PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia has a simpler way of supporting the 157 providers in its pre-K program. The city's new SPARK Quality Support Center is designed to give direct individualized help to the preschool programs teaching 3 and 4-year-olds.
That's a change from the first four years of the program when the city contracted with an intermediary who subcontracted with one of four organizations — The School District of Philadelphia, District 1199C Training & Upgrading Fund, the Urban Affairs Coalition and the Public Health Management Corporation. Those so-called "hubs" then contracted with the providers.
Sean Perkins, the city’s chief of early childhood education, said if it sounds complicated, it was.
"Even as I tell it to you right now, it seems kind of confusing," Perkins said. "Like, we contract with a sub of a sub of a sub. Who does the provider go to when they have a problem or they have an issue?"
He added, "As you start to add more and more and more on, you start to lose focus on providing direct support individually to what the provider needs are, and that's what we wanted to slow down a little bit and rethink."
Perkins explained their goal was to restore that focus. "We should have accountability as one wing, and we should have supports on another wing. It's not just giving dollars over to the providers and saying, 'Good luck,'" he said.
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The SPARK Quality Support Center can help pre-K providers directly with teacher training, family assistance and even running a better business.
"There might be 20 providers struggling with hiring, for example," said center director Traci Childress. "But there might be 20 different approaches needed to support each one of them. So we really want to be able to understand those needs and help meet them."
The city has contracted with New York-based Shine Early Learning to run the center.
There are 700 additional city-funded pre-K slots this year, for a total of 4,000.