Next fall’s preparations for the first day of school have already been started and are continuing to tread on the heels of the last day of school. While school boards and administrators all over Colorado have been having a great deal of difficulty hiring new teachers, an added challenge has been hiring enough early childhood staff and increasing their buildings’ capacities for the number of four-year-olds attending school in the 2023-2024 school year. The new state law requiring every school district to offer preschool before kindergarten is causing much consternation, as the funding available may not cover all of the costs. A predicted statewide tsunami of the youngest new students flooding into the school is causing everyone to scramble.
The post-pandemic availability of child-care has been limited, as the closure of many of the daycare centers or community outreach programs which provided after-school care, have turned many areas of the state into a “daycare desert.” The poorest parts of the state in the rural areas feel the pressure the most, although rural school districts have had to find grants or other options to deal with the scarcity of daycare. Too often working parents have to continue to rely on the network of family and friends who stepped up to help for the past few years.
The shortage of teachers who need to be hired by fall continues to be astonishing. Every child’s education does takes a village, for sure.
By DOLLY VISCARDI – Special to the Herald Times
