Multnomah County is meeting — and exceeding — its goals when it comes to providing free preschool to hundreds more children every year. But child care capacity remains a vast problem with thousands of families remaining on the outside looking in.
(Left to right) Julian Orizola, 5, and Sam Ring, 4, along with other classmates, listen to instructions during class at Escuela Viva Community School’s Southeast location, Oct. 26, 2023. The bilingual child care program is part of Multnomah County’s Preschool for All.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Oregon’s most populous county is wrestling with a vexing problem facing the whole country, when it comes to providing safe, affordable care for young children. Lack of childcare is a constraint on economic growth: If parents have to focus all of their time on watching children, they can’t easily work. And lack of quality child care can have long-term effects, inhibiting a child’s intellectual and social development in the critical years before they enter kindergarten.
For the upcoming school year, the county’s goal was to support 3,000 slots in a variety of settings - people’s homes, large centers and at public schools. The program expects to far exceed that goal, and have capacity for 3,800 youngsters this year.
Preschool For All has overshot its goals in each of its first three years, according to the county.
But the program’s limits are clear every time program officials open the window for applications.
“Every year, we have about double the amount of applications for the slots, the seats that we have — I don’t expect that to be any different this year,” Leslee Barnes, the director of Preschool & Early Learning Division at Multnomah County, said at a Monday press conference.
The window for applications for the upcoming school year just opened — and will remain open until the end of the month. Barnes said the county is already getting flooded. Just Monday morning, she said, 1,300 applications were submitted for 2,800 spots. With several more weeks before the application window closes, Barnes expects demand to far outstrip supply. Backers hope capacity will be sufficient by 2030, when the county aims to offer 11,000 slots and meet its goal of universal access.
County voters opened the door to the universal preschool effort when they approved a ballot measure in 2020. It took two years to set up the program and collect sufficient revenue before it opened for the 2022-23 school year. The preschool effort is funded by a 1.5% marginal tax on earnings of more than $150,000 per year for an individual and over $200,000 for households. An additional 1.5% is paid by individuals earning over $250,000 and joint filers who earned more than $400,000.
Right away, the program’s modest 500-child goal was surpassed, with 728 children enrolled as part of Preschool For All.
One of the biggest reasons that Preschool For All is expanding rapidly, and yet is continuing to see more families interested in participating than can be served, is cost. Jered Bogli is a Portland-area parent whose son is in a county-funded preschool. He says Preschool For All came along when his family was having a hard time paying for market-rate child care.
“We are a family that — I was unemployed for a period of time, got laid off. And then my wife was going back to school to become a mental health counselor,” Bogli recalled. “Things were going to be very tight — and previously, our preschool before, was more than our mortgage.”
Bogli said his son looks forward to going to preschool because he’s built relationships over time with the teaching staff. Supporters connect the low turnover at participating preschools to the program’s mandatory pay levels, which far exceed what childcare providers are typically paid.
Without sufficient slots to meet the need for every eligible three- and four-year-old in the county, leaders say they are prioritizing access for families with the greatest need. The program is open to families regardless of income, but 71% of participating families are considered low income by the county.
Both the operators of the Preschool For All programs and participating children are more ethnically diverse than the overall region. While Multnomah County is 78% white, according to U.S. Census data, children of color make up 65% of those participating in Preschool For All. More than 75% of what the county identifies as “small centers and family learning sites” are managed or owned by people of color.
