RFP QAAA 2025000111 - Blending and Braiding

Research has shown that high-quality preschool supports children’s kindergarten readiness.1 Yet families in Colorado do not have the same access to high-quality preschool, fueling racial and economic disparities in preschool opportunities and children’s school readiness skills.2 To address inequitable access to high-quality preschool and to ensure all Colorado children are ready for kindergarten, in 2020, Colorado voters passed Proposition EE, a statewide nicotine tax. Funding from this tax is designed to provide all four-year-olds and qualifying three-year-olds in Colorado with access to high-quality preschool for at least 10 hours a week. Colorado House Bill 22-1295 established the Colorado Universal Preschool Program, launched under the new Colorado Department of Early Childhood (CDEC), established under the same Bill. The program welcomed its first cohort of children in the fall of 2023.
Colorado’s Universal Preschool Program aims to build efficiencies within Colorado’s existing preschool system so families can more easily access and enroll in a high-quality preschool provider that best meets their needs (see Theory of Change in Figure 1). To accomplish this aim, Colorado’s Universal Preschool is organized into four key strategies:
1. Communication: Develop and activate a long-term communication strategy for families, Local Coordinating Organizations (LCOs), providers, and the general public about the program.
2. Provider Enrollment: Enroll a variety of licensed center-, school-, and home-based providers while minimizing burden and barriers for providers.
3. Funding and Child Enrollment: Fund up to 15 hours/week of preschool for all children in Colorado in their year before kindergarten or up to 30 hours/week for children with qualifying factors through Proposition EE tax revenue.
4. Provision of Quality Preschool: Set quality standards, monitor provider quality, and respond to providers’ quality improvement needs to meet Universal Preschool Program learning outcomes for children.