WA pre-K program's growth a frustration for some childcare providers

This is the second part of a series exploring the impact of Washington's rapidly growing Transition to Kindergarten program. Read the first part here.

Laura Murphey says she's long had a "packed" waiting list at her childcare center in Yakima County, with families typically waiting six to nine months to get in.

This school year, though, she had 10 vacancies she struggled to fill, forcing her to mail postcards, post on social media, and distribute flyers and branded pens to try to drum up business and help fill most of the slots.

She attributes the gap to the state's Transition to Kindergarten program, offered in the local school district for 4-year-olds. And she said, she would have closed her center if she didn't own the building outright.

"It's been really difficult," Murphey said.

Transition to Kindergarten, or TK, is a free-to-families program offered in some public schools for 4-year-olds - and Washington's public school leaders are enthusiastic about it. They point to the program's effectiveness in getting children ready for elementary school and its role filling early learning gaps in rural communities.

TK doesn't work for every family: It's only offered during the school day and year, meaning if a parent needs childcare to span a full workday and during the summer, they still need to make additional arrangements.

The program's rapid growth in recent years has been met with frustration and concern from some private childcare providers, like Murphey, who have struggled to enroll 4-year-olds. That age group is particularly helpful in making providers' budgets work because they take less resources to care for than younger kids.

The saga of Transition to Kindergarten illustrates one of the biggest challenges in expanding access to early learning: The existing childcare system is fragile.

The closely regulated industry is beset by affordability and access issues, and relies on a workforce that typically faces low pay.

And despite a rare national consensus on the need for increased government support to expand childcare access and affordability, budget challenges have led to federal and state cuts to programs that help low and middle-income families.

It's a thorny problem with sympathetic players on all sides.

On the one hand are providers who are trying to make ends meet in a notoriously difficult business. And on the other hand are school districts, which have considerable advantages.

Unlike private providers, they get public funding for every student and can offer teachers a better salary and benefits. And the biggest advantage of all, they often can provide care for free, though lawmakers earlier this year allowed schools to start charging sliding-scale tuition.

Schools also have existing buildings where they can host these programs, while childcare providers may need to acquire - and sometimes retrofit at significant expense - homes or facilities to meet rigid state regulations.

This has put private childcare providers in a challenging position.

Then there are families who face some of the highest childcare costs in the country if they don't qualify for government help. Who could blame them for embracing a free alternative in a state where childcare can cost more than in-state college tuition?

Many people seem to agree that more preschool access is a good thing. Only about 30% of Washington's preschool-aged children are enrolled in a public or private program, according to state estimates. School leaders are frustrated by this year's funding cuts to TK, wondering why lawmakers slowed the growth of an effective program.

The program exploded in the years since the pandemic, growing from about 500 spots in 2020 to more than 7,000 this school year. It was slated to continue to grow before the budget restrictions.

Private providers, meanwhile, told The Seattle Times they have been frustrated with how the popular TK program was rolled out at local schools.

TK works well "when the school district is a good community partner" that meets with other local childcare entities and thinks about how to use the program to expand access to quality pre-K, said Katy Warren, deputy director of the state association of Head Start and ECEAP, Washington's free, state-funded preschool program for low-income kids. "And when they don't, it really has an impact."

The state has not studied or analyzed how the growth of TK in public schools has affected Washington's other childcare providers.

The number of childcare providers in Washington has climbed in the same years that TK grew, according to data from Child Care Aware of Washington. That suggests the statewide supply of childcare providers hasn't diminished, but data on actual enrollment is not available.

A challenging business

So why are fewer 4-year-olds a problem for providers?

It boils down to staffing. The state requires more staff to care for infants and toddlers than it does for 4-year-olds, meaning the youngest kids are more expensive to care for. So for providers, enrolling 4-year-olds helps balance out that expense.

Although what parents pay out of pocket for infant care is typically higher than for an older child, that higher price tag often doesn't cover the costs of state-mandated staffing to care for babies.

The staffing ratios are meant to protect children's safety - think about what it would take to evacuate babies quickly in a fire, for example, or just to keep an eye on a bunch of wiggly toddlers.

After California made its preschool program universal, a 2023 analysis found 46% of in-home childcares and 61% of private childcare centers said they cared for fewer 4-year-olds.

While Washington's TK program is not universal, advocates say its growth has still had an impact here. Washington's preschool program for children from low-income families, ECEAP, was cut in 2025 due to underenrollment. That stemmed largely from the growth of TK, and from difficulties hiring qualified staff, Warren said.

Colleen Condon, a childcare provider in Spokane, said she's now combined ages in her preschool classrooms because there weren't enough 4-year-olds in her program to warrant a separate class of 3- and 4-year-olds.

"It's had a huge hit to the business," she said of the district's embrace of TK and ECEAP.

The childcare business model has "very thin margins," said Erica Hallock, senior adviser at Start Early Washington. She said the state, through its Working Connections subsidy that helps low- and middle-income families afford childcare, doesn't reimburse providers enough to cover the full cost of care for children of any age, and particularly babies.

"I think the answer is to address the true cost of care," Hallock said.

Different standards

Childcare providers frustrated by TK's rollout also point to what they say are different standards and regulations that burden their industry in ways local school districts don't have to grapple with.

Unlike the state's strict child-to-staff regulations for childcare providers, there's no mandated student-to-staff ratio or maximum class size in the Transition to Kindergarten program, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research, which evaluates program quality.

Washington's Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction says most TK classrooms have a full-time paraeducator as well as a certified teacher, and the average class size is 16.

The state's superintendent of K-12 schools argues TK is a high-quality program showing results. OSPI has studied the school readiness of children who attend TK and found that a greater share of low-income children and those with disabilities were ready for school than their peers who attended ECEAP. And, he said, the cost per student between the programs is close.

While school districts choose TK curriculum on the local level, many use curriculum that "points to a strong emphasis on play-based learning, social-emotional development, and foundational math and literacy skills," said Samantha Bowen, executive director of early learning at OSPI.

Even the most anodyne of regulations can differ between the settings. In schools, for example, there must be one toilet for about every 25 people, versus one toilet for every 15 in a licensed childcare.

The schools also don't have to go through the licensing and annual inspection process required for childcare centers and family home providers.

Still, schools "operate within a comprehensive system of state and federal requirements designed to support student health, safety and well-being," Payne said, and have to comply with "extensive laws and regulations.

One key difference is that individual providers - mostly small businesses - often must navigate the regulations that govern them largely on their own, compared with public schools, which have more institutional resources.

Communication gaps

In a nod to provider concerns, in 2023 the Legislature required school districts to assess local childcare needs before starting or expanding a Transition to Kindergarten program.

But schools aren't required to submit proof of that assessment or communication to OSPI, and don't have to inform the state's childcare regulatory agency that they are opening a TK program.

Many school districts impose limits on who can access their TK programs, often restricting attendance to children who have not previously accessed early learning. In Quincy, Grant County, for example, the school district generally disqualifies any child who has already had access to preschool.

Everett Public Schools had been building relationships with local early educators before its TK program got underway in 2020, said Anne Arnold, the district's director of P-5 instruction and early learning programs.

The district invites childcare providers to its central office five times a year for professional development sessions on topics from foundational math skills to art and music in the classroom.

Providers report that their experiences with school districts have been mixed.

Murphey, the Yakima County childcare operator, said that one of the school districts with TK in her area has had "no communication" with her center to see if kids already have access to early learning.

By contrast, she says she does coordinate with the Yakima School District, which does not have TK but does offer state preschool slots through ECEAP.

The district only takes 4-year-olds and so Murphey's program, which also offers ECEAP, has more of a pool of eligible children to draw from and accepts 3- and 4-year-olds.

"We have (a) very good system of working together, which works a lot better," she said.

Condon believes TK is needed in rural areas, where the school district may be the only entity that's set up to care for and educate children.

"TK does, in my opinion, have a place in the system," Condon said. "But it should be being mapped out and being allotted to those districts where there (are) no other services available, instead of in these areas that do have other options for families."

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This story was originally published July 13, 2026 at 6:37 AM.