Giving Compass' Take:

• Data showed that students who go to preschool come into kindergarten more prepared. This rural district is ensuring that all kids can attend preschool for free.

• How do students who were already attending preschool benefit from this change? How can other districts find the motivation and resources to replicate this program?

• The Urban Institute provides 10 recommendations to expand preschool access for children of immigrants.

This past fall, the Lindsay Unified School District, in a small farming community in Tulare County, implemented universal preschool, meaning every child from birth to 4 years old, regardless of family income, can attend a program in the district for free.

In Lindsay, where orange orchards surround elementary schools, more than a third of the student population are children of migrant farm workers.

Of the 4,191 students in the district, 91 percent are from low-income families and more than 50 percent are English Learners, according to 2016-17 datafrom the California Department of Education.

A combination of factors led the district back to restoring universal preschool. During kindergarten registration some students arrived who had never attended preschool, said Lindsay Unified’s preschool director, Cheri Doria. Those included families who didn’t qualify for subsidized programs or couldn’t afford the limited number of private preschool options available.

In addition, the district received detailed feedback from kindergarten teachers who worked with students every day and noticed stark differences among those who attended preschool and those who did not.

“Our district has always known it’s important but until they saw the data, it was hard to know exactly how important,” Doria said about expanding preschool.

Read the full article on preschool for all by Ashley Hopkinson at EdSource