Earlier this week we reported that advocates for Universal Pre-Kindergarten (“Pre-K”) were mobilizing parents and others to show up at Thursday’s Croton-Harmon Board of Education meeting to argue that the district should fill a critical funding gap in its program. While New York State provides a subsidy of just under $5000 per child for a limited number of public Pre-K slots, the actual cost of Pre-K can be up to $10,000 annually per child. For the 56 spaces in the district’s current public Pre-K program, that means a funding gap of about $257,000, the advocates had calculated.
However, despite a reported $2.2 million increase in the district’s budget for 2025-26, to a total of about $61 million, the Croton-Harmon district did not allocate any funds to help fill the Pre-K funding gap—nor does it have any current plans to, according to parents who say they have spoken to school superintendent Stephen Walker about the issue. This despite clear evidence from studies over many years that Pre-K has significant benefits for children, including on their cognitive development, socialization and behavioral stability, and ultimate success in later schooling and in life.
In answer to the call, more than two dozen parents and others addressed the Board of Education during the public comment segment of the meeting, all arguing for the district to step in and save our local public program.
That the program does need to be saved became clear from the comments of the first two speakers, Sarah Forth and Staci Hall, co-directors of Childrenspace North on Glengary Road in Croton. Childrenspace North took over the district’s Pre-K program when Happy Hearts on the Hudson, which had previously operated it, dropped out. (The Croton community also has private Pre-K options, which are usually expensive and beyond the means of many area parents.)
Forth and Hall made it very clear that they were operating their 56 Pre-K spaces at a significant loss, and that they would not be able to continue to do so after this school year.
Forth, who spoke first, told the board that when Childrenspace North took on the program, “We knew going into this that the budget was going to be a challenge,” adding that the center “wanted to do it to give back to the Croton community.” Nevertheless, Forth said, the program “is inadequately funded and we are unable to meet the basic costs of running the program.” Thus the state only provides $4,860 per child per year, or $4.57 per hour per child, even though Childrenspace North is run by state certified teachers.
Hall then spoke, telling the board that while “we believe this is a program worth fighting for,” the center could no longer continue to subsidize it. Hall then said that Childrenspace North was willing to continue operating the program at cost, which she put at $7,500 per student. Hall stressed that “we don’t see the school district as our adversary,” and that “the district has worked closely with us and has provided a lot of support in non-monetary ways.”
For the subsequent hour, parent after parent took advantage of the three minute speaking limit to urge the board to step up and fill the funding gap, at least temporarily, while efforts continued at the state level to beef up funding for Pre-K (one parent reported that he had spoken to State Senator Pete Harckham about the issue, and that Harckham had said he was making Universal Pre-K his number one priority in the state budget this year.)
Next up was Jacob Day, the main organizer of the Pre-K movement in Croton, who moved to the village in 2022 and has two young sons, one of whom is currently in the district’s program. Day cited the scientific studies on the benefits of Pre-K: “The research is clear,” he said. “Thirty-nine percent more likely to graduate from high school, and 20 to 40 percent less likely to need special education services.”
Day added that for the Croton-Harmon school district, Pre-K “means a big savings” because, he said, the district currently spends more than $6 million annually on special education.
As for the funding problems, Day argued that for the district to step up and save the program would require spending one half of one percent of the current budget. “Every district in New York [state] faces this gap and the successful ones have decided they can’t wait for Albany. They have found ways to fill the gap.”
As speaker after speaker rose to make similar points, often citing how Pre-K had helped their own families—”The program has made a huge difference in our family’s life,” one parent said, echoing other remarks—the conversation briefly got testy after one parent suggested that the Board of Education had recommended against filling the funding gap.
“The Board has not recommended anything,” shot back Board president Ana Teague, a suggestion that superintendent Walker’s reported statements to parents that the district would not fill the gap could end up being superseded by Board action.
Indeed, one parent pointed out that since Childrenspace North had volunteered to operate the district’s public Pre-K program at an actual cost of $7,500 per child, the money needed to cover the 56 children in the current program would really be less than $150,000, rather than the more than $250,000 originally calculated by advocates.
A number of speakers stressed the importance of public Pre-K for working parents who did not have the means to pay for expensive private programs. Among those stressing this equity argument was Cristina Alvarez Arnold, chair of the village of Croton’s IDEA Advisory Committee, which promotes Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility policies in our community.
(The Chronicle itself, in editorials about the long struggle of low-paid school aides to achieve a fair contract, has often criticized school district officials for neglecting the “E” in this formula despite their outspoken advocacy of DEI principles.)
As the last speaker sat down, Board president Ana Teague praised the “passion” of those commenting, adding simply, “We have heard you.”
From the size and energy of the turnout at Thursday’s meeting, it seems clear that Pre-K advocates will have a lot more to say in the coming weeks.
Video of Thursday’s meeting:
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