Why has New Orleans lost 200 LA 4 preschool seats? | Education

New Orleans schools are offering families fewer state-funded preschool seats than they did a few years ago, according to state officials who say they are concerned that fewer children could have access to free pre-K.

This fall, New Orleans public schools will offer 1,240 state-funded pre-K seats to children from low-income families — nearly 250 fewer seats than in the 2020-21 school year, according to state data. The seats are funded through LA 4, a state program that allows 4-year-olds from low-income families to attend pre-kindergarten for free.

By contrast, many other parishes have been adding seats. For example, Jefferson Parish will offer 70 more seats this fall than it did five years ago. St. Tammany will offer 60 more seats and East Baton Rouge Parish will have 241 more, according to the state Department of Education.

And while a few districts lost some seats, none lost as many as New Orleans.

The decline appears to be due in part to New Orleans requesting fewer seats over the last five years as some schools that offered preschool closed, while other schools turned down seats that the state offered to fund. The decline does not appear to be related to a decrease in need.

“There is no question that demand for LA 4 seats remains high in New Orleans,” Taslin Alfonzo, a spokesperson for NOLA Public Schools, said in an email. She noted that every available state-funded pre-K seat in New Orleans last school year was filled.

In a separate statement, Alfonzo said that the drop in the number of seats in New Orleans began during the pandemic and that seats have not been declined under the leadership of NOLA Public Schools Superintendent Fateama Fulmore or “anyone currently employed with NOLA-PS.”

“We remain committed to our partnership with LDOE, advocating for the resources and seats needed to serve our community,” the statement said.

Whatever is driving the decline, fewer seats means fewer opportunities for students whose parents may not be able to afford tuition for pre-K, which can cost thousands of dollars per year but is crucial for preparing students for school.

The loss has alarmed some state education officials, including state board of education member Conrad Appel, who called on the state education department to investigate the decline in New Orleans pre-K seats. 

“We need to know the facts, and we don’t know the facts,” he said at a board meeting this month.

The complex process of preschool funding

Last week, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education approved $95.4 million for the preschool program next school year, enough to serve about 17,000 kids statewide. Fewer than 1,250 spots were preliminarily assigned to New Orleans public schools, down from 1,470 five years ago.

Caroline Roemer, chief of Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools, told the state education board that it was “concerning” that Orleans Parish has lost seats while the number of seats statewide has remained at 17,000.

A growing body of research shows that students who participate in pre-K programs see literacy and math benefits in kindergarten and beyond.

Yet public schools in Louisiana aren’t required to provide preschool and don’t automatically receive funding for it. Instead, they can opt into publicly funded programs like HeadStart, which is federal, or LA 4, run by Louisiana’s education department.

Louisiana’s program targets families with incomes at or below 200% of the federal poverty level, which is $64,300 annually for a family of four. It covers the cost for 4-year-olds to attend preschool six hours a day, five days per week.

In New Orleans, each charter school decides how many state-funded pre-K seats it wants to offer. NOLA Public Schools forwards those requests to the state, which determines how many spots to fund.

About 1,300 children ages 4 and younger in New Orleans who are eligible for state-funded seats are on waitlists, according to Agenda for Children, a nonprofit that focuses on early childhood education. The group said demand for early childhood seats “consistently outstrips supply” in the city.

“No child should be left without access to this proven educational foundation,” the organization said in a statement. “Expanding our investments in early childhood education, including LA 4, will help Louisiana build on its educational gains in recent years.”

Why is New Orleans losing pre-K seats?

State and local education officials point to different explanations for the drop in New Orleans’ share of pre-K seats.

NOLA Public Schools said the state granted fewer seats than it requested, and that when charter schools close, those preschool seats revert to the state.

But the state Department of Education said the district has turned down seat allocations in the past and the district also has the ability, through a separate process, to adjust allocations throughout the year based on data and conversations with individual charter schools.

Karen Powell, deputy assistant superintendent for office of early childhood at the state education department, said Orleans Parish received less seats “based on lower asks” and “a trend in an increase in seats being declined most years” by the district. 

“It’s important for the public to know we didn’t just wake up one morning and say, ‘Let’s give New Orleans less seats,’ ” state Superintendent Cade Brumley told BESE last week. “It’s that they were not even requested.”

For the upcoming 2025-26 school year, New Orleans requested about 150 fewer seats than it did in 2021, but also received even fewer. The district asked for 1,501 seats for the fall but was allotted 1,240 seats, Alfonzo said.

A Department of Education spokesperson said that most parishes request more seats than they are allotted and that allocations are made based on community need and other factors.

In some cases, changes in school leadership can result in a decrease in seats.

When ReNEW Schools took over Robert Russa Moton Elementary last year — a New Orleans East elementary school that for years had offered 40 state-funded preschool spots — they were informed that the seats were no longer available when the charter switched hands, said ReNew CEO Tanya Bryant. Bryant said ReNew’s board decided the network would pay the $5,580 per student the state would have funded to maintain the “free” seats at the school.

“It became very clear to us that families depend on those seats,” Bryant said.

ReNew was not granted an allocation of seats for the upcoming school year, according to the Department of Education records.

Alfonzo said the district followed up on the initial request for seats with subsequent asks in March for 40 seats at The Leah Chase School — which lost the spots after the district opened that school last year to replace a charter school it shut down — as well as 60 seats for ReNew Moton and 30 additional seats that were “deducted last year to be returned to our allocation.”

Ted Beasley, a spokesperson for the Department of Education, said that NOLA Public Schools has the authority to reallocate seats after a school closes. After Akili Academy closed, the district shifted seats to Mildred Osborne, he said. NOLA Public Schools did not respond to requests for clarification on the policy.

Alfonzo said the only reduction in requested seats for the 2025-26 school year was because a charter school decided to offer fewer seats.

Among those who requested fewer seats was Morris Jeff Community School, which requested 50 seats in the 2023-24 school year and 20 seats in 2025-26. A spokesperson for the school did not immediately respond to inquiries.