HISTORY: Hawaii Preschools


The quality of the Public Preschool systems in Hawaii have been less than many participants have hoped for. Indeed programs like the Open Door Project have helped many needy families around the island in paving their children’s futures, and preparing them for years to come. Yet despite all efforts put into programs like this, the programs are still in need of more funds and improvement in quality.

It may seem as though state funded preschools have been around for a great deal of time, but it was only until over a decade ago that the Hawaii Preschool Open Door Project had started. The project is headed in a great direction with wonderful aspirations, but it is in a great need of funding and improvements. Open Doors was established in 1989-90 in order to help low-income families provide their preschool children with 1+ years of preschool to help then in their successes in kindergarten and on. The Preschool Open Doors Project gives low-income parents of 3-4 year olds to an amount of $425 per month to afford preschool. Hawaii’s Preschool Open Door Project enables children to attend full day early care and education programs. And as of this year, the Hawaii State Government will spend an additional $5 million each year to help low and middle income families afford preschool for their children. As of now, more than 825 children now attend preschool through the help of Open Doors. The State predicts that with the money that will be given, the enrollment will expand the program by 1,000 children. But right now, there are not enough preschool slots available to handle the extra 1,000 children.

In Hawaii’s recent past, Govenor Ben Cayetano had given an effort to improve the public preschool system. With the addition of new buildings with free rent, free furniture, free curriculum, mostly free tuition for their students, and a seven-year contract to boot, Cayetano seemed to really want the improvements to work. To make things even better, 26 public elementary schools had given up a portion of their campus to house a portable or trailer with a playground and had maintenance done. But even with these improvements, Governor Cayetano did not fulfill all that he promised in his 2001 State of the State address. He stated that only federal and private money would be used to support the Pre-Plus preschool initiative to provide universal preschool for about 8,000 3- and 4-year-olds. However, the Legislature in the 2001 session appropriated $100,000 for administration and $5 million in construction funds over the next two years for the Department of Human Services for these 26 sites to service 500 children. So in reality, 8,000 students would instead require 400 classrooms, with 20 per class, and $77 million for facilities alone if this plan were to be fully accomplished.

Looking back at the recent history of improving our public preschool system, we can see that it is a much more difficult task to carry out than it seems. It is an ambitious idea to think that the quality of the preschool education system will be magically fixed with money. It is our job as a community to think of more realistic ways to improve the system in combination with the help of additional state funds.