The Broward County School Board voted unanimously to expand tuition-based early learning programs across the district over the next three years.
The growth of options for Broward families is intended to help identify students who need academic intervention early on and strengthen kindergarten readiness. Long-term, the goal is to have the students who enter the district at three or four years of age to remain through graduation to help grow enrollment.
“ We have an opportunity to make [the district] more competitive, attract families earlier and encourage them to remain with our district throughout their child's educational journey,” said board member Rebecca Thompson at Wednesday’s School Board meeting. “By investing in our Pre-K and VPK, not only are we doing the right thing for Broward's youngest learners, we are supporting our families to reducing barriers to obtain high quality, affordable early education programs.”
Voluntary Prekindergarten, or VPK, is a state-funded program providing three hours of instruction for four-year-olds to prepare them for kindergarten. It’s free for parents regardless of income.
General pre-K programs are supported by tuition, but the district will subsidize fixed costs. The amount for 3-year-olds will be $750 about every three weeks. For 4-year-olds it'll be $425 about every three weeks.
“ So for families with 3-year-olds, that would be about $200 per payment and for families with 4-year-olds, this would save each family approximately $225,” Thompson said.
The district currently has 27 tuition-supported early learning classes. The plan is to open four more classes every year for the next three years — for a target of 39 tuition-supported early learning classes by the 2029-2030 school year. (A single school could have more than one early learning class).
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State data shows that 72% of students who go through VPK are ready for kindergarten, compared to 54% of students who don’t.
Board member Lori Alhadeff wants to see more growth.
“ If this is a win, 98% of our students are going into our kindergarten, I think we need to be more aggressive,” she said.
Superintendent Howard Hepburn explained the plan is to focus on demand for the program by communities.
“ We can put programs all over the place, but there may not be a specific need in certain communities,” he told Alhadeff. “We already know what communities actually have a waiting list” for early childhood learning programs and can use that for a more targeted approach.
In Florida, more than 380,000 kids are attending publicly funded early learning programs, like VPK, school readiness and head start, according to the Children’s Movement of Florida.
How does this help long-term enrollment?
As the district's enrollment plummets, the budget shrinks with it. With a hole of $100 million just this school year from having 11,000 fewer students, Broward County Public Schools is desperately looking for ways to limit spending and cushion its general reserve balance.
The district is betting that by bringing children into the BCPS school system earlier in life, they’ll stay in it until they graduate as 18-year-olds.
“ This is especially important as families have more choices than ever,” Thompson said. “If we want families to choose BCPS, we have to make our programs accessible, affordable, and competitive. We need to look at VPK and pre-K as an important entry point into our district.”
Every student retained represents about $9,000 per student per year in state funding. The three-year investment model is expected to have a return of about $21.4 million.
But this also means an under-enrolled pre-kindergarten class is a vulnerable spot for the district.
If 10 classes are short two students ($12,000 times 10 classes), it means a deficit of $120,000 districtwide, as well as shortages for the school, according to district calculations. If it’s by four students, it’s a loss of $295,000.
