This year, West Orange received almost $10 million in preschool expansion aid from the state. That’s enough to provide free pre-k to over 500 of our students.
When I first ran for the Board in 2021, this was still a dream. Thanks to a committed group of parents, staff, and Board members, it’s now a reality. The program grows each year, and we’ve received a cumulative total of $35 million in aid since inception.
Five years ago, this was not a foregone conclusion. There were people in West Orange who doubted the possibilities. They were quick to point out some of the hurdles we’d have to overcome.
Thankfully, we persevered. Today, this stands as one of the greatest investments we’ve made in West Orange in recent history. Millions in additional state funds providing relief to families and high quality pre-k to students.
How We Got Here
The story begins in the 2018, when Governor Phil Murphy included funding for universal preschool in his FY2019 budget. In September 2018 and January 2019, the first two rounds of funding were granted to participating school districts.
This caught the attention of parents in West Orange, who started to advocate for universal preschool in town. The Council of PTAs, led by Tez Roro, organized parents and urged the district to pursue future funding opportunities. There was pushback, but they were persistent.
One major area of pushback was that we simply didn’t have the space in the district to accommodate this many new students. But this concern was premised on a misunderstanding of how the program works.
The state requires the district to use a mixed delivery model, in which many students are placed with private providers who hire licensed teachers and use the district approved curriculum. We were also able to lease space from the Community House downtown to accommodate our in-district classrooms.
When I ran for the Board of Education in 2021, a consensus was beginning to form around this goal. The district spent the early part of 2022 preparing its application. We laid the groundwork and then waited eagerly to hear if we would be selected for the next round of funding. We were selected in September 2022, and we officially launched our preschool expansion program that year.
Two years later, at the 2024 New Jersey School Boards Association Workshop, the Acting Commissioner of the Department of Education praised the efforts of parents, staff, and Board members. He recognized our shared commitment and said that we had submitted the highest scoring application the state had ever received for this program.
Compromises and Overcoming Hurdles
This project required compromise and it’s easy to sit on the sidelines and critique them.
The ultimate goal is to provide free, universal preschool to every child in West Orange. But the reality is that we need to phase this in. There are a lot of logistics to coordinate as the program grows and the state funding itself is phased in over a period of time.
In the meantime, this necessitated that we use a lottery to allocate seats for incoming students. Understandably, this can leave parents frustrated if they aren’t selected. But it’s a necessary stopgap.
In a perfect world, we’d directly employ each teacher and fully control what goes on in each classroom. But we don’t have the space or capacity to do that. In fact, the state requires that we utilize a mixed delivery model where some students are placed in classrooms with private providers.
Still, we are able to maintain a standard of quality. The law requires these private providers to hire certified teachers and to utilize the district approved curriculum. Our early childhood department also provides training and oversight for these privately employed teachers.
Ideally, these private providers would all be located in West Orange and they would be spread around the community just as our elementary schools are. But not all private providers meet the state’s code for classroom space and some are unwilling to change their curriculum. It also takes time for these providers to transition from enrolling students directly to offering classrooms to the district.
As a result, some students are placed at private providers in neighboring communities. Over time, we have continued to add more partners within our borders. But this will take time.
This program necessitated compromise and it’s not perfect. But it’s a perfect example of why we can never let the perfect stand in the way of the good.
Because the alternative – doing nothing until we could implement a perfect universal preschool program – would result in us never offering free preschool to our students.
Evaluating This Investment
This programs benefits West Orange in two distinct ways.
First, it provides direct relief to parents of young children. High quality preschool in the area can easily cost $15,000 to $20,000 per year.
For each family that has a child placed in the program as a three year old, we’re essentially delivering $30,000 to $40,000 in relief. That is a meaningful amount of money – and it’s enormous if a family has two or three children.
Second, it provides high quality preschool to some students who would not otherwise receive it. Some wealthy parents will continue to pay to send their children to the preschool of their choice. Many middle class families will save the money they otherwise would have spent on sending their children to preschool.
But there are many families in West Orange that just wouldn’t have sent their children to preschool in the first place. They would either have kept them home or coordinated another cheaper form of childcare. These children will enter kindergarten more prepared and this will yield dividends as those children continue through our public school system.
It would have been easy to say that we simply couldn’t do this – that the hurdles were too great. Many districts around us did just that. They’re either just now expanding their preschool programs or they’ve ignored the program altogether.
But that would have been a disservice to our community and to our students. This is a huge investment in the future of West Orange – and it’s a perfect example of what we can accomplish if we work together, ignore the haters, and answer the door when opportunity knocks.
And that’s my commitment to you as Mayor. We will work together and pursue the opportunities that are available to us. If you want to see that become a reality, get in contact with me here.