Pre-Kindergarten 3 Program

Dorchester County, MD

Program Summary

Implementing a Pilot Pre-Kindergarten 3 Program in Partnership with Dorchester County Public Schools

  • Looks to address early childhood achievement and opportunity gaps by providing an additional year of high-quality, structured pre-kindergarten, targeting low-income 3-year olds
  • Will provide 3-years of funding to cover the cost of the primary instructor
  • Classroom will be at the Judy Center/Sandy Hill Elementary School (designated Title I school)
  • Target population will be Sandy Hill Elementary School families with income ranging from 185-300% of the Federal Poverty Level guidelines
  • Theory of change: These students going through the Pre-K3 program will have two full years of quality pre-kindergarten and thus should demonstrate a higher level of readiness upon entering kindergarten
John & Janice Wyatt Foundation
John & Janice Wyatt Foundation
John & Janice Wyatt Foundation

Measures of Performance

For more information, please see Data Analysis section at the bottom of the page

End of Program
Data Analysis

  1. Goal: To increase access to quality early learning opportunities for economically disadvantaged children.
  2. The Dorchester County Public School Pre-Kindergarten3 program is a pilot program designed to offer pre-kindergarten to 3-year old children. 
  3. Intent: We believe we can improve kindergarten readiness by offering two full years of pre-k for up to 15 students per year. We expect that overall kindergarten readiness scores, as measured by the state of Maryland Department of Educations’ Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA), will demonstrate increased readiness over time. 
  4. We will measure academic performance of the Pre-K3 students by using the Early Learning Assessment (ELA). The ELA will be tested three times over the course of each year.
  5. After Year-2, we will measure Pre-K4 ELA scores to see if the ELA scores of students that attended the previous year’s Pre-K3 program are demonstratively higher than children entering Pre-K4 that did not attend the Pre-K3 class.
  6. After Year-3, we will measure kindergarten KRA scores to see if the KRA scores of students that attended both the Pre-K3 and Pre-K4 program are demonstratively higher than children either attending only Pre-K4 as well as children that attended neither Pre-K4 nor Pre-K3. Using this same comparison model, we will also measure the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) scores for kindergarteners.
  7. Our sustainability goal is this data will demonstrate that two full years of pre-kindergarten does make a difference, as seen through improved readiness scores. With that data, we are hopeful DCPS will see its value and advocate to the School Board for long-term funding of this classroom, and perhaps even increase the number of Pre-K3 classrooms within the public school system.
  8. Third-year results:
    1. We were able to grow the number of DCPS classrooms from ONE in Year-One to FOUR in Year-Three. Each classroom averaged a full complement of 15 students. We did end the year with 58 students as two students left the program near the end of the school year. This earned a solid “green” score.
    2. During its third year, ELA developmental testing occurred over all 3 trimesters. While we saw a decrease in scores over the course of Year-Three, we did have to account for the increased numbers of students and the increased diversity of schools and geography.
    3. In Year-Three, we were able to note high impact in those students that were able to attend two years of DCPS pre-kindergarten We saw 33% of the cohort of students attending two years of pre-k achieve benchmarks on the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment, compared to 20% of students that did not attend any DCPS pre-k. These students were a combination of children attending Head Start, private daycare programs, and/or no pre-kindergarten at all.
    4. Therefore, we noted that 70% more students achieved "demonstrated" benchmarks for the DCPS kindergarten fall KRA assessment than students that attended other programs prior to entering DCPS for kindergarten.
  9. Program Conclusion:
    1. This Pre-K3 pilot program, initiated back in SY 21-22, was a tremendous success.
    2. While we noted variability in performance over the course of the Pre-K3 classroom year from fall to spring within each cohort of students, we did see material growth in readiness from Pre-K3 to Pre-K4 as well as we confirmed the original hypothesis: two years of pre-kindergarten was more successful than either one year of pre-kindergarten or no kindergarten for many of our low-income students.
    3. Lastly, this demonstrated success resulted in not only the sustainability of the original classroom (i.e., now funded by DCPS), but the addition of three more publicly funded classrooms within the three-year grant window. Further, beginning in SY 24-25, DCPS will add an additional two classrooms. Thus, with J2W’s original 3-year grant, the county now has a total of six pre-kindergarten 3 classrooms to serve 90 students per year, all financed through the DCPS annual budget.