Trowbridge Square Pre‑K Shuts Its Doors

St. Martin de Porres Academy is closing its financially strapped pre‑K, eliminating a low-cost daycare from the Hill and sending other daycare providers — and one East Rock school — scrambling to compete for 36 state-funded seats.

For the past five years, St. Martin has offered the pre‑K program to families at its middle school at 208 Columbus Ave. in the Trowbridge Square section of the Hill neighborhood. The board of the parochial school voted on July 19 to close the pre‑K program effective Aug. 31; parents were notified two weeks ago.

School reformers have identified increasing pre‑K as a key component of closing the achievement gap.

The St. Martin’s pre‑K, which served 40 low-income families, was paid for through the state school readiness program, but the money hasn’t been enough to cover costs, according to school President Allison Rivera.

The school was subsidizing the cost of the pre‑K and can no longer afford to do so, she said. The school is looking for placements for nine teachers who will be out of a job, and 12 remaining families who will be without a daycare center.

“It was hard for them to get the news,” said pre‑K director Lisa Dias. ​“Some of them cried.”

Meanwhile, the closure has freed up 36 state-funded school readiness spots, which are being offered through a public bidding process to state-sanctioned daycares and the public school district. The New Haven Public Schools, which are seeking funding for a new pre‑K at the East Rock Community Magnet School, plan to the enter a bid, according to Chief Operating Officer Will Clark.

Mom Marlo Biggs (pictured above) said she has relied on St. Martin de Porres to prepare her youngest son for kindergarten. Jude, who just turned 5, went to the pre‑K for the past year. The program ran from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday to Friday, all year round, with only five holidays and two weeks off. It gave her son three meals a day while she worked as a housekeeper.

She said Jude learned to count up to 50 and to write his first and last name. That will help him as he heads to kindergarten in September at Nathan Hale School. Biggs said all seven of her kids have gone to pre‑K programs.

“It makes a difference to me — they have to get their social skills,” she said, while picking up her son one recent afternoon. At the end of the program, ​“they’re really prepared for school.”

Biggs she was hoping to send her granddaughter to St. Martin de Porres, too. ​“My daughter is disappointed.”

Parents in the school readiness program pay on a sliding scale based on their income. Biggs said because she has so many children, she was able to send Jude there for free.

President Rivera (pictured) said the school sometimes let students attend for free, even if their parents were supposed to pay a contribution based on the fee schedule set by the state. Parents could barely make the payments of $17, $32 or $38 a month, she said.

Rivera said one major factor in the school closing is that the state has raised the fee schedule for parents. A family making a $23,000 gross salary will now have to pay $62 a week. One mom with a single child saw her monthly fee shoot up from $218 to $374, according to Dias. (Click here to see the new fee schedule, which took effect July 30.)

Rivera said St. Martin de Porres was already considering cutting down the school from two classes to one, because the school readiness grant has stayed the same while the cost of childcare has risen. The state pays $695.50 per child, regardless of how much the parent is contributing.

“There’s no way I can pay any more than I’m paying right now,” parents objected, according to Rivera. They started dropping out of the program.

“It was the perfect storm of ugliness,” she said.

Rivera said the school readiness program is supposed to work on a mixed-income model, where some students pay full tuition. However, St. Martin de Porres was serving families almost entirely at the poverty line. Only four of the 40 slots were for ​“full-pay” kids from outside of New Haven.

State education spokesman Jim Polites declined to comment on the rising fees and financial problems the daycare is facing.

The Trowbridge Square pre‑K program has been running at that site since 1997; St. Martin de Porres took it over five years ago when it moved to the former Sacred Heart/ St. Peters school. Rivera said it’s disappointing that the program had to close. Some kids have found seats at other daycares, but she fears others will not.

“Unfortunately, kids will be sitting in front of the TV,” she predicted.

“When they get to kindergarten, they’re going to be behind the eight ball. The kids who most need it are going to miss out.”

Up For Grabs

In the wake of the pre‑K program’s closing, daycare and pre‑K providers can now compete for the 36 available seats. The state requires towns to set up local councils to oversee the use of school readiness funds. When a site closes, the state mandates that the local council put out an RFP for the available spots, according to Jennifer Heath, co-chair of the New Haven Early Childhood Council. The council ​“then determines its own priorities in allocating said spaces.”

New Haven’s council issued an RFP on Aug. 1; bids were due back on Aug. 10. The council’s Grants Committee planned to review the applications on Aug. 14 and email its recommendations to the full council for approval. The council will submit its final recommendations to the state Department of Education no later than Aug. 17, she said.

The council will give priority to ​“programs that can enroll children in September, or no later than October 1,” in order to make the most of the funding, Heath wrote in an email. It will also grant priority to programs that already have National Association for the Education of Young Children accreditation, she said, ​“though non-accredited programs are encouraged to reply.”

New Haven Public Schools will be one agency bidding on the seats. The district aims to apply for all 36 seats for East Rock Community Magnet School, according to schools COO Clark. The school has been in a Hamden swing space while its Nash Street home is being rebuilt.

The school currently serves grades K to 8; the school district plans to create a pre‑K program when it returns to Nash Street.

The district had hoped to score funding for East Rock when Gov. Dannel Malloy last month handed out 1,000 extra pre‑K seats statewide. New Haven daycares and the school system applied for 151 spots, including 40 half-day spots at East Rock.

East Rock was not among the sites that won extra funding. New Haven won 53 total spots, mostly for community sites such as one run by Catholic Charities on Grand Avenue.

Clark said the district will now put together a second bid for the school readiness sites. Whether they would be half or full day, and how students would be selected to fill the seats, remains undetermined, according to schools spokeswoman Abbe Smith.

Britt Anderson, a parent leader at East Rock magnet school, said parents have been eagerly awaiting word on when a pre‑K might start up at East Rock, and what it would look like.

“People are really interested in pre‑K at East Rock. They really want it,” she said. ​“But there’s limited understanding” as to what the options are.

“It would be great if East Rock got the slots,” Anderson said. However, she questioned if East Rock would win them, given two open questions: Could the district find a space to start up a pre‑K on Sept. 1, then move the class mid-year to East Rock? And could it win the spots even though it doesn’t yet have accreditation?

Anderson said parents are frustrated with the lack of a clear plan for East Rock’s pre‑K. The district has committed to opening one in 2013, but has been mum on exactly when.

“I also feel that they make the decisions at the headquarters based on whatever they can get” for funding, ​“not based on what parents” want.

If East Rock doesn’t get the spots, Anderson said, ​“they’ll have to go back to Plan B” decide ​“where they can get money, and figure out what the pre‑K will be.”

COO Clark said that whatever form the pre‑K at East Rock takes, it will be a net gain in pre‑K seats. ​“Our track record is very, very clear of us seeking to expand and understand the value of pre‑K.”