Only a few more days to sign up for Colorado's Universal Pre-K program, but do parents know?

It's become the common question now for the parents of three and 4-year-olds. Have you signed up for Colorado's Universal Pre-Kindergarten program? 

A small sample of parents leaving the zoo on Monday showed the state still has a lot of work to do.

"We have not heard about it," said parent Enrique Tapia, who held the hand of his 4-year-old, Damiano. "We'll look into that."

"If they extended the deadline then that's great because he's in daycare now and it's a learning center," said father Jeremy McInnis about his 4-year-old, Leo. "But we want to get him advanced into school and ready, so when he does start kindergarten, he's already advanced." 

But they haven't heard much about how to sign up for the state-supported program. 

"I'm not quite sure how to go about that actually," said Leo's mom, Samantha Rivera.

Colorado voters backed a tax on cigarette and tobacco products in Proposition EE in 2020 by a huge margin. It provides funding for partial preschool. 

Ten hours for three-year-olds and now fifteen hours for 4-year-olds within a year of starting kindergarten. 

Parents may want to supplement the pre-K programs by adding additional time they would have to cover, but the value is about $6000 per year per child of the state support.

"We're both working parents, so it's nice to have a place to have the kids go full time and the 15 hours counts towards that," Alicia Blue said. 

The family has already signed up their 4-year-old boy, Brooks. They hope he can stay at a school that he's been attending and loves. 

"We signed up through UPK and DPS choice and ranked all the schools and we'll see what happens," she said.

The State of Colorado has created a new section of government for universal pre-K. Parents choose where they hope their children can attend. 

Children already at those schools will be prioritized to continue there. It is not a first come, first served sign-up process. 

The State extended sign-ups earlier this month to Feb. 24. Parents who fill out the application for a "match" will begin to learn where their children will be able to attend, having ten or fifteen hours of pre-K covered, at the end of March.

"We are super excited to offer this for our current families, but any new families that might want to join our program," said Pam Melot, executive director of the Creative Learning Pre-School in Stapleton. 

Established pre-schools are looking at how much they can add. Other new schools are opening. 

"The beauty of this program is to provide what we already do. We don't need to recreate the wheel. We don't need to come up with new and innovative ways to do what we do best for 4-year-olds, it's just to bring this to a larger scale," Melot said. 

Adding so much to Colorado's preschool education will certainly have challenges.

 "I think statewide staffing is definitely a concern and an issue," Melot added. But adding the educational option could have widespread benefits. I do think for a lot of families, equity and availability but also the cost is definitely a determining factor."

McInnis also touched on the matter saying, "they say having both parents at home is easier, but it's really not when both of us are at work full-time," said McInnis about the family's challenges with finding good care. The idea of signing up however was intriguing. Samantha Rivera wanted website information. We want him to learn more, definitely want him to learn more."

Here's the website to sign up: https://bit.ly/3XG7CIU