Washington state stopped funding cooperative preschool and parent education programs
King5

SEATTLE — A state policy shift focused on workforce training has had an unintended consequence: the potential elimination of affordable cooperative preschool and parent education programs serving more than 2,100 families in Seattle alone.

Now, with just weeks to respond, college administrators are asking parents to raise $2 million by mid-May while scrambling to create new credentials that could restore state funding.

"Lost in all of that conversation was the reality that for many colleges, the parent ed programs don't lead to a formal credential," said Peter Lortz, vice president of instruction at North Seattle College, describing how the policy's impact on parent education went unrecognized until recently.

The Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges adopted a new funding allocation model in August 2025 prioritizing programs that lead to industry-defined workforce credentials. Parent education programs — which teach parenting skills and child development rather than job training — were classified as community education and no longer qualify for state funding.

Parents, legislators and college administrators say they were blindsided by the implications.

"The state board never mentioned to us that their new internal funding model would eliminate these programs," said State Representative Gerry Pollet, who attended a community meeting Saturday at a Phinney Ridge community hall packed with frustrated families. "We went through the entire legislative session... and they never said that to us."

James Yaeger, a stay-at-home father planning to enroll his second child in a cooperative preschool next year, learned about the crisis just six weeks ago.

"We didn't know anything was wrong until about a month and a half ago," Yaeger said, calling the $2 million fundraising goal "inconceivable."

The programs are significantly cheaper than traditional daycare, with the state previously covering most of the cost through enrollment-based funding. Without that support, the programs at North and South Seattle College need other funding sources or cannot continue.

In cooperative preschool programs parents work in classrooms alongside professional educators and learn parenting techniques.

Statewide, the policy change affects 4,500 families across 17 cooperative preschools affiliated with community colleges — programs that have operated in Washington's community college system since 1947.

Lortz said administrators have been so focused on developing and funding credential programs in recent years that they didn't anticipate this outcome. He acknowledged the situation only became clear when colleges received detailed budget impacts.

"Unfortunately, the bureaucracy takes a little bit of time," Lortz said, explaining why colleges cannot quickly create the credentials needed to restore funding.

North Seattle College is now exploring two pathways: creating an "early caregiver certificate" that would formalize the parenting education already provided, or connecting parent education to the college's existing early childhood education degree program as a career pathway.

"In the current system that we have in the state of Washington, it is very novel, but I also think... it honors the work that the parents contribute to the society that we have," Lortz said. 

But even colleges with existing credentials face uncertainty. Under the new budgeting model, all parent education programs — including those with existing certificates at colleges like Shoreline, Edmonds and Lake Washington — must go through a re-approval process to demonstrate they meet workforce education standards.

Those standards require programs to show ties to specific employment outcomes, technical advisory committees and demonstrated labor market demand — requirements that parent education programs struggle to meet since their primary purpose is teaching parenting skills, not job training.

"Parent education programs uniquely don't fit into that traditional model," Lortz said.

The compressed timeline has created urgency on multiple fronts. North Seattle College needs approximately $1.4 million and South Seattle College needs $600,000 to operate for one year while pursuing permanent solutions. Four full-time faculty members at North Seattle College have already received dismissal notices.

Administrators are pursuing three parallel strategies: raising emergency funds, working to get programs credentialed, and lobbying the state board to reconsider. Fourteen state legislators have signed a letter asking the board to delay implementation, according to Pollet. 

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, who attended Saturday's rally, called on the state board to "revisit this decision at their April meeting and preserve funding for parent education and quality preschool programs."

But many people at Saturday's meeting expressed skepticism about the fundraising timeline.

"Asking the parents in North Seattle and South Seattle to come up with $2 million in 60 days is just too high a mountain," Pollet said.

Even if the money is raised, there are no guarantees. Lortz said the funding would buy one year while colleges work on credentials and seek legislative intervention — but acknowledged they could face the same crisis again.

For parents like Yaeger, the uncertainty is frustrating.

"I was devastated," he said. "I don't know what we would be doing next year if we weren't going to co-op."

The programs are accepting donations through the "It Takes a Village" campaign, with a fundraising deadline of May 14.