How tech has improved Coloradans’ access to early childhood education
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The Colorado Department of Early Childhood is seeing preschool enrollment gains after deploying a software solution that streamlines the application process for families and caregivers.
Colorado has seen the number of children enrolled in preschool spike in recent years, which one official attributes to the deployment of an online tool that has helped modernize and streamline the application and enrollment process for families and preschool providers.
During the 2022-2023 school year, less than 25% of four-year-olds were enrolled in a state-funded preschool program that sunsetted the same year, said Bryan Dreller, product strategist at the Colorado Department of Early Childhood. It was run for children with qualifying factors, such as family, economic or developmental concerns, to improve their school readiness.
To connect more children to preschool resources, a 2022 bill established the state’s universal preschool program, which became available for all 4-year-olds in Colorado. It launched July 2023, allowing families and caregivers to enroll their children in either a licensed community-based, school-based or home-based preschool program for 15 hours a week.
“The results of this fairly new program have been exceeding expectations,” said Bryan Dreller, product strategist at the Colorado Department of Early Childhood. During the 2023-2024 school year, for instance, student enrollment grew to 70% of all eligible 4 year olds, he explained.
Dreller pointed to the agency’s adoption of a software-as-a-service platform from the solutions provider BridgeCare as a key part to the program’s uptake among residents.
“Good software and good experiences … go a long way to boost the enrollment in [universal preschool] and to offer the opportunity to many more Coloradans to participate,” he said.
Using the platform, families and caregivers can browse available preschool providers on a map, filtering searches by ZIP code, mode of transportation and child age and number. Users can also further specify search results by metrics like whether a provider accepts financial assistance, speaks different languages or offers specialized care for students with autism, visual or hearing impairments and other conditions. Users can also apply for a preschool program directly through the BridgeCare solution.
Preschool providers leverage the platform to manage students’ application and enrollment processes, said Jamee Herbert, CEO and cofounder of BridgeCare. Providers can also report how many open seats they have, their hours of operation and special programs or services they offer.
The platform integrates with the state’s licensing system to validate providers, improving data accuracy and reducing time burdens for providers to be onboarded to the BridgeCare platform, she explained. It also leverages an algorithm that matches students with their first-choice program based on their needs and provider availability.
Since the platform has been available, data from a customer satisfaction survey showed that 90% of users reported being satisfied with the application and enrollment tool, Dreller said. Those insights will help CDEC improve and adjust the platform as needed to ensure it remains accessible and user-friendly for Coloradans, he said.
Leveraging the BridgeCare platform also helps CDEC adjust to and stay compliant with changing demands, Dreller said. For instance, officials “might get some new statute or a federal mandate that gets handed down, and our ability to respond to those things is critical,” he said.
For instance, as states like Colorado face education budget cuts, providers can reflect changes in their program offerings, like limiting enrollment seats, in their BridgeCare platforms to keep families informed of available services, Dreller explained.
Because of the platform’s modular design and configuration, “we can make pretty rapid changes based on policy or feedback we get from our constituents or our stakeholders really quickly,” he explained.
Additional data that CDEC gathers from the platform includes demographic information, like users’ ethnicity, income, geographic location and language preferences.
“In doing that and capturing that data, we can also answer the hard question: Are we serving all Colorado families equitably? If not, why not?” Dreller said. “We have that data at our fingertips to understand if we are being equitable in this program … to ensure that the program is, in fact, as successful as we think it is.”