AUSTIN – The Texas Education Agency (TEA) today released results of a comprehensive study to gain a clearer understanding of the impact of the High-Quality Prekindergarten grants on 10 school districts and charter schools that received the grant funding.

Overall, the study found that the grants had a significant impact on prekindergarten programs and a majority of grantees reported a need for continued funding in order to fully implement high-quality prekindergarten, increase kindergarten readiness and continuously improve their prekindergarten programs.  

Passed by the 84th Texas Legislature in 2015, House Bill 4 provided a High-Quality Prekindergarten Grant program for districts and open enrollment charter schools to implement increased quality standards in their prekindergarten classrooms. The legislature appropriated $118 million for the grant program, which was awarded to 573 school districts and charters with enrollment of over 159,000 four-year-old prekindergarten children. 

The grant allowed for new investments to be made in multiple areas of the prekindergarten program that included providing new classroom resources; increasing teacher knowledge and skills in early childhood education; increasing access to prekindergarten for more four-year-old children; and lengthening the school day.  Future funding for the High-Quality Prekindergarten Grant will depend on appropriations made in the 2018-19 General Appropriations Act during this legislative session.  

The report – The 2016-17 High Quality Prekindergarten Grant: The Road to Quality in 10 Texas Districts and Charter Schools – highlights the work already underway in the Alief Independent School District (ISD), Dallas ISD, El Paso ISD, Harmony Public Schools – Austin, Hidalgo ISD, Lancaster ISD, McAllen ISD, North East ISD, Promise Community School (Bellaire) and Tyler ISD.

As part of this study, research teams conducted site visits to the 10 districts and charter schools that collectively educate more than 18,000 four-year-old prekindergarten children each school year. The site visits included interviews with administrators and district-level staff; focus groups with prekindergarten teachers; and classroom observations of up to three high-quality prekindergarten classrooms per district or open-enrollment charter school.

The Austin-based Texas Comprehensive Center at American Institutes for Research, in partnership with TEA, initiated the grant case study project last fall. Among the key findings:

• All of the grantees reported that they used grant funds to support new initiatives to help parents become more knowledgeable about their prekindergarten child’s learning and how they can support academic growth at home.
• Although the grantees used some of the funding to provide new resources for prekindergarten classrooms, the grant gave districts and charters the funding needed to make a significant investment in their teachers; and
• Grantees had the ability to prioritize funding based on the unique needs of the teachers and children in their communities.

The grantees indicated that the priorities of the grant program (with its focus on progress monitoring, alignment of the curriculum to the revised Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines, family engagement activities, increased teacher qualifications) were in line with the priorities of the district or charter school. The grant provided the necessary fiscal and regulatory support needed to achieve those priorities.

To review the complete report, visit the Texas Education Agency website at http://tea.texas.gov/earlychildhoodeducation.aspx.