21-05-2025
Free VPK helps ready young children for school, but for some families it's unavailable
This story was updated to correct a misspelling.
Five-year-old Marlaina Paulding likes playing in the tents in her VPK classroom at Felix A. Williams Elementary School in Martin County. She likes learning the alphabet and numbers, and the Spanish she learns from her teacher.
"I like the color of the tents," said Marlaina.
Marlaina and her classmates rotate around different stations in the room, some playing in tents, others putting together blocks and some drawing pictures. Every aspect of the voluntary pre-kindergarten class is designed around education, explained Jennifer Corkern, Martin County school district VPK director.
"Some people might call this play, but there's so much learning going on," Corkern said. "Teachers are very intentional on what they set out."
When Marlaina and her classmates begin kindergarten in the fall, they will be ready to learn the first day. They already will know the school routine of going to the cafeteria for lunch and how to sit still during story time. They'll know about class rules. Some already will know how to read.
Since Florida's first VPK program began in 2005, more than 2.6 million children have enrolled. The voter-approved program provides for 540 instructional hours, about three hours a day, for 4-year-olds during the school year, or 300 hours during the summer, which often is a full-day program.
Nationwide, though, Florida ranks 45th in paying for its VPK program, despite being in the top three for the number of children enrolled, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research 2023 State of Preschool report.
The report, issued in 2024, points to the fact that states have increased funding, enrollment and quality since before the COVID-19 pandemic, but urged states to do better. During the 2022-2023 school year, 155,668 Florida 4-year-olds were enrolled in VPK. Florida spent about $440.3 million, and an additional $48.9 million from the federal government, for the VPK program, or about $3,142 per student.
The 2024 State of Preschool was due out in late April.
While some studies show VPK prepares young children for kindergarten and beyond, others are inconclusive about any long-term effects of the program.
Factors such as the quality of students' elementary schools need to be considered, said Karyn Allee, a Mercer University elementary education assistant professor and co-author of the 2019 study "Direct and Indirect Impacts of Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten Readiness and Achievement," written when she was a University of Central Florida doctoral student.
"We could not find any (long-term) effect," Allee said. The state Department of Education was not forthcoming with data needed for the study, she said. That made determining whether Florida's program was effective either short- or long-term difficult, she said.
"We might hypothesize it is, but we can't verify that," Allee said.
Scores on standardized test show children enrolled in the program show up for kindergarten better-prepared for school.
About 70% of Martin County children who completed the VPK program in 2023 tested as-ready for kindergarten, while 63% in Indian River and 57% in St. Lucie scored as school-ready, according to scores from the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking given to kindergarten students.
In contrast, 35% of those in Martin County who did not attend VPK were school-ready, 48% in Indian River and 31% in St. Lucie,
When students arrive in kindergarten without VPK, teachers in kindergarten through the primary grades work to catch them up on the literacy skills they missed, such as letter recognition and sounds. Educators say students can catch up to their peers — some very quickly — but it might take time.
Schools are in a race, as the first high-stakes state test is just four years away. Students who fail the state's third-grade reading assessment are at risk of repeating the grade. School and district grades, too, are based on test scores.
"That is a challenge," said St. Lucie County schools Deputy Superintendent Helen Wild. The district uses interventions to provide extra help, particularly in the early grades, she said. Emphasis is placed on daily attendance, because every moment is needed.
"We do not want to continue to fall behind," Wild said. "The only way we can get their children caught up is if they are in school every day."
Districts with a higher number of low-income students are at a greater disadvantage, Wild pointed out. Those children might not have had the same opportunities and exposure to words, vocabulary and learning, she said.
"There is no doubt that higher-poverty districts have challenges to get caught up," Wild said.
Without a quality elementary school, however, VPK benefits can fade away by the third grade, Allee said. Curriculum misalignment, for example, can impact students if what they learn in VPK is not carried on in kindergarten and throughout their school career, she said.
This can be seen particularly in schools with predominantly low-income students and possibly fewer resources, Allee said. Students in more affluent districts, with more resources in elementary school, can bypass their disadvantaged classmates, even without having VPK, she said. Districts need to do a better job aligning educational curriculum for students, she said.
It's more than just learning numbers and reading, educators said. VPK teaches children the routine of school and social skills. If students arrive in kindergarten already knowing these basics, teachers can start teaching academics, educators said.
In Maria Kammeraad's VPK class at Felix A. Williams Elementary, for example, children can count to 100. They know addition and subtraction and receive daily Spanish lessons. Students learn colors, shapes and how to describe the shapes.
"We cover every area. They are ready for kindergarten," Kammeraad said.
While many of these children can catch up to their peers' literacy skills within a few weeks, others might spend years struggling to master concepts by the third grade, when reading becomes a high-stakes test.
There are reasons why parents choose not to enroll their children in a VPK program. For some working families, VPK is a free opportunity they are unable to afford, educators said.
School districts have limited spaces in their VPK programs during the school year, and before- and after-care is unavailable, Transportation often is not provided to VPK children.
"Not everyone ends up having access to VPK," said Kelly Baysura, Indian River County schools' assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction.
Indian River's district-operated VPK, for example, is always filled and has a waitlist, forcing parents to seek enrollment at private day cares or enroll their children in the summer full-day program. "There aren't enough seats in the county for our needs," Baysura said.
Private day care facilities designated by the state as VPK providers often offer only a free three-hour VPK, charging parents for any wrap-around care before or after the program. That can be expensive for families.
Some working families often have to use a family member to watch children or place children in a day care unapproved for VPK, she said.
"It's an unmet need for our youngest children," Baysura said.
For those families unable to get students into the district VPK program, Baysura urges them to talk with their children, read to them and engage them in conversation.
"The more we talk to (children), the more they learn," Baysura said. Everyday items, such as cereal boxes in grocery stores, can be a reading lesson, she said. "They need to hear us articulate words."
Teachers can tell when a child without those conversation skills enters school, Baysura said.
"Their vocabulary," she said, "is diminished by thousands compared to their peers."
Colleen Wixon is the education reporter for TCPalm/Treasure Coast Newspapers. She covers school districts in Indian River, Martin and St. Lucie counties.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Free VPK prepares for school; but not for all Treasure Coast families
