The new promise of additional funding from the state, as well as an encouragement from the state’s education commissioner, has some school officials and early childhood education advocates hoping free preschool could be the next big push in public education in Massachusetts.

But funding constraints, even with the passage of the Student Opportunity Act and its $1.5 billion for public schools, as well as logistical challenges could hinder local efforts to invest in prekindergarten programming, at least in the short term.

"I don’t see why we can’t do it," said Spencer-East Brookfield Superintendent Paul Haughey, one of the school officials in the region who has plans to bring free full-day preschool to his district. "But it’s going to have a price tag."

Other districts in the region, including Worcester, however, appear less committed, citing a shortage of space for classrooms and limited funding.

"We’ve discussed it, but at the present point, we have other needs," said Worcester Superintendent Maureen Binienda, who added her administration is "kind of keeping it on the shelf."

Recent guidance from Jeff Riley, the state’s Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education, appears to give a green light to districts to invest in expanding pre-K programming, however. In a letter to districts, he identified preschool and early literacy programs as one of three uses of the new Student Opportunity Act funding the state is "especially interested in accelerating."

Pre-K programming is also one of nine state-approved uses of the money school systems can indicate they will adopt in the initial spending plans they must submit to the state this spring as part of the Student Opportunity Act process.

Tom Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, said last week it was still too early to gauge how free preschool ranked statewide in districts’ planning. But he also said expanding early education programming "is something they prioritize" in general. 

"I think high-quality preschool programs are very much valued by the superintendents," he said, adding he believes it’s "very high" on the short lists of many school officials.

In the region, however, some of the largest districts appear to be passing on the idea, at least for now. Fitchburg Superintendent Robert Jokela said his district doesn’t have the classroom space to support full-day preschool. Southbridge’s receiver/superintendent Jeffrey Villar said his system isn’t seeing enough of a funding increase from the Student Opportunity Act to afford it.

"Given the projected levels of funding, there does not appear to be a sustainable path to a district-run universal preschool in Southbridge," he said. "If circumstances change (and they may) we would certainly consider the expansion of preschool opportunities for our students."

Some school systems, including Worcester, already have half-day free preschool, but the programs may have limited appeal to working families.

"It’s a great draw, but it’s only a 2 ½-hour day," said Laurie Kuczka, Worcester’s Head Start and early childhood director. "That doesn’t meet many families’ needs."

Head Start, a federally subsidized pre-K program, has full-day classrooms, but its admissions are restricted to low-income families who fall below a household income threshold that, thanks to the state’s ongoing bump-up of its minimum wage, is eluding even more working parents, according to Worcester school officials.

While there have been conversations in the district about lengthening Worcester’s preschool hours, at the current level of resources that would mean cutting the number of families served by half, according to Kuczka. And even if there were additional funding to hire more teachers and open up more classrooms, it might not be as simple as creating a central facility somewhere in the city, she said.

"It’s trying to get these places open where we need them," she said, adding space is at a premium at many elementary schools in the district.

In Framingham, Superintendent Robert Tremblay sees those kinds of problems as worth taking on now, however. He has formed several committees in his district to work out a way to launch a free full-day preschool program. Among their tasks will be to figure out over the next few months whether that would be most easily achieved by purchasing or building a facility in the city, or by collaborating with an existing local child care provider.

"It’s a lofty goal," he said. "Right now it’s very high-level, more around the philosophy (of offering to full-day preschool)."

But like many proponents of the concept, he views the public schools’ move into pre-K education as a way to address many of the issues K-12 systems are already dealing with.

"It’s front-loading – it makes a lot of sense to invest early for longer-term achievement," Tremblay said, adding the state’s recent efforts to spur the creation of full-day kindergarten programs across the state "really leveled the playing field" for schools and their students.

"This is about prevention – we never do enough in terms of prevention … it’s always remediation," said Worcester School Committee member John Monfredo, who has long advocated for the district to expand into full-day preschool. Back when he was a school principal, he added, "my teachers would say to me, ‘I can pick out the ones who had full-day preschool,’ because they were the ones ready to read."

There’s also an equity issue in play, according to Donna Traynham, who works on preschool programs for the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. While there is limited statistical data in the state on the subject – the department is in the process of developing a new data point that would track whether students had any preschool experience in the year before attending kindergarten – anecdotally there is an economic gap in students’ preschool access.

"Low-income children are not coming into kindergarten with the same kinds of experiences" that wealthier students have benefited from at a preschool program, she said – a big part of the reason the commissioner has prioritized the issue in his Student Opportunity Act guidance. "What we’re trying to do is ensure all kids have access to high-quality prekindergarten."

Those efforts aren’t isolated to the Student Opportunity Act. The state received a federal preschool expansion grant in 2014 that has supported pre-K programming in many districts, for instance, and it offered the similar Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative grant this year.

Legislation filed over the years has also tried to press for more preschool expansion, including H4291, which last month was reported favorably out of the state’s House of Representatives. While that bill doesn’t go as far as previous preschool expansion bills, it’s still backed by Strategies for Children, a Boston-based advocacy organization that has been one of the leading proponents for expanding access to child care and preschool in the state.

The Student Opportunity Act presents a unique chance to accelerate that campaign, however, according to Amy O’Leary, director of Strategies’ Early Education for All campaign.

"It would be quicker for a community" to take on the challenge of creating or expanding full-day preschool, she said, using annual Chapter 70 funding provided by the state through the Act, instead of relying on federal and state grants.

At the very least, O’Leary said, the Student Opportunity Act implementation process will give school officials a reason to "sit down together and get a better understanding of the needs of students across the full age spectrum … this is an opportunity to take stock of what we’re doing."

It’s also a chance to strengthen partnerships with local private early education providers, she added, who already have a handle of the logistical needs that might otherwise stymie a district’s efforts to provide full-day preschool.

"We’d be wide open" to the idea of working with the public schools on such a project, said Edward Madaus, executive director of the Guild of St. Agnes early education and care centers, which have more than a dozen locations in Worcester and surrounding towns. "We work pretty closely with the Worcester Public Schools now."

"We’re OK with whatever model seems to fit for the community," Traynham said, adding the state recognizes each district "is in a different place" as far as its preparedness to offer more pre-K programming.

Carol Donnelly, a professor of education at Worcester State University, pointed out private-public partnerships will need to tread carefully, however. "Early childhood education has a culture" separate from public K-12 education, she said, and more specifically an absence of the assessment-based model that has become predominant at the grade school level.  

But there isn’t too much downside to more public funding coming into the early education field, she added. "There’s really a great need" for more access to high-quality programs in the state, she said.

But even districts that are prioritizing pre-K expansion aren’t expecting overnight results. Haughey, whose district received a relatively small budget increase in the state spending plan Gov. Charlie Baker unveiled last month, said it’s realistically three to five years away for his towns.

"It kind of caught us off guard," he said of Spencer-East Brookfield’s modest aid increase in the wake of the Student Opportunity Act’s passage. "But that’s OK – if everybody believes this is important, we need to put our money where our mouth is."

The need for a full-day preschool program in the district isn’t going away, he said.

"Our kids are struggling (coming into kindergarten)," Haughey said. "We realize we need something better and different for them."

Scott O’Connell can be reached at Scott.O’Connell@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @ScottOConnellTG