State to cut back preschool program
By James Gonser
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer
The state's Pre-Plus program, which provides preschool education for low-income children, is being scaled back because the cost to bring the classroom buildings up to code has eaten away the budget needed to complete the project.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser
The first 13 stand-alone structures are about $1 million over budget and counting. The result is that four to six of the planned 26 buildings will not be built and dozens of parents and students have lost out on opportunities that could have benefited them for years to come.
Principal Arthur Kaneshiro of 'Aiea Elementary School checks out the Pre-Plus preschool building on campus. The building was completed in October 2002 but cannot open because an operating fire hydrant is not close enough to the school.
The 13 completed pre-schools were built in 2002 and expected to open that fall, but five have yet to open because of problems ranging from fire code violations to lack of telephone lines and access roads, according to the state Department of Human Services, which heads the Pre-Plus program.
Masato Inaba, interim director of Head Start programs on O'ahu, said his company won the bids to run eight of 13 Pre-Plus preschools. Four of those schools — Jefferson, 'Aiea, Waiau and Waipahu elementary schools — are built but haven't opened.
Inaba said the project is an example of poor planning.
"When you go out into these communities and you make these promises, a lot of parents with kids sign up with the hope that they will have a place," Inaba said. "The first ones that came in are probably now already in kindergarten."
The Pre-Plus program is a public-private partnership in which the state provides the buildings rent-free on school grounds and licensed and accredited private providers bid to operate the preschools.
Legislators approved $5 million for the program in 2001. The plan was to use $2.5 million in each of two years to build preschools in communities with needy children but without a sufficient number of preschools.
Open Not open
Scott Nakasone, a program specialist with the Employment/Child Care office of the Benefit, Employment and Support Services division of the Human Services Department, said the program was started by former Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono and run by her office. It was later handed off to Human Services, which learned about the building code problems after they were built.
Pre-Plus schools
The next round of sites will be selected and contracts awarded before the end of this fiscal year, June 30, when the money will lapse, he said.
The buildings, which cost an average of about $270,000 each, are temporary, modular classrooms, similar to portables and trailers.
Nakasone said it has taken some time for the department to learn all the requirements for a preschool, which are more stringent than those for regular school buildings because the children are so young. The new sites will get a thorough site-and-infrastructure evaluation before starting construction, he said. Fire Department officials will be consulted to minimize any potential problems.
Arthur Kaneshiro, principal at 'Aiea Elementary School, said the Pre-Plus building on his campus was completed in October 2002, and it's frustrating seeing the building every day and knowing it can't be used.
"I've got this brand-new, air-conditioned preschool building on campus," Kaneshiro said. "But we cannot open it because it doesn't have a fire hydrant close enough to the building to meet preschool standards."
Kaneshiro said a fire hydrant is right across the street from his school, but the water was turned off by the Navy when it closed its facilities in the area.
Nakasone said negotiations with the Navy have stalled and the department has asked the state Department of Defense to help persuade the Navy to turn the water back on to allow the preschool to open. But he can't even guess when that might happen.
"It is very frustrating," Nakasone said. "Without the ability to use that hydrant, we cannot get the approvals from the county Fire Department and without that approval we cannot get a certificate of occupancy."
'Aiea resident Vanessa Paracuelles said her 4-year-old son, Sheldon, missed out on preschool because the classroom didn't open.
Paracuelles, a volunteer teacher's aide at the school, said she could not afford to send her son to a private preschool and the situation is really a missed opportunity for him to get an early start on his education.
"I would have wanted him to go," Paracuelles said. "It's such a waste. All this money going into building this and it is not even being used."
Sheldon will start kindergarten next term.
The Pre-Plus building at Jefferson Elementary in Waikiki needs only a phone line installed and the one at Fern Elementary in Kalihi needs to have its sprinkler system approved. Both should open within a "couple months," Nakasone said.
But Waiau Elementary needs an access road built and Waipahu Elementary has a problem with its fire-alarm system. Nakasone could not say when those problems will be resolved.
Studies show that early childhood education has a bearing on future academic success. In addition to better language and math skills, children who have had a quality preschool experience are less likely to drop out of school, repeat grades or require special education.
A national report said that despite some state efforts to improve access to preschool for disadvantaged children, there are great disparities in early childhood education in Hawai'i.
More than 70 percent of children in high-income areas arrive in kindergarten with some preschool experience, but only about 30 percent of kindergartners in low-income areas have attended preschool, according to Education Week's "Quality Counts" survey.
Kaneshiro said 85 percent of his students qualify for free or reduced lunches and only about 27 percent of his students have gone to preschool.
Though families of all income levels can apply to Pre-Plus schools, preference is given to 4-year-olds whose families are at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty index, which is $18,100 for a family of four. Most preschools charge between $400 and $500 a month.
Reach James Gonser at jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2431.
