As the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) prepares to announce school closures this week, the focus has been on elementary and high school students — with the district’s youngest scholars largely absent from the conversation. CMSD is the largest provider of preschool in the city, and for years serving the youngest students with a free, high-quality early education has been touted as foundational for future success.
At this point, district leaders haven’t publicly addressed how its pre-K program, which operates at 59 schools and serves more than 2,000 students, will be affected by the shifts that are part of the Building Brighter Futures plan. That has some advocates concerned that Clevelanders’ options for affordable and quality early childhood education may shrink. The school district is also the only preschool provider legally required to provide special education pre-K options, making it a vital resource for families who need these services.
District leaders told Signal Cleveland they are committed to continuing to offer preschool but didn’t share details of how it fit into the larger plan, which includes shuttering and consolidating as many as 20 to 30 school buildings. CMSD’s enrollment goal of 450 students per K-8 school doesn’t include preschoolers. Currently, preschoolers make up anywhere from just a handful of students to nearly a third of the total enrollment at the elementary schools with a preschool program. Preschool classrooms typically require more space than regular classrooms.
CMSD plays a vital role in Cleveland’s early childhood education system
Pre-K provides an important foundation for future learning, and research has found kids who attend preschool are more likely to graduate from high school. For working parents, free preschool is also a vital resource, especially as childcare costs represent a top expense for many families in Cuyahoga County.
“Preschool is the foundation of a child’s education experience. Most of a child’s brain forms before they’re five years old,” said Mary Carter, communications director at PRE4CLE. “The early experiences of being in a classroom and learning how to be, kind of, a citizen of a classroom is vital to set them up for success.”
Recognizing pre-K’s role in preparing children for future learning, city leaders made preschool expansion a key plank in The Cleveland Plan. It was at this point, a decade ago, when PRE4CLE was founded as the organization to bring together CMSD leaders, county officials, childcare centers and others to make preschool expansion a reality. Since then, overall enrollment in high quality preschool has nearly doubled in Cuyahoga County, though it dipped during the pandemic. It is now rebounding.
Over the last decade, CMSD investment in early childhood education has played an important role in expanding preschool options.
Last school year, CMSD offered pre-K at 58 schools throughout the city for a total of 2149 preschool spots, and across the district 97% of preschool spots were full. All of the district’s preschool programs are highly rated, and they are among the only free options for early childhood education in Cleveland.
“Those seats are completely free for Cleveland residents,” Carter said. “The ability to take advantage of that system is pivotal, and it ensures that a lot more kids who would otherwise be priced out of the preschool system are able to receive preschool education.”
CMSD is also legally required to offer special education preschool opportunities either in its classrooms or by sending a teacher or paraprofessional to another preschool or community childcare center. Last school year, around 760 of the district’s total preschool seats – more than a third – were dedicated for special education students. Over the past three years, demand for special education preschool spots has consistently exceeded availability, according to PRE4CLE.
With the upcoming changes, advocates for preschool hope the district will maintain the number of preschool classrooms and seats throughout the city, even if pre-K classrooms require more planning.
Preschool is different from K-12 because of licensing requirements for staffing classrooms, Carter said. “In a bigger classroom space of eighth graders, you can fit maybe 40 kids in and have a couple of extra teachers, and it would, in theory, be fine. That is against licensing for preschoolers.”
What have decision makers said about Pre-K?
CMSD has said it is committed to continuing to offer pre-K but didn’t confirm to Signal Cleveland that it will maintain the same number of preschool seats.
A spokesperson for the district also clarified that its enrollment goal of 450 students at every K-8 school does not include preschoolers. There are currently schools, like Tremont Montessori, where preschoolers—which require more classroom space than other grades—constitute nearly a third of total students.
Signal Cleveland also asked CMSD Board of Education Chair Sara Elaqad how the board will approach preschool in its Building Brighter Futures deliberations.
“We’re trying to keep as many pre-K spots as we can with the budget realities,” Elaqad said.
