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3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Why Michigan families are struggling to find summer child care for their 4-year-olds
Finding summer child care for kids is never an easy task, but for one age, it's getting even tougher. The state's 4-year-olds often fall into a summer care limbo and a recent policy change in Michigan is adding to the challenge, experts say. While the state recently expanded its free pre-K program, known as the Great Start for Readiness Program (GSRP), to all families in Michigan regardless of income, the funding limits programs to the traditional school year. As more public schools are opening GSRP classrooms, parents of these 4-year-olds are left looking for summer care once their district's programming ends around early June. It's a hiccup that Jessi Jones faced when her 4-year-old son Oliver was enrolled in GSRP at his elementary school in Elk Rapids last year, but was too young for his school's Kids Club summer camp. Jones and her husband, both working parents, were left scrambling without a summer option. There were only a couple day care options around her which were all already full. There was a summer program at a local YMCA but the drive was nearly an hour away. She also checked options in Traverse City and surrounding areas: all full. Luckily, Jones was able to cobble together summer care with family members, but the experience wasn't ideal for her son. 'I felt like we lost the consistency and the routine, that's really important, especially for younger kids,' Jones said. Some parents, especially new ones, don't know there may not be an abundance of summer options for their kids, said Norika Kida Betti, early childhood system coordinator at the United Way of Northwest Michigan. 'Sometimes parents assume 'if this is what everyone is doing, there must be a solution developed for the summer, right?' ' Kida Betti said. But come the end of their child's GSRP program, they find there isn't, she says. As the state expanded GSRP to be universal, both day cares and school districts have been opening more GSRP classrooms and the program is limited to a maximum of 36 weeks in both. But in day care, there isn't a drop-off in summer care. Day cares typically run year-round, so once GSRP programming ends, they offer tuition-based summer care. Most school districts don't, and come summer, there are limited available options for 4-year-olds. Public schools typically only offer summer programs for school-age kids 5 and older, day cares are already filled up with kids who've been there all year, and summer camps for young kids are few and far between. Last year, there were about 40,000 kids in GSRP with 71% of them enrolled in school-based programs, according to Michigan State University's annual GSRP evaluation report. Advocates say school districts need to get better at addressing the needs of the families with young kids they're now serving. They say the state should also consider funding GSRP for the entire year, so that parents aren't left searching for just three months of care before their child enters kindergarten. MiLEAP said the Legislature funded GSRP as a school-year program but did not comment on the rationale behind doing so. The child care ecosystem varies by county so the summer care crunch for 4-year-olds is worse in some areas. In some communities, GSRP classrooms are primarily in school districts. Other areas have more day care-based classrooms for 4-year-olds. The state wants to create more slots in both, so that there's a diversity of options, including year-round care. For this reason, the state requires that Intermediate School Districts, who receive GSRP funding, allocate at least 30% of the funding to existing day cares. But partnering success differs by county, according to Kelly Sheppard, the early childhood consultant for Jackson ISD. In Jackson County, 84% of the available GSRP slots are offered through day cares and other community early childhood sites, according to Sheppard. This means that, come summer, when school-based GSRP programs end, these day cares have available slots. Sheppard said she hasn't heard from parents complaining of lacking summer care for their 4-year-olds. But in Lenawee County, currently, only 34% of GSRP slots are delivered through day cares, according to Christie Cadmus, early childhood consultant for Lenawee ISD. Cadmus says the county continues partnering with more day cares each year to get more classrooms open. Often, parents struggle in the area to find 4-year-old summer care because there just aren't enough day care-based spots, said Brigid Wilson, who manages four different day cares in the area. When parents who take their kids out of her day care setting to place them in a school-based program come back seeking summer care, she has to tell them that their spot was filled. 'Parents are giving up year-round child care by participating in school-based universal pre-K,' Wilson said. 'They're losing summer care.' Another issue is the expansion of GSRP in school districts has caused day cares to take a financial hit. Families opt to put their 4-year-olds in school districts where they will eventually attend kindergarten, pulling this age group out of day cares. It is not sustainable for a day care to run without 4-year-olds. The age group has higher ratios of kids to staff, meaning they're less labor intensive and help offset the higher costs of infant and toddler care. Because programs can't operate without the income the 4-year-olds bring in, they close, Wilson said. These are the kinds of problems Kida Betti said the increased availability of free pre-K can bring about. 'There are always unintended consequences that we as a system haven't had time to respond to yet or there isn't a solution developed alongside the change that would make it easy for families to find that summer care,' Kida Betti said. She said the ultimate result is a tighter market 'with less wiggle room' for families to find summer specific care available for their 4-year-olds. While some schools with GSRP classrooms do run summer programming, those who do are rare. Dawn Koger, early childhood consultant for Oakland Schools, said typically, 'school districts think of GSRP as preschool and look to Community Based Organizations to provide child care.' Community Based Organization is the official term for day cares. Wilson said she thinks it's also a staffing issue, because teachers working in a school-based GSRP classroom want their summers off like the rest of the teachers often get in a public K-12 school system. Koger said early education teachers in GSRP classrooms are also often part of school unions whose contracts typically dictate either 185 or 95 working days a year. Still, Wilson said she doesn't understand it. 'I don't know why they close,' she said. 'It's desperately needed and it's financially responsible to keep them open.' Many districts, however, do lose money running summer care for kids under 5, according to Kristin Witt, co-director of Great Start to Quality at the United Way of Northwest Michigan. Depending on variables including parents' ability to pay and the cost of teacher wages and benefits, summer programming is in many cases, 'an expense that a school knows they will have to absorb,' Witt said. Whitmore Lake Public School District, for example, ran a summer camp that accepted kids starting at 3 years old for around six years, but eventually stopped because it was too expensive, according to district early childhood program director Sue Wanamaker. Wanamaker, who has worked in the Whitmore Lake Public School District for 20 years, said her district has long understood that having year-round programming for 4-year-olds beyond GSRP would be ideal, so that there's no gap in kids' education or routine. But, "it just wasn't cost effective to keep running it," she said. "Parents have expectations for the summer, they expect fun things like field trips," Wanamaker said. "All those big things cost money." Whitmore Lake wouldn't have the funding to run free summer programming for 4-year-olds, but even if the district charged parents, the question remains "is it really worth it?" when you'll likely lose money, Wanamaker said. Though they stopped running their summer camp, Whitmore Lake continues to have a summer option for 4-year-olds through a Montessori school in the district. But Wanamaker said the majority of her school's GSRP kids don't go there in the summer because it's expensive, with monthly rates starting at $900. Instead, Wanamaker says she sees many of her school's GSRP kids stay home for the summer with relatives. Kida Betti said another part of the reason more school districts don't offer year-round care is because doing so would require them to expand their child care license. Child care licensing can be a time-consuming and expensive process — more onerous than getting licensed for a 5-year-old and up summer camp, Witt said. Though it can be difficult to expand a license, the bigger issue, Witt said, is desire to do so. She said school districts across Michigan need to take responsibility for all children in their communities, not just school-age kids. 'Kids don't just show up on Earth at age 5,' she said. 'My feeling is, it's the school district's responsibility to really think about supporting their families.' Witt believes this starts top down with Michigan's Board of Education setting the tone by adopting a philosophy that considers kids under 5. County ISDs could then work with districts to bring them into the fold so they can expand services like summer care for this age group. Her advice for districts is to think ahead and preemptively expand their licenses so, come summer, they have summer care for their kids. 'Any place a child might want to be, get that space licensed,' Witt said. In an ideal world, Koger said, GSRP could be funded year-round. While MiLEAP did not comment on future GSRP funding changes, agency spokesperson Aundreana Jones-Poole said in an email that school-based GSRP programs looking to provide summer care could offer families 'private pay options' or use existing funding sources including the state's Tri-Share program — which splits child care costs among families, their employers, and the state — and the state's child care subsidy program to do so. As a parent who went through it, Jones said year-round GSRP programming or even the option to add days in the summer would have supported her family's needs. 'To know there was an accredited place, that you're comfortable with your kid going, that's offered in the summer would be incredibly helpful,' Jones said. 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 rsanmartin@ 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's free GSRP leaves summer child care gap for 4-year-olds
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Preschool is free for all families in Michigan — but many don't know about GSRP
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? More: Whitmer wants more outreach to young men about higher education programs in Michigan More: Michigan school bus audit reveals safety inspection failures, drivers lacking training 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 rsanmartin@ 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
