SINCE 2020, Salem’s public school district has made strides in ensuring that 4-year-olds in the city have access to equal preschool options before they enter kindergarten.

Thanks to state grant programs, Salem has partnered with five privately-run child care centers, been able to subsidize some tuition for those centers, and implemented a shared pre-K curriculum with those centers to ensure that children are getting the same, quality education.

But, even with the partnerships, the city doesn’t have enough seats to meet the demand for preschool. The slots within the public school district are allocated by a lottery system, leaving some children on a waiting list and many families to pay full preschool tuition.

Establishing universal pre-K for children in Gateway cities has been a priority of Gov. Maura Healey’s since she announced the “Gateway to Pre-K” initiative in January 2024. At the center of the proposal was a lofty goal: By the end of 2026, every family of a 4-year-old in the state’s 26 Gateway Cities will have the opportunity – at low or no cost – to enroll their child in a preschool program that prepares them for kindergarten.

The legislature has so far allocated about $60 million for the Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative (CPPI), the main state grant program through which universal pre-K expansion is funded. Healey’s fiscal 2027 budget asks for another $32 million for CPPI with a “pledge to achieve universal pre-kindergarten funding in all Gateway Cities this year.” But seven of the 26 cities have not applied for funds through the CPPI program. And, child care providers in cities that are participating say that while CPPI funding can be used for tuition relief, it does not cover every child fully. At the same time, other state programs – like Child Care Financial Assistance, which offers subsidies based on income level and family size – are struggling to serve all eligible families.

“There are many families that are paying … tuition because the CPPI grant money doesn’t have that full reach,” assistant superintendent of Salem Public Schools Kate Carbone said. “We target the resources from the grant to the families with the highest need, but the funds don’t take care of everybody.”

Early education advocates like Amy O’Leary, executive director of the nonprofit Strategies for Children, agree.

“Do we have enough money right now in the system to fully fund spaces for every 4-year-old in every Gateway City? We’re not there yet,” O’Leary said. “But the approach that we’re taking I think is our best shot at figuring that out.”

Although parents have other options for pre-K in Salem, some would rather enroll their 4-year-old in the public-school program – even if the care offered by a private center better meets their needs – because it is free. Others who don’t qualify for financial assistance from the state end up paying full preschool tuition at a private center.

Cities like Springfield and Pittsfield also struggle with implementation.

Pittsfield is far from achieving universal pre-K. Currently in year two of planning, the district is new to the CPPI program and has partnered with five community-based providers. But the last year alone has been spent coordinating the school system and local child care providers.

In 2022, Springfield became the first district in the state to offer free, full-day preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old. Before expanding to universal pre-K, the district found that some families were not sending their 4-year-olds to preschool because their annual income was too high to be eligible for state vouchers, but too low to pay for private pre-K tuition. Others struggled with accessing transportation, which is why the district added pre-K classrooms in every elementary school.

Amy Kershaw, commissioner of the Department of Early Education and Care, told CommonWealth Beacon that if the governor’s $32 million funding request is approved, the goal is to include the seven remaining Gateway Cities – Everett, Peabody, Leominster, Revere, Attleboro, Methuen, and Chelsea – in CPPI by the end of the year so they can start the process.

Revere, for example, doesn’t currently have the space for program expansion, according to Superintendent Dianne Kelly. Last August, the district broke ground on a new high school that will be completed in 2029 and will provide space in the existing school for more pre-K classrooms once students move to the new building. Another building is currently being renovated to include more rooms.

Another state program key to achieving universal pre-K, Child Care Financial Assistance, remains underfunded even after the state raised the income eligibility threshold from 50 percent of the state median income to 85 percent last year. That move added 4,000 low and moderate-income families to the program, but more than 30,000 children were on the statewide waitlist for the program at the end of 2025.

Universal pre-K has long been a subject of political debate amid ongoing challenges in the early child care workforce. Some cities in Massachusetts, like Cambridge, have committed to implementing universal pre-K on their own without state programs like CPPI. Only one state in New England – Vermont – offers universal pre-K for all 4-year-olds.

States often vary in how they define universal pre-K. Some consider access to be “universal” simply when there is a seat for every child to enroll, while others define it more specifically as free, publicly-funded seats for all, regardless of family income.

CPPI has been opened to a handful of school districts in non-Gateway Cities like Gloucester, Plymouth, and Boston, which are also considered by the state to be high-need communities.

Massachusetts is aiming for a structure that allows both public schools, the federal Head Start program, and private organizations to operate pre-kindergarten classes. Private providers are an essential component not just because school districts often don’t have enough space for every 4-year-old, but also because they can offer care outside of school hours and during the summer, which some working parents need.

“The beauty is that there are lots of different options,” Carbone said. “For some families, Salem Public Schools’ model doesn’t fit their needs.”

CPPI funding is awarded to public school districts, which manage the grant and partnerships with community-based early education centers and local child care providers. Providers are encouraged to adopt a standardized, coordinated curriculum so that kindergarten readiness levels are the same across the community, regardless of where a child is enrolled.

Providers say the program is great in theory, but in practice, it will not deliver on low- or no-cost pre-K for every 4-year-old in a Gateway City by the end of 2026. Implementing access to pre-K on a universal and sustainable level will require a broad shift in how early education and child care is currently paid for, O’Leary said, noting that the cities will need ongoing funds to subsidize tuition going forward.

In Salem, a large portion of the CPPI funds is used to provide tuition relief to families in need that may not qualify for state vouchers for child care, as well as to boost the salaries of early educators in the private centers, according to Carbone. (Early educators in Massachusetts who work with kids under five often make far less money in private centers than they do in public school settings.)

But CPPI doesn’t provide enough to cover every 4-year-old in Salem, and the grant doesn’t subsidize the city’s pre-K slots in public schools. The school district instead uses its school choice funds – acquired when students from other districts opt into Salem public schools and the sending district pays a tuition fee – to cover the cost, Carbone said. At local child care centers, CPPI partially funds some people’s tuition.

The district has roughly 300 kindergartners, around 180 of which come from the CPPI classrooms, Carbone said. That means the remaining 120 students either attended preschool somewhere else or didn’t attend preschool at all.

“We could not be doing what we’re doing without CPPI. It has been transformative for us, and it has allowed us to really think about our systems and structures,” Carbone said. “But there really needs to be a braided funding model. I think that is the challenge that is ahead. For public schools – Chapter 70 – we don’t get full [state] reimbursement for kids in pre-K. There’s a flaw in the funding model.”

As the state pushes to enroll more children in pre-K – and families in some districts opt for public schools to save money – the shifting landscape could make it harder for private preschools and day cares to remain in business.

In Springfield, universal pre-K expansion has happened mainly within the public school district. School officials have said it is vital in a district where nearly 84 percent of students come from low-income families. Benchmark tests have shown that the program has been successful at improving learning outcomes.

Patrick Roach, chief financial and operations officer at Springfield Public Schools, said a few of their schools have a waitlist because some families would rather have a pre-K seat in their neighborhood elementary school than a seat in one of the privately-run centers.

But center-based providers like Dawn DiStefano, president and CEO of Square One in Spring field, say they have empty slots, not only because so many families choose to send their kids to the school district, but also because of staffing shortages.

“It’s a struggle for a lot of folks in Springfield operating early education and care programs when a public school district has broadly opened their doors to three and 4-year-olds. It’s really tough to stay in business,” she said. “I don’t have a leg to stand on to ask for more funding, because without the staff, there wouldn’t be a place to spend that.”

She emphasized that families need to have choice, and while public school pre-K is a good option for families that can arrange for someone to pick up their children in the middle of the afternoon, centers like Square One offer 10 hours of care a day, 52 weeks out of the year, which is what other working families need.

“When you dangle the word ‘free’ in front of a family that’s trying to make ends meet, you almost take the choice away from them, because they can’t ignore that,” DiStefano said. “When you tell a family it’s free, it’s just too enticing to grab the free and figure out the rest later.”

The Pittsfield school district will not have space for every 4-year-old in the city, said Katherine von Haefen, president and CEO of Berkshire United Way. The local centers will have to fill that gap, she added.

“We’ve got to have a mixed delivery system, because if we don’t, we’re going to starve all of our nonprofit child care centers, and that’s not what we need. Frankly, we need more slots in this county,” von Haefen said. “The fear is without that mixed-model system, then everybody goes to the free care at the school system.”

Early child care providers make most of their profit from enrolling 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds, and they often lose money on babies and toddlers, which is why centers cannot operate solely by caring for younger children.

Overall, rather than lacking centers or classrooms, Pittsfield lacks staff. Because of high costs and limited providers, von Haefen said many parents still send their kids to friends and family during the day rather than preschool.

“Which makes me a little nervous, because you need that professional educator who is well trained to get those kids ready to start kindergarten,” she said.

This article is part of CommonWealth Beacon’s ongoing coverage of early childhood education issues and is funded, in part, by the Commonwealth Children’s Fund.