Demand increases, dollars shrink for preschool scholarships

A group that helps Plymouth County residents at or below 200 percent of the poverty level send their children to preschool is feeling the pinch.

Last year Northwest Iowa Community Empowerment offered 114 preschool scholarships -- 74 full-tuition and 40 half-tuition -- for eligible low-income families in Plymouth County.

This year, the organization only had the money to give 85 full-tuition preschool scholarships in the county.

Empowerment is an organization that funnels state and federal dollars to serve children 0 to 5 years old with the goal of preparing them for school.

With Governor Chet Culver's 10 percent across-the-board budget cut combined with increased costs of education, Empowerment has less spending power to help families.

"And we have more people eligible to receive scholarships than in the past," said Joyce Vermeer, Empowerment coordinator.

Takysia Larsen, the group's early childhood coordinator agreed.

"Last year we could really tell families were hurting," she said.

In past years, Empowerment had money for scholarships from previous years carry over, but due to expanded use of the program, there was no leftover money.

With less money this year, the organization's board chose to offer the preschool scholarships to the most needy families. These families are people between 200 and 300 percent of the poverty level, Vermeer explained.

Those scholarships, despite budget cuts for the current year, will continue to be funded through the rest of this school year -- unless there are more cuts, Vermeer said.

"But we're not offering any more scholarships for this year," she added.

Empowerment stopped accepting applications for the scholarships in October because there was no more money to give.

While the state budget outlook is grim for 2010-11, Empowerment won't know anything about next year's preschool scholarship dollars until legislators decide on allocations, Vermeer said.

"We're not looking at next year at all yet," she explained.

To participate in Empowerment's tuition scholarship program, preschools must also meet certain standards.

"They improve professional development through things like curriculum training, they have to meet health and safety indicators, they improve the preschool learning environment, they build family and community partnerships and the grow administrative leadership," said Joy Poppema, of Empowerment.

Nine preschools in Plymouth County met those standards and are involved in the program.

Three are in Le Mars, two in Remsen, one in Akron and one in Hinton.

Empowerment has received some indications the state may backfill some of the scholarship dollars that were eliminated with the 10 percent across the board cut.

"That's the best-case scenarios," Vermeer said.

For upcoming years, the Empowerment staff is urging Plymouth County residents to contact their Iowa legislators to support Empowerment in their budget decisions.

"We hope that funding continues," Vermeer said. "It does make a big difference."