Survey of Center Capacity at Providence’s early-care and education providers

A state law went into effect in September 2004 changing the age for kindergarten entry. Previously, children who turned 5 prior to December 31 could enter kindergarten in September of that year. Under the new law, only children who turned 5 by September 1 were eligible.

This change meant that the 400 to 600 children in Providence born between September 1 and December 31 would not be able to attend kindergarten. Would the city’s early-care community be able to serve these additional children?

The Ready to Learn Providence Governing Board established a Policy Committee in 2003 – the year before the new law would go into effect – to study the capacity of the early-care system in Providence and to determine if sufficient space did indeed exist for these children. The committee sent surveys to all center-based and family child-care providers in the city, asking how many preschool vacancies each program had, how many children affected by the new law were currently enrolled in their programs, and whether providers would be able to continue to serve those children for another year.

Survey results indicated that the early-care and education system was both willing and able to absorb the additional children. Surveys also revealed that four-year-olds were far more likely to be served in centers than in family child-care homes.

The survey data identified 352 of the children in the age group affected by the new law. Head Start was serving the largest share of this group (180). Ninety percent of respondents reported that their programs had vacancies as of December 2003. The average vacancy rate of responding centers was 20 percent.

Representatives from R2LP met with former superintendent of the Providence Public School Department (PPSD) in January 2004 to share the survey results and discuss possible options. The group agreed that using the existing early-care and education system to absorb the affected children was the most logical approach. That recommendation was made to the R2LP Governing Board at its January meeting and the board concurred.

With the issue of capacity resolved, R2LP and the PPSD then turned their attention to ensuring that programs for this older age group were of high quality. To this end, the R2LP established its Professional Development Committee to work closely with PPSD.