A District law passed more than a year ago to provide prekindergarten for all of the city’s 3- and 4-year olds has fallen flat, according to testimony Friday before the D.C. Council.
“This [law] has little to nothing to show for it,” said council Chairman Vincent Gray, complaining of a lack of communication and progress from the Office of the State Superintendent of Education.
A facility designed for about 60 infants and toddlers has stood vacant since its opening in 2006, said Frances Rollins, chief operating officer of the Southeast Children’s Fund Inc., which operates child care centers in Ward 8.
The facility, housed in a city office building at the former St. Elizabeths Hospital Center, “would be filled with 60 children if it were open,” Rollins said, explaining that her organization has a waiting list nearly 100 long.
Gray questioned the whereabouts of the nearly $22 million directed at the prekindergarten legislation since summer 2008. The money was to be used for the creation of learning standards, space for about 2,000 more young students, and opportunities for professional development for existing facilities.
“It is our understanding that since this legislation was passed, not a single new pre-K slot has opened in the community-based sector,” Gray said, distinguishing between community centers, like Southeast Children’s, and public school-based centers.
Some charter schools have opened prekindergarten classrooms, but charter advocates testified that there has been little communication from the superintendent’s office about sharing best practices.
That leads to a lack of readily available high-quality care throughout the city, said Joey Weedon, deputy national director of America’s Edge, a nonprofit connecting business leaders with efforts to improve public education.
The superintendent’s office “does not provide any insight into the numbers of families who leave the city due to the undesirability of the slots,” Weedon said, adding that their departure for the promise of suburbia “adversely affects our economic base.”
Representatives from Northeast’s Trinity Washington University and the University of the District of Columbia testified in hopes of partnering with the city to provide early-education teachers, but said they had received no outreach from the superintendent’s office.
D.C. State Superintendent Kerri Briggs laid out progress made during her 8 months on the job, including the establishment of early-learning standards, the awarding of nearly 30 grants, and continued efforts to bring together interested parties.
“There’s no point in having people feel excluded from this,” Briggs said.
