Expanding prekindergarten access should remain a priority for Vermont legislators, according to the state's education secretary Zoie Saunders. On Tuesday she joined a live roundtable conversation about pre-K for the fifth and final installment of Vermont Edition's fall series School Stories.
In 2014, a Vermont law known as Act 166 established universal prekindergarten in Vermont. Three- and four-year-olds were guaranteed access to about ten hours of free pre-K per week for 35 weeks of the year.
Then, in 2023, another early childhood education law known as Act 76 tasked a committee with making recommendations for expanding pre-K for all four year-olds. The initial goal was to establish this program by Jul. 1, 2026.
That target was unrealistic, according to Sec. Saunders, Janet McLaughlin, the Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Children and Families, and Morgan Crossman, the executive director of Building Bright Futures.
"When we think about funding our education system, we have consensus that we need to focus on pre-K as part of that entire continuum, and there's really very explicit and clear language within the letter of the law to focus on pre-K," Saunders said.
But it won't happen by next summer.
"At this moment, there's not a mandate for changes by next July," McLaughlin said, "but there has been a lot of deep discussion about what's working right now, and what are some of the changes that could be made to improve the program and make sure all children are entering kindergarten ready to learn."
Saunders chaired the 18-member pre-K expansion committee. McLaughlin and Crossman were both members.
The committee's meetings in the spring of 2024 coincided with Vermont communities voting down more than a third of school budgets due to concerns over property tax increases. That landscape contributed to the committee's decision not to offer a full list of recommendations to legislators.
Instead, the committee came up with "four key recommendations that were a little different than what the legislature had asked for," McLaughlin said. They include: maintaining the current 10 hour per week pre-K benefit for 3- and 4-year-olds; expanding pre-K access for 4-year-olds; commissioning an analysis of the state's pupil weight for pre-K; and reviewing how the state makes pre-K payments to non-school-based programs like private and home-based center.
"The recommendations were coming at a time where the state was beginning to review some of the larger changes that would happen through education transformation," Saunders said. "And the committee felt that it was really important to have more detail and understanding around what the future state of our education system will look like in terms of funding and governance and quality metrics."
Crossman agreed on the challenges of the moment but emphasized that the current system doesn't fully address the needs of students or families. "The total number of hours that we're providing to families doesn't work. Ten hours a week is really challenging," she said.
As policymakers debate next steps, early childhood educators are eagerly anticipating more support form the state. "You have some families who are trying to kind of piecemeal figure this out," said Jocelyn York, a parent in the Montpelier Roxbury school district and the co-director of Turtle Island Children's Center in Montpelier.
York said she and other providers are concerned that the current universal pre-K system will further destabilize private childcare providers. The revenue generated from pre-K tuition helps them cover the high cost of staffing infant and toddler classrooms.
"It's a concern for all of us," she said. "The biggest thing is funding."
Broadcast live on Tuesday, September 23, 2025, at noon; rebroadcast at 7 p.m.
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