Kittery schools' plans to add universal pre-K called off for now. Here's why

KITTERY, Maine — Free universal preschool won't be coming to town in the 2022-23 academic year due to a state funding shortfall, according to Kittery schools Superintendent Eric Waddell.

Waddell has notified local private preschool and nursery operators that the school district has hit a “big speed bump” in starting a town pre-K program, despite being awarded a sizable preschool grant from the state.

This is a change from November 2021, when Waddell proposed a pre-K program to the School Committee, when he believed state funding would allow it to happen. That has changed, he said.

“The specific challenges involve our capacity to get a program up and running before the fall,” Waddell wrote in a letter. “In addition, we have come up against some significant funding obstacles for the program. Grant funds from the state of Maine came up short, and additional education funding from the state just did not come to fruition.”

Waddell wrote he won’t recommend a preschool program in the district’s budget for fiscal year 2023 when he gives a budget presentation to the Kittery School Committee on March 1. Last fall, Waddell initially surveyed private preschool, nursery school, child care center owners and families regarding their interest in a pre-K public school program.

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The estimated cost to form a full-day preschool program running each weekday for about 64 students was about $840,000, Waddell said in a recent interview. The largest district expense would have been to pay four teachers and four educational technicians.

“It’s pricey. Eighty percent of our budget is to pay for our people,” Waddell said.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills’ office announced last month $2.7 million worth of grant funding from the Maine Jobs & Recovery Plan was being given to 14 state school districts to create or expand preschool programs. Kittery was on that list, with the Maine Department of Education announcing the town school district would get $514,481.

Waddell said after state adjustments to the grant the final figure was $508,473.49. Unfortunately, the grant money can't be used to pay staff, the superintendent said. It is required the grant is used for operating costs, such as bus transportation and technology and classroom supplies.

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The total cost of the preschool program would be more than $800,000, leaving a $330,000 deficit, Waddell said. That deficit in reality is even higher though, he added, because the grant can't be used to pay teachers.

Further complicating funding a new program, Kittery schools were hit with the news the district would receive 8.5% less in state subsidies this year for the overall budget in 2022-23. The drop in subsidy funding, Waddell said, comes in part because Kittery's property values have increased by $172 million, a key factor in the state funding formula. Waddell said decreases in the school district’s enrollment and costs of special education services last fiscal year were also factors.

Will Kittery try for preschool program again next year?

“There’s a need for pre-K in Kittery and I’ll continue looking into it, and the School Committee maintains its commitment to that,” Waddell said. “But we also have to wrestle with this very challenging (state) funding formula and Kittery’s high valuation.”

The pre-K program would have operated out of the Kittery Community Center and would have required the district leasing space with the town.

The grant funds from the Department of Education are only for one year, so Waddell said there was concern over how the program would be paid for in the future, which contributed to his recommendation to postpone it.

Waddell first came to the Kittery school district in 2012 and said he was surprised to learn that the town did not have a preschool program. The superintendent shared that there is a “greater concentration” of preschool programs in the state’s rural counties that are “typically characterized as areas that are economically disadvantaged.”

“Here in Kittery there are a lot of families that don’t have that advantage,” he said of available child care options. “This would have been a great opportunity to get those kiddos a year earlier."

The postponement of a potential town pre-K program comes two months after a local Head Start program at the Kittery Community Center suspended operations because of low student enrollment and staffing shortages.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Kittery ME schools won't add pre-K in 2022-23