Preschool is free for all families in Michigan — but many don't know about GSRP

Yahoo

16-04-2025

When Faye Hammoud heard from her child care provider that she could enroll her son into free, state-funded preschool, she thought it was too good to be true.
The 33-year-old Dearborn Heights resident has three sons — a 4-year-old, a 5-year-old, and a 9-year-old — and had taken her youngest out of day care because she couldn't stomach the cost.
'It's a mortgage,' she said. Paying for two kids' care at the time cost up to $2,800 a month.
As a child therapist, Hammoud was familiar with the Great Start for Readiness Program (GSRP), the state's publicly funded preschool, as a program only available to low-income families.
It was news to her that the program had been expanded to all Michiganders, regardless of income.
Like Hammoud, many families in Michigan are slowly becoming aware that they are now eligible to enroll their kids in free preschool, since August 2024 when Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's pre-K expansion went into effect. The budget increased to nearly $650 million to expand eligibility to all families regardless of income.
Preliminary data shows the state's current enrollment rate at 56%, as of last month — that's 66,000 of the 118,000 4-year-olds in Michigan, according to the most recent census data.
For those who haven't taken advantage yet, it's money left on the table — an average of $10,000 per child in annual pre-K costs, according to the state.
So why aren't more kids enrolled?
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First and foremost: Many families just don't know they're eligible, according to experts. Though advocates are working to get the word out, knowledge remains a main barrier in addition to other issues, including a lack of open spots in high demand areas, a shortage of qualified teachers to staff classrooms and transportation, school district leaders say.
As districts work to make families aware and increase their capacity to serve them, the state's hope is that the pre-K enrollment rate will continue to steadily increase, said Alan Oman, a senior adviser at the Early Childhood Investment Corporation, an early childhood nonprofit in Michigan.
'I think it's just a case of it is going to be incremental over the next couple of years,' Oman said. 'But I do think we're on the right track.'
School district leaders, who receive and administer pre-K funds from the state, say they've been working hard to get the word out to families while also beefing up capacity to be able to meet future demand.
The enrollment situation — whether there are a bunch of free preschool slots open or whether providers are at capacity and families are on wait lists — varies county to county, city to city, site to site.
In Wayne County, some programs are under-enrolled while others are at capacity, according to Beth Gonzalez, the deputy superintendent for Wayne RESA, the county's intermediate school district. On the whole, however, Wayne County has high enrollment: of the 10,500 currently available free pre-K seats, 10,029 of them are enrolled, Gonzalez said. The county continues working to open more classrooms — so far, they've opened nearly 200 new classrooms in the last five years, she said.
On the state's west side, Mason County is at capacity while neighboring Oceana County has open classrooms waiting for 4-year-olds according to Jeni Schafer, the early childhood representative for the West Shore Educational Service District.
'It's so hard to know where families are and what the needs are,' said Schafer.
But even if open classrooms exist now, the hope is they will fill up as more families become aware of their eligibility, so districts must be prepared. This includes creating a pool of more early education teachers to staff the growing number of pre-K classrooms, district leaders say. Per pupil funding in Michigan is now up to around $12,000 per pre-K student. Part of this funding can go to things that can retain pre-K teachers, like good pay, said Christina Weiland, professor at the Marsal Family School of Education at the University of Michigan.
'You don't want to keep on setting up these disparities where your public preschool program ends up being a teacher training program for K-12,' Weiland said.
In addition to the need to increase pre-K capacity across the state, another barrier to getting families enrolled is transportation, Gonzalez said.
'When GSRP programs offer transportation to students, their programs are fully enrolled,' she said of the pre-K programs in Wayne County.
But not every pre-K site can offer transportation to families. Though GSRP providers receive funding through the state for transportation, it's not feasible for every provider to pay for and maintain buses, according to Eddie Manuszak, executive director of early childhood at Washtenaw Intermediate School District.
When money isn't the issue, finding enough bus drivers can be a problem due to staff shortages, said Tricia Grifka, director of early childhood services for the Northeast Michigan Community Service Agency.
Parents who work nontraditional hours might also have difficulty finding a free preschool that meets their needs given the state's pre-K program runs a traditional seven-hour program, similar to the K-12 system's and each program can decide whether or not to offer before or after care.
Markeisha Chapman, a 41-year-old mother in Detroit, has not enrolled her daughter in GSRP even though she's interested. She drives SMART buses, requiring her to be at work as early as 4:45 a.m. and her husband's schedule at General Motors is equally difficult.
Neither of them can drop off and pick up their daughter at the times available through the free pre-K programs in their vicinity so they continue paying out of pocket for day care that can accommodate their working schedules, which has put them into debt.
'Trust me, I'd rather her be in school because she's far advanced,' Chapman said, referring to her daughter. 'She needs to be in school, and we know that … it's just really unfortunate because you want to work, but you can't find care that matches up with your schedule.'
Hammoud initially worried that putting her son in free pre-K might take a spot from a child that could benefit from it. But after the child care director explained this wouldn't be the case, since low-income families still get priority, Hammoud applied to enroll her son and he started free preschool at Blossom Learning Center last August.
Hammoud said that parents she knows who are aware that they can enroll in free preschool have their own qualms about enrolling their kids, for example, the desire to care for their child at home before they enter kindergarten.
'They tell me their child has so many years to go to school and they want to be the foundation,' she said.
In her experience, parents also have suspicion around free programs and misconceptions about child care programs, said Chapman, who has had conversations with many of her friends who are parents, who are suspicious of programs claiming to be free.
'When someone thinks it's free, they think 'yeah right' so they don't take advantage,' she said.
Michigan has been on a path of steady enrollment increase for some time, which is why national and state experts think a 56% enrollment shows Michigan is faring well in its trek toward getting its youngest learning early. Research shows high-quality preschool has the ability to boost academic readiness in kindergarten and beyond for 4-year-olds.
Since 2023, the enrollment rate of 4-year-olds in publicly funded preschool in Michigan has gone from 46% to 56%.
An increase of 10 percentage points in just two years is laudable, said Steven Barnett, education economist and founder of the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) at Rutgers University.
Michigan set its goal to have 75% of 4-year-olds enrolled in publicly funded preschool by 2027 (this includes not only GSRP, but also federally funded pre-K through Head Start for the lowest income families, and public pre-K programs specifically for special education students).
The state claims that getting to 75% enrollment would make Michigan the state serving more 4-year-olds than any other in the country. Due to shifting enrollment rates, it is not clear whether this still stands — Barnett estimates that Vermont's enrollment rate is already likely above 75%.
Michigan's pre-K funding has increased substantially in the last decade, now up to $12,000 per child, which is a number closer to what a program really needs to maintain a high level of quality, Barnett said.
'Adequate funding for the program is a big deal,' he said. 'It goes together with the state setting high standards.'
Barnett cautions against focusing too much on enrollment speed, since it is often achieved at the expense of program quality. Experts say the quality of Michigan's public pre-K is highly ranked nationally. It is one of only five states in the U.S. that meet all 10 of NIEER's quality benchmarks for pre-K programs, which outline standards such as requiring pre-K lead teachers hold a bachelor's degree and classroom sizes of 20 children or less.
A state could, for example, choose to lessen credentialing requirements for teachers, in order to more quickly create a pool of hirable teachers, in order to more quickly open more preschool classrooms, but that can be detrimental for students and a waste of money, Barnett said.
Barnett points to Canada as an example where this happened.
'They did rapid, cheap expansion and actually made things worse for kids,' Barnett said. 'Parents shifted their kids into free programs that were bad for them.'
Barnett is optimistic about Michigan's universal pre-K future.
'I think there's a lot to be said for 'Let's take this as fast as we can and deliver what kids need,' ' he said. 'I think it's fair to characterize what Michigan is doing that way.'
Hammoud said she has experienced firsthand the high quality of the state's preschool curriculum. She said since starting in his GSRP classroom at Blossom last fall, she has noticed her son's development skyrocket in the form of things like increased independence, confidence and ability to write in complete sentences.
'Seeing how he's progressed and grown and found his little voice has been so inspiring to watch,' she said.
Hammoud said she has debates with her parent friends all the time about the necessity of preschool, and urges them to consider the well-studied benefits of preschool on a child's future success.
'I think we're doing a disservice by not accepting this free education — before it was a mortgage payment, but now it's free and qualified teachers are teaching these students,' Hammoud said.
Want to enroll your kid in free pre-K? If you're not sure where to start, type in your ZIP code on the official free pre-K website to find your intermediate school district, view all the free preschool options around you, and begin the enrollment process online.
Beki San Martin is a fellow at the Detroit Free Press who covers child care, early childhood education and other issues that affect the lives of children ages 5 and under and their families in metro Detroit and across Michigan. Contact her at [e-mail].
This fellowship is supported by the Bainum Family Foundation. The Free Press retains editorial control of this work.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan free preschool: Many families don't know about GSRP