蜜桃影视

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The little boy clung to his mother as she carried him through the wooden half-door of the preschool classroom on Tuesday morning. Tears streamed down his face. It was going to be a tough drop-off.

While other children finished bananas, raisin bagels, and milk, Vraja Johnson, the lead teacher, ushered the mother and son toward a cozy corner in the back of the classroom. She spoke softly in English and Spanish to the nervous preschooler. Several minutes later, when his mother had slipped away, the boy nestled into a large blue beanbag clutching Tucker the Turtle, a stuffed animal that helps preschoolers understand that it鈥檚 OK to retreat into your shell 鈥� and to come back out when you鈥檙e ready.

It was the first day of preschool in the Otters classroom at El Nidito, a bilingual child care program at The Family Center in Fort Collins. The little boy and his 11 classmates are among 40,000 children enrolled in Colorado鈥檚 universal preschool program this year. The $349 million program offers tuition-free preschool 鈥� typically a half day 鈥� to all children in the year before kindergarten.

Now entering its third year, Colorado鈥檚 preschool for all program has smoothed out since its . At the time, application system errors, glitches in the , and last-minute reductions in preschool hours for some children caused widespread confusion and frustration.

A national early childhood group in the country for the share of children served by state-funded preschool. Around 70% of the state鈥檚 4-year-olds are enrolled in the program, which generally covers about $6,000 a year in preschool costs per child.

But wrinkles remain. The state is still brought by religious preschools that objected to non-discrimination rules protecting LGBTQ children, families, and employees. Both suits are pending in federal appeals court. And the national early childhood group found that Colorado meets only two of 10 benchmarks meant to ensure that preschool classrooms are high quality.

Currently, the 鈥渦niversal preschool鈥� label doesn鈥檛 indicate anything about the caliber of classroom a child will join. Rather, it simply indicates the state is paying for 10 to 30 hours of class time. Of about 2,000 preschools participating in the program, some have the state鈥檚 lowest rating and meet only basic health and safety standards.

Others, including El Nidito, which has been around for 25 years, have the state鈥檚 highest rating.

A morning in Johnson鈥檚 classroom makes it easy to see why. She and her co-teacher, an experienced sub named Maria Chavira, are warm, cheerful, and organized. Their young charges are curious, silly, and always in motion.

During breakfast, two boys held bananas up to their ears like phones.

鈥淩ing, ring, ring. Hi, Henry,鈥� one said as the other burst out laughing.

Nearby at the sensory table, as one little boy poured dried pinto beans through a cardboard tube, he said, 鈥淒id you ever watch 鈥楤oss Baby?鈥� The baby is a bossssss. Babies can鈥檛 be bosses!鈥�

Meanwhile, the little boy who鈥檇 struggled to leave his mother was getting braver, slowly testing the waters of group play. One minute he crouched next to a little girl in front of a tree house play set. Later, he tried out bear and leopard hand puppets as the Boss Baby skeptic threw Tucker the Turtle up in the air next to him.

Johnson, who switched from a sales and marketing career to early childhood education in 2007, seems to have a sixth sense for detecting imminent meltdowns, skirmishes, and rule-bending.

She quickly peeled away from a conversation with a visitor when a little girl dressed in head-to-toe pink accidentally got a squiggle of red marker on her new cowboy boots.

鈥淵our mom can get that out. The markers are washable,鈥� Johnson said as tears welled in the preschooler鈥檚 eyes.

Then she averted the crisis with five words: 鈥淒o you want a hug?鈥�

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

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