as part of its "sponsored content" purchase through our advertising team.