A half-dozen Colorado school districts and two education groups sued the state Thursday over its freshly implemented free universal preschool program, alleging the state walked back key promises and that deficiencies in the application process disproportionately harm low-income families and students with disabilities.

Colorado Springs' Harrison School District 2 is among the slate of districts that filed the lawsuit seeking to take Gov. Jared Polis, the Colorado Department of Early Childhood and the Colorado Department of Education to task for the poor rollout — specifically calling out the state’s online matching system, named Bridgecare, for functioning so poorly that it keeps some families from services they need.

Joining in D-2’s legal efforts are Brighton School District 27-J; Cherry Creek School District 5; Mapleton School District 1; Platte Valley School District RE-7; Westminster School District 50; the Colorado Association of School Executives, a professional organization that connects school leaders; and the Consortium of Special Education, which consists of all special-education directors in the state.

Plaintiffs say their action is for the greater interest of all Colorado students. They are not fighting to cancel the program or change laws, school leaders say, but for increased funding to properly support students and for greater access to Bridgecare to see where families’ applications are in the system.

Parent relationships are crumbling under the program’s current approach, they say, and schools are taking a financial hit.

“The state is not doing what it had said it was going to do and what it promised our parents,” D-2 Superintendent Wendy Birhanzel said at a Thursday news conference. “It’s our job to speak up for our kids. It’s our job to say, ‘Stop. The state has done wrong by our kids, and our kids are going to run a learning loss, if we don’t do this correctly.’”

Polis signed the universal preschool program into law in April 2022, thereby establishing the Department of Early Childhood to oversee its implementation. The program promises at least 10 hours of free preschool a week for all 4-year-olds in Colorado, with some children qualifying for up to 30 hours. Some 3-year-olds are also eligible for 10 free hours.

But its rollout this fall raised major red flags for districts including Harrison, whose roughly 50% Hispanic student population includes a large number of English Language Learner families. Birhanzel was “irate” when she learned the program’s virtual application lacked a Spanish option, posing an immediate barrier for many parents.

“That means our families couldn’t even apply until it came in Spanish, which was only a few weeks ago,” Birhanzel said. “And then it becomes an equity issue, because If I’m a more affluent parent, I’ll figure it out. I’m gonna say 'forget universal preschool, I’m just gonna find preschool and pay for it.' But a lot of our families can’t do that, and that’s not right.”

There are two other lawsuits targeting the universal prekindergarten program. A Christian preschool in Chaffee County filed suit, claiming the non-discrimination agreement program that providers are required to sign would violate the school's religious beliefs by forcing them to accept applicants regardless of sexual orientation. Two Catholic parish preschools filed a similar lawsuit.

In an email statement, governor spokesperson Conor Cahill doubled down on the state’s commitment to universal preschool, pledging to defend the program in court “so that even more families can benefit from preschool.”

“While it’s unfortunate to see different groups of adults attempting to co-opt preschool for themselves, perhaps because they want to not allow gay parents to send their kids to preschool, or they want to favor school district programs over community-based early childhood centers, the voters were clear on their support for parent choice and a universal, mixed-delivery system that is independently run, that doesn’t discriminate against anyone, and offers free preschool to every child no matter who their parents are,” the statement reads.

Dana Smith, the chief communications officer with the Colorado Department of Education, emphasized in a written statement that CDE "fundamentally values serving all students" and is committed to ensuring preschool students with disabilities receive the services they are entitled to under federal law.

The state Department of Early Childhood did not immediately respond to The Gazette’s request for comment.

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Among Bridgecare’s primary issues, plaintiffs in Thursday’s lawsuit say, is a lack of transparency for school leaders who do not have full access to its placements. When concerned parents call for clarity on their applications, school leaders have no choice but to direct them to the web-based platform’s helpline for lack of information themselves.

Some families are lost in the shuffle despite supposedly having applied, plaintiffs say. Others are erroneously placed with schools over an hour away or with private schools that are not required by law to support students with special needs and often lack the capacity to do so.

Regardless, it is the districts' responsibility to ensure all families that live within their boundaries receive the special-education support that they need, meaning district leaders must call unsuspecting families to inform them their state-provided preschool pairing might not be sufficient.

Amy Lloyd, D-2 director of special education, said students who had attended preschool with individualized education plans (IEPs) and special-education supports in previous years have not yet returned since preschool began on Aug. 8. Students known to have IEPs are also showing up to school marked under the pairing platform as not requiring support plans, while some students without special needs have been marked as requiring IEPs.

Schools lack clarity, then, Lloyd says, on just how many special-education support students they will be working with this year due to inaccurate accounts from the state.

“Staffing follows the IEP, so if we don’t know what students have IEPs or special needs, we can’t get the right staff to provide for that student,” Birhanzel said. Not meeting their needs would break the law.

Data from previous years indicate a large number of special-education students have yet to be identified.

Last year, 124 4-year-olds received special education services in D-2. That number dropped to 65 this year, according to Lloyd. What’s more, Birhanzel said preschool enrollment is down by about 50% due in part to the complexity of the enrollment process.

This lack of clarity poses a financial burden as well, school leaders say, because schools receive funding for each enrolled student. Special-education students bring additional funding, due to the extra staffing and support measures they often require. With no clear picture as to what its student makeup will be, financial planning becomes a logistical nightmare for a school year already underway.

Districts will have to make cuts to planned spending initiatives and probably dip into their general fund to make up for the deficit, according to D-2 Chief Financial Officer Shelley Becker.

D-2 will accommodate any student in need of preschool this year who has either struggled with the application process or had promised free preschool hours revoked, Birhanzel said. Just weeks before the start of the school year, the state made a last-minute change to eligibility requirements that meant some families lost out on up to 20 hours of free preschool per week.

“We’re committed that parents who want to go 30 hours will go 30 hours,” Birhanzel said. “Right now, we’re just making sure that we get them in the seats, and we will figure out the finances from our end. And what does that mean? It means we’re going to have to cut some other places throughout the district. We haven’t identified that yet, because we don’t even know how much that is because we can’t get information from the state.”

“The frustrating thing is we’ve seen this train rolling down the tracks for a long time, and here we are, and at the end of the day, kids are being hurt by this.”