COLORADO, USA — The first day of half-day preschool for four-year-old Sawyer went as well as could be hoped for by her mom, Taylor.
“She did have a great day. She met lots of new friends. She loves her teacher. They run an awesome program,” Taylor Kyner said.
Actually, it was Sawyer’s second first day of preschool. Her first was two weeks earlier, in her full-day preschool class.
Her mom got an email confirming her enrollment in Thunder Vista P-8 in Adams 12 earlier in the month.
“The email said, ‘Welcome to the classroom, this is who your teacher is, this is the name of your classroom, you’ll be here from all day, which is 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.,” Kyner said.
Sawyer attended Thunder Vista for half-day preschool last year, but never matched with the school through the state’s universal preschool portal. That is the system that families must use to match a child to a school before they are enrolled.
Kyner emailed the school twice to confirm her daughter’s full-day classroom enrollment.
“Yes, I still have Sawyer on my list,” she received in one reply.
“We do have Sawyer on our full day roster,” said the other reply.
“If they would have told me, ‘Oops, this was not right,’ or we hadn’t gone to school there, I would not have pushed so hard,” Kyner said.
The state’s new universal preschool program has enrolled twice the number of preschoolers as last year. Two fewer now because Sawyer and another four-year-old were removed from the Thunder Vista full-day class.
“She said, ‘You can leave her today, you don’t have to come pick her up, but she can’t come back on Monday,’” Kyner said.
In a follow-up email to Kyner, the district explained the mistake.
"In my review, it was determined that the welcome back email was sent mistakenly. It appears that Sawyer's enrollment from last year was automatically carried over into this school year and a cross check and confirmation with the UPK [universal preschool] portal was not conducted,” the email said. "Ultimately, we can't place Sawyer (or any child) into a full day seat at Thunder Vista or other Adams 12 preschool unless the UPK [universal preschool] portal confirms a match based on eligibility."
“We regret that due to a clerical error in the class rostering process, this family and one other mistakenly received a welcome email for one of our full-day classes. When we realized the mistake, we contacted both families to notify them and offer their children the opportunity to enroll in the half-day program at the same school. Both families have accepted the half-day seat,” an Adams 12 spokesman said.
Neither family qualified for the full-day funding from the state, which required a family to be low-income and meet a second qualifying factor:
- Individualized Education Program (IEP)
- Homelessness
- Dual language learner
- Foster/Kinship care
“I was hoping to just send her back to the classroom that she already knew,” Kyner said. “She already went to school there. She was getting comfortable in a classroom. She had kids from last year that she was familiar with. She was in her groove.”
Kyner just wanted to keep the full-day seat and pay her share of the full-day tuition.
“Due to ongoing interest in our half-day UPK program and our current staffing, we are not in a position currently to offer a full-day tuition-based program,” a district spokesman said.
Now, Sawyer is enrolled in half-day, in a different class at the same school.
“She had a great day at her half-day this morning, but was hesitant going into the classroom,” Kyner said.
Next year, Kyner will have to try the universal preschool system again with her son, who is currently two-and-a-half. Though, she said she may not want to be fooled twice.
“I might look at a private option, somebody who’s not connected to the UPK [universal preschool] system because this has been disappointing,” Kyner said.
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