Universal Preschool Provider Celebrates Funding of 100th Facility in Los Angeles

In a ceremony that attracted state and local civic leaders, the Los Angeles Universal Preschool program awarded a contract to its 100th children’s center Thursday and announced that it will commit $42.7 million to increase classroom capacity in the most underserved communities around the county.

With Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and filmmaker Rob Reiner on hand, a $106,119.55 check was presented to the Accelerated School Keck Early Learning Center in South Los Angeles, which opened its first preschool program last month with 45 students. The money pays for 3 1/2 hours of preschool a day for each child.

“With the opening of the Keck Center, we’re now funding high-quality preschool for more than 3,000 children across the county,” said Graciela Italiano-Thomas, executive director of Los Angeles Universal Preschool.

“But we have just begun. The new preschool spaces are a big step in the right direction, but we are aiming to do more.”

Funded with more than $600 million in tobacco tax money, Los Angeles Universal Preschool launched in March with a goal of enrolling 100,000 pre-kindergarten children -- or 70% of the county’s 4-year-olds -- in a voluntary system over the next decade.

It is the most notable program to emerge from First 5 LA, a nonprofit group formed to use tobacco tax revenue to fund early childhood education programs.

The first 100 preschools were chosen through a lottery, with 20 centers in each county supervisorial district and encompassing poor and wealthy neighborhoods alike.

Los Angeles Universal Preschool officials said the next phase will target 36 so-called zones of critical need, which include Paramount, South Gate, Bell Gardens, Long Beach and Lancaster.

Los Angeles Universal Preschool will work with community members in each area, Italiano-Thomas said. The goal is to make access to preschool available to at least 58% of the community’s 4-year-olds. In some underserved communities, as few as 11% of preschool-age children have access to such classes.

Villaraigosa said preschool education will help boost the fortunes of families who lack access to other amenities.

“This experience, make no mistake, will give these kids a level playing field, that fighting chance to make it in this city of dreams,” he told the crowd of educators and parents.

Reiner, chairman of the state’s First 5 Commission, touted his statewide Preschool for All Act, aimed for the June 2006 ballot, that would ask the wealthiest Californians to help fund preschool for all 4-year-olds in the state whose parents want to enroll them.

He got an endorsement from Nunez, who said a fact-finding trip to France and Sweden convinced him that preschool was the key to rebuilding California’s education system.

“I’m convinced that if we really want to talk about public education being the great equalizer, we have to start talking about pre-kindergarten,” Nunez said.

“Each and every child in California deserves this.”