| Universal Pre-Kindergarten Enrollment and Kindergarten Readiness- Every child is ready for school on the first day of Kindergarten |
Strategic Priorities |
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4.3 Expand access to high quality pre-school
- Every child is ready for school on the first day of Kindergarten
About this measure |
This page shows the impact of the Cuyahoga County Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK) program. Measures include:
- Children Enrolled in UPK, which shows the number of children enrolled in preschools that participate in the County’s UPK program by month,
- UPK Enrolled % of Capacity, which communicates the percent of UPK seats that were filled,
- Percent of UPK Participants by Race & Ethnicity, which shows the percent of UPK children who have been enrolled in preschools that participate in the County's UPK program by race and ethnicity by year, and
- Percent of UPK Participants Ready for Kindergarten, which shows the percent of UPK children who are ready for kindergarten. Kindergarten readiness is defined as children whose Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA) scores fall into the “Demonstrating Readiness” or “Approaching Readiness” categories. These categories reflect readiness on four dimensions: language and literacy, mathematics, social foundations, and physical well-being and motor development. The population here is restricted to children who attended a UPK program for at least six months in the year before kindergarten and for whom a KRA score can be identified.
Data are reported by the Cuyahoga County Office of Early Childhood/Invest in Children on a quarterly basis.
Why is this important? |
Access to affordable, high-quality preschool is an important step toward fostering children’s development and preparing them for kindergarten and the years beyond. When children enter kindergarten ready to learn, they do better in the short term and over the long term. Being prepared to learn includes academic preparation—counting, letters, shapes, colors—as well as the social and emotional foundation for learning. The aim of the County’s UPK program is to ensure children are socially, emotionally, and academically prepared to succeed in school the moment they enter kindergarten.
Related Key Government Measures |
Cuyahoga County Early Childhood Education Expansion and Sustainability Plan
How are we making an impact? | |
The Office of Early Childhood (OEC) and its public/private partnership, Invest in Children, operate the County’s Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK) program. The aim of UPK is to create a gold standard of preschool experience through its four-part model: increasing access with scholarships for families below 400% of the federal poverty line; supporting teachers through coaching and professional development; enhancing quality with funding, support for children with special needs, and high standards for staff education; and partnering with families to facilitate child learning.
OEC tracks the reach of UPK through monthly enrollment, which is typically higher toward the middle of the academic year and lower in the summer months. The number of preschool seats available may also shift over time, for example as sites increase the number of classrooms or consolidate with another site. For this reason, enrollment is reported as both the number of children enrolled in UPK preschools and the percentage of UPK seats enrolled. The latter measure is more suitable for comparison over time.
What’s happening this quarter: Monthly enrollment for Q4-20 (October, November, December) continues to show the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on UPK specifically and early childhood education more broadly. Throughout the quarter, all 64 UPK sites were open, but most operated with smaller than normal class sizes. Last year, in December 2019, there were 4,349 seats available and enrollment was 3,724 (86% of capacity). In contrast, enrollment in December 2020 was 2,146 children in 3,205 available seats (67% of capacity).
Most UPK preschools have opted to continue operating at smaller class sizes in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19, which helps explain the lower number of seats available in 2020 compared to 2019. It is also likely that parents are reluctant to send their children back to child care or that work situations have enabled parents to keep children home, which would explain the lower-than-normal enrollment. We are working with our partners at Starting Point, PRE4CLE, and CWRU's Poverty Center to better understand who is returning to child care and the factors influencing families' decisions, as well as the challenges child care professionals are facing on the ground.
Additional Resources |
Data Source |
Enrollment: Starting Point
Kindergarten Readiness: Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development
Data table abbreviated due to number of measures. See Attachments for full data table.
UPK Enrollment % of Capacity is based on the number of seats each site offered pre-pandemic, but the denominator only includes seats for those sites open within a given month.In Q4-20, Cuyahoga County began reporting Cuyahoga Performance data by race and ethnicity when available. The Universal Pre-Kindergarten Enrollment and Kindergarten Readiness page has been update to report the percent of UPK participants by race and ethnicity. Details on race and ethnicity data reported on this page by Cuyahoga County Office of Early Childhood/Invest in Children are as follows: “Black” includes non-Hispanic children identified as black or African American alone; “White” consists of non-Hispanic children identified as white or Caucasian alone; “Asian” consists of non-Hispanic children identified as Asian or Pacific Islander alone; “Hispanic” includes all children identified as Hispanic, Spanish, or Latinx, regardless of race; “Native American” consists of non-Hispanic children identified as American Indian or Alaska Native alone; “Multi-racial” includes children identified as having more than one race; “Other” consists of children identified as some other race, children for whom race was not identified, as well as any of the preceding groups that are not displayed separately because of small sample sizes.
Data Impacted by COVID-19 |
The early childhood system has been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Governor DeWine closed schools March 16th, issued a stay-at-home order on March 24th, and closed child care centers on March 27th. The exception to the child care closures were sites that received temporary emergency pandemic licenses, and those sites were required to adhere to strict rules including much smaller teacher-to-child ratios. Five of our 64 UPK sites remained open with the pandemic license—three child care centers and two family child care homes. Child care centers reopened June 1, still with restricted teacher-to-child ratios. In August, child care centers were permitted to return to their normal ratios and class sizes. Those who wish to slow or avoid the spread of COVID-19 by maintaining smaller ratios and class sizes receive financial incentives from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. In March 2021, all 64 UPK sites were open and most were operating at smaller capacity. The total number of UPK seats in March was 3,205, which is 74% of the 4,340 seats that would normally be available.
In addition to the program impacts detailed above, COVID-19 has also impacted data collection for the Percent of UPK Participants Ready for Kindergarten measure. Data for the 2019 - 2020 school year will be reported in a future Cuyahoga Performance reporting period.
Performance Target |
UPK Enrollment % of Capacity (Monthly): 70%
Children in UPK Ready for Kindergarten (Annual): 75%
UPK Enrollment % Capacity - Monthly Performance |
Children Enrolled in UPK - Monthly Performance |
Percent of UPK Participants by Race & Ethnicity - Annual Performance |
Percent of UPK Participants Ready for Kindergarten - Annual Performance |
Percent of UPK Participants Ready for Kindergarten by Race & Ethnicity - Annual Performance |
Measure Data | Last Calculated a day ago |