Why Don't Elementary Schools Have Preschools?

why don't middle schools have high schools?
why don't high schools just do college too?
why do people oversimplify so drastically?
making things easy on parents isn't and shouldn't be a school's first priority, and transitions are important life events that kids need to experience.
khairete
S.

Based on my experience as a board member for a non-profit preschool, I think it ultimately comes down to funding. In addition to property taxes, public schools depend heavily on federal and state funding, and there are restrictions placed on what those funds can be used for. If states don't provide funding for preschool students, then it's going to be cost prohibitive to provide a preschool program. Even if the school were to charge market rate, they would still need to have the space available for several classes, and most schools don't. You need to keep in mind that state regulations regarding the care of preschool age children is much stricter than it is for school age children. For instance, preschools have to be supervised at all times-- they would never be allowed to walk from a parents car to a classroom by themselves.

My sister lives in another state and is in a school district that has a 4 year old kindergarten program. They're able to do so because they receive state funding and happen to have a school building that was no longer being used because of declining enrollment. That empty building (in the country, about 10 miles from the other schools) has been converted into a kindergarten center. It seems to work ok, but there have been many discussions regarding whether it's a good use of funds.

My son's offers 2 day for 3 yr olds, 3 day for 4yr olds and 1/2 or full day kinder, and afterschool care. It goes through eight grade. You are right. It is very convenient! They are working on starting daycare also.

Not sure why all the snarky answers. If the building has room, it makes sense.

Young children learn by playing.
Why do they need to be in a school to do this?
You see parents in a panic here sometimes because their kid isn't reading before kindergarten.
Not every kid can or should be reading before kindergarten.
If they have it down by 2nd grade - they are NOT behind.

There's a good article discussing this:
https://www.edutopia.org/preschool

It's bad enough they start SOLs in elementary but when public funding a school program gets involved invariably they have to be accountable and that means testing - and who thinks any pre-school aged child needs to take a test?

It's not that I'm against pre-school.
Our son went to a Montessori program that we loved - and he so enjoyed it.
It cost us plenty - more than a lot of parents could afford but we had dual income and one child so we could manage it.
But I can't see a public school program giving a large number of kids the attention they all need.
The class size would have to be small - that means hiring many pre-school teachers - and they have a hard enough time getting the funding for the teachers they need for the K through 12 grades they have now.

Some do, but they are small and often specialized. For example, one of our elementary schools has one for early intervention, and half the class is made of up kids without special needs. It's by lottery.

Reasons against are many:
1) Kindergarten enrollment is easy to predict because education is mandatory. Yes, a few kids go to private K, but the same could be said of other grades. But preschool is very voluntary, so it would be very difficult for districts to allocate space and hire staff, and then guess at how many will enroll.
2) Logistics: unless parents are going to put a 3 year old on a school bus (which they aren't), you would be adding all those cars to the already-crowded bus line at arrival. And preschool is almost always a half day, so there would be a lot of cars arriving at mid-day to pick up, and that puts strain on school resources and clogs up parking areas. Think of this happening on the same day as the 2nd grade talent show or the 4th grade Colonial America program, with all the parents coming in.
3) Preschool is - or should be - play based. Separating it from curriculum-based studies makes sense.
4) Safety - there's a huge difference between a 3 year old preschooler and a 10 year old 4th grader. All those big kids, all those buses, all that noise, and the huge crowds of kids using equipment on a playground can be overwhelming for little kids. And it's so easy to "misplace" a little one in the craze of arrival/dismissal, a fire drill, or (God forbid) a real emergency. I can't imagine parents feeling comfortable with that.

Why don't high schools and middle schools have preschools? Oh yeah, because they aren't preschools!

You say this seemed so obvious. So how many times did you go past your six year old's school when he was four and think I wish there was a preschool there? That is your answer. Just because now you have to go to two schools why is it suddenly obvious? When your six year old is twelve are you going to say that kindergarten to 8th grade should be in the same school and that should be obvious? There is a name for this, it isn't obvious

I think it's logistically a real challenge. School funding is very complicated, and it would be very difficult to get started with a preschool. The money for a preschool could not come from the K-12 budget, so it would be a challenge to get things set up. Then what if not enough kids enroll one year? Would there be pressure to use that space for something else?

It's a nice idea, but "free" public education has been decided to be for K-12.

Our school district does have PreK. That's under a different budget than K-12 (can't remember if it's a state or federal program), and students have to meet certain requirements in order to qualify. My youngest qualified for PreK, and I have to say it was very nice that he didn't have to change schools when he began kindergarten.

Anything before kindergarten is not a part of public school, so it's just easiest to let it be done privately.

Here preschool/daycare/nursery school is very different than school. Personally, other than convenience, I don't see the benefit of having it be part of school.

I'm picturing our elementary schools and I can't picture 3-4 year olds there, sharing a playground or using the big kid washrooms, etc.

What I have seen that was cool was having a daycare/preschool (offered both) right next to the school. My brother had that and a friend of mine did also. What was nice about it was - as you say, convenience, but the daycare also offered before and after school care. So the kids would graduate to school, and then rejoin their younger siblings when kindergarten, etc. was over. One drop off/pick up for parents.

Our school district has 4K preschool at no additional cost, which started operating the year after my youngest had gone through a private 4-year-old preschool.

However, the 4K isn't hosted at each elementary school location. There simply isn't room for it. The district worked with places like the YMCA or and other existing preschool/childcare facilities to operate as district locations.

I haven't looked into it, but I suspect there would be legal barriers to a public school district charging for preschool / 4K. The elementary school my kids went to had a before & after program for a fee, but it was run by the YMCA, not by the district and none of the workers were district employees. A private school could probably charge tuition/market rates.

Because many schools are already crowded. Where would one put the kids? There are guidelines for how many square feet per child in our state regs. There's also an insurance wrinkle. Many parents who would prefer high-end childcare wouldn't want the preschoolers in the same building and sharing the bathrooms with older kids, so you have an additional logistical cost with creating/retrofitting plumbing for children of that height/age. You would also have families who want closer-controlled security, who wouldn't want the same entry as hundreds of elementary school children.

Need I mention naptime and the requirements for quiet? Most CDCs (child development centers) have a set hours for the napping throughout the building, where all the groups are either sleeping or offering quiet play options for non-sleepers. Kids outside at recess would be *noisy*. And then we also have the issue of play equipment outside which is too larger for their small bodies and therefore,unsafe. So, then, other options/areas must be added to be age-appropriate and offer quality play opportunities.

Plus, elementary schools are run as a goverment entity, taxpayer funds, no charge. Having a for-pay program means that the school is taking in money. Or, if they lease some rooms to a company who runs this sort of preschool and has the money to pay that, there are, again, other wrinkles.

The short answer, really, is that this would have to be a top-down change from the government, either state or federal. I personally think that it would be better if we had higher taxes as well as the benefits which come with it (like single-payer health care, believe it or not, if you talk to Canadians, they don't complain) and free preschool for all. There are structures for this in other countries, but until the US citizens feel comfortable paying more taxes for more benefits and would pressure the gov't to spend less on outside ventures (military), this isn't going to happen. Here in Portland, some of our 'old' schools have been repurposed for Head Start; that said, we have very high numbers in our classrooms and our local public schools are a mess in regard to organization and leadership from the superintendent down. As someone who worked in early childhood education for 20 years, I'd love to see socialized childcare/preschools; that said, the best places for youngsters to learn, in my opinion, is still home-based preschools. Smaller groups, a more homey atmosphere, and less focus on 'school' (academic), more focus on play being the work of the child. I would never have sent my son to a 'school' atmosphere preschool, personally. His preschool had chickens and ducks, a garden, small treehouse, a corner of the garden for digging, etc-- sort of like a small farm, cozy fires and storytimes....so much richness.

Many of our elementary schools have preschool.

Because they are an elementary school, and elementary school begins with kindergarten. That similar to asking why the high school can't include 7th & 8th grades. Because it's a high school.

Each school has to serve a particular age range. Our grade school is K-5th, Junior High is 6-8 and High School is 9-12. Now that isn't true in every school district, but that's where ours falls, probably do to the number of kids in each grade, the number of classrooms in each school and trying to keep kids together based on age.

It might be more convenient for you right now if the grade school had a preschool program. But in a few yards you'll have one kid in grade school and one in junior high. It wouldn't be healthy for them to be at the same school.

Unless you want to try and find a way to have preschool through college in the same school, at some point you jus have to deal with having your kids at different schools.

Where I live most pre-schools are located inside elementary schools. They are privately run, but rent the space from the school if the space is available. It is nice if you can get your child into a pre-school within the elementary school they will be attending because of the easy transition to kindergarten as well as it is great revenue for the school division to make use of unused space, but of course it all depends on availability.

ETA: In response to some of reasons people have stated for not having pre-schools within elementary schools...A pre-school can be play based within and elementary school. (The pre-school in the school in which I work is a Montessori). There is no reason the children can't play in the pre-school rooms or on the playground. The pre-school children normally do their outdoor play at a different time from the other kids, so they go out after the elementary school recess. Pre-school children do not need special toilets. They use the same toilets as the kindergarten kids. Pre-school kids don't have nap times, so there is no requirement for quiet. (At least our pre schools don't. Here kids age 3 and up aren't expected to nap at school, and most pre-school programs are 1/2 day).

A lot of states do offer preschool at the elementary school. Oftentimes, it is only available to "at risk" students--low income, special needs, etc.

In FL, some high schools offer preschool. High school students take the preschool class (i.e. if they sign up for it, they would spend one period a day in the preschool room) to learn how to work with kids. They then graduate with a childcare certificate on their hs diploma.

Our elementary school has a preschool where we live now. Our school back in New Mexico also had a preschool. So I would guess that many do!

I'll take a shot: Maybe because that'd be creepy and some people don't want government involved that early? It's already a stark realization (for some of us) that's more than a bit unsettling that at rougly the age of 5 the government owns part of your child's time, therefore your time & your families time. It's a surreal thought if you actually entertain it for half a second. So I can see why there hasn't been a big push to open the door for "public preschool".There's still a lot of kids that don't need or go to preschool. Envolved parents and a bunch of cousins is just as good, if not better, in my opinion. For the record, when I think preschool I think fun & a basic 10 commandments following religion introduction to God...it's just, we're agnostic but live in the real world & like to get along so that's basically how we utilized the 'preschool' option & it's only purpose on our end. I think for the most part kids 'transition' just fine, especially older NOT younger.
Or maybe it's b/c some people want very tailored preschool or young care? And it's hard to do a one size fits all so it'd be quite elaborate and the school system is already over-stressed if you haven't noticed. My kids public education is not good & that's coming from a person who is a product of the Los Angeles School district in the 80's, also not good. Plus there's lots of other issues, all those teachers would have to be creditialed teachers, space, speciality trained for days, lawyers up the kazoo but mainly I see they just don't want to be liable. As they shouldn't.
But mainly I think b/c it would have to be free if it was public, if you haven't noticed already our government always allows for 'free'...you know, so it's 'fair & available for all'.

Our elementary used to have a preschool. (in our city and school district...preschool ages 4 years old only qualify for the program if you are low income, the child has special needs, or a deployed military parent.)

Our school had and actually still has a whole hallway of preschool classrooms. We were one of the district schools that had it.

My kids never qualified and so I had to pay for them to go to a private preschool program a few days a week.

Our city had an initiative called Pre-K for SA that was proposed by our then mayor to provide more preschools...it covered the same kids: low income, special needs and deployed military. (It was touted as providing city covered preschool for all kids but not when you read the fine print). It actually passed because most people thought it was for ALL preschool age kids. They then spent millions of tax dollars building new buildings and paying for new teachers with very very high salaries. BUT our original preschool programs were not full, they were not turning away kids there were not enough kids in those slots.

So long story short a lot of public school like ours closed their programs because there were now even fewer kids to fill the slots. Most of them opted for the newer "better" city program.

We now have empty classrooms and a unused tiny playground.

So to answer your question in one word: POLITICS!!!

All public schools in Oklahoma have pre-school classes so I'm not sure why your state doesn't.

Here's the problem. They are not a required class by the department of education at a government level. They don't even fall under elementary law, they fall under child care law, so they are required to take naps if the child care laws state a 4-5 year old child that is not yet in kindergarten has to do this or that, then the school has to follow those laws. They have to have access to a certain number of toys per child, they have a specific list of areas the preschool age child must have, they require certain checks and balances to be in place and for the teachers and classroom to fall into every single state law they have in their handbook.

Kids that age can't ride the buses because child care laws are VERY VERY different than public school bus laws. They don't have child car seats in buses, they don't have restraint systems at all. If the department of education required school buses to have child car seats for every child under the age of 9 they'd probably stop providing buses for any students age 8 and below.

So the laws regarding a 4-5 year old that is not yet in kindergarten are too different for it to work well.

But in Oklahoma we do this successfully. Kids in pre-school come at the same time, go to morning activities, then go to class. They have scheduled play time, nap time, amounts of food, etc...then they are expected to be off the school grounds at least 30 minutes before the other kids start getting out of school. The mom's of kids of various ages can't let their pre-school ager go to after school care either, they aren't licensed by the state as a child care facility so they can't take the preschool age child.

The schools are often not setup to handle the extra kids too. Our kids elementary school had the ability for several years to have two extra classrooms they could house the pre-school kids in. They had so many kids come and register for pre-K they had a waiting list with over 60 kids on it. So they combined an older class that didn't have two full classes. They put them in the largest classroom with one teacher and two assistants/aides. So they opened up a third preschool classroom. Once that older class was going to middle school the next year they had to cut out that third classroom for pre-K. So there went a resource for 25 kids that were going to be in the pre-K class that next year.

It's hard. Some districts are opening old closed down schools that they've rehabbed enough that they are safe for the kids to be in and they're making them Pre-K centers. It is SOOOO much easier doing it this way. They all follow the same laws and have the same start and finish time. They don't have buses to deal with and they can get parents in and out so they can go to the other public schools to pick up their kids.

It's all through the elementary school district so it's all good.

As you've seen by other answers, every state is different. The answer to your question is: because it's complicated. Kids aged 0-5 have different needs than Kindergartners, their spaces need to be different, their curriculum is different, there are just MANY factors that make them a special population. I could write about two full pages on the needs of children before they enter school, but I'll leave it at that. The federal government does encourage quality early education overall, but leaves each state in charge of how it's done.

It comes down to funding. Our district only offers early childhood special ed. The state and federal government don't fund anything else. It is also a space issue. Our schools are at the bursting point. They are now remodeling an old building to be used just for the early childhood special ed programs. There is talk about trying to fund it, but with the new federal administration I don't expect it will happen.

In my area, it's logistics. We weren't even able to offer full-day K until a few years ago, when the high school building expansion was complete and the 9th grade was moved there, the 6th was moved to middle school and 3rd was moved to the the upper elementary, making room for more K classrooms. We have three K-2 schools and pre-school for special needs kids is offered at one or two of them. All of the K-2 schools need renovation/expansion so I could see expanded pre-school being part of the planning. Not sure that the public school system would actually administer services, but I could see them renting out facilities to a private center that simply operates on a school campus.