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Jarod and Dory Hobbs supervise a lot of preschoolers.
Since 2010, the couple has run Atlas Immersion Academy, starting their first location in their Hayhurst neighborhood home. “We traded our regular bed for a futon mattress so we could convert our bedroom to a classroom every morning before I went to work,” Jarod Hobbs recalls. Since then, they’ve expanded to six locations across three counties, with capacity for 403 students.
That would seem to make the Hobbs family the perfect fit for Preschool for All, Multnomah County’s bold initiative to subsidize preschool slots for every family in the county that wants them within the decade. In order to reach that goal, the program needs existing preschools to participate.
Last Thursday, the couple turned down the contract the county offered for 18 subsidized seats.
They did so on the advice of their attorney, who warned that the deal could put them out of business. “I would put this contract in the extreme risk category,” wrote that attorney, Martin Medeiros, in a memo provided to WW.
They’re not the only operators of a private preschool who’ve decided to pass on the partnership. Operators of three of the region’s other largest preschools tell WW they have doubts about joining the program or have already decided to turn the county down.
This spells more trouble for Preschool for All, an enormous child care initiative funded by an income tax on high earners. The program has become a political football since its launch in 2021, championed by County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson and resented by business interests who contend it drives away top-tier employees. The tax, which, for individual filers, begins at 1.5% of income above $125,000 and increases to 3% of income over $250,000, has generated far more money than county officials forecast and the county has struggled to put the revenue to work (“The Itsy Bitsy Project,” WW, Nov. 8, 2023).
For the program to triumph over its naysayers requires existing preschools to participate: The county is relying on converting about 7,000 private preschool seats to meet its 11,000-seat goal by 2030.
Medeiros, a lawyer with Buckley Law, says he advised his clients not to sign because the contract introduces too much risk into a small business. At the top of Medeiros’ concerns is a portion of the contract dedicated to labor harmony, which is a legal agreement that allows for unionization. Small providers working on slim margins, he says, fear the potential costs of a union workforce.
The county’s contract has two other notable problems, Medeiros says. It requires preschools to follow the most recent version of a Preschool for All program guide, a living document that’s subject to change.
There’s also a provision regarding intellectual property that worries many business owners. In the contract, any intellectual property produced while they contract with Multnomah County is the exclusive property of the county’s. (Ryan Yambra, a county spokesman, says Preschool for All has been open to adjusting this clause when providers express concerns.)
Medeiros says the contract is worded heavily in Multnomah County’s favor. But he notes it doesn’t seem to take small business owners into consideration. “It seems like this could really put smaller companies in financial jeopardy in the long term,” Medeiros tells WW.
The county official who oversees Preschool for All says most providers who join the program are glad they did. “I think we have to find the balance between building a universal preschool initiative and an individual business owner’s business model that may not fit within the realm of what a universal offering is,” says Leslee Barnes, director of preschool and early learning at Multnomah County.
In the past week, four large, private preschool providers expressed a range of reservations about joining Preschool for All’s ranks.
Dory Hobbs of Atlas Immersion Academy says the range of minimum wage requirements based on education level that Preschool for All imposes for teachers means some would make more than administrative directors. That would force providers to raise the salaries for non-teachers, but Preschool for All’s payment per child wouldn’t cover that. Jarod Hobbs adds that this would create a “race to the bottom” to hire less-educated teachers.
Another concern for the Hobbs family: Preschool for All providers aren’t allowed to charge parents late fees, so there’s no way for programs to hold chronically late parents accountable. Expulsions are fully off the table.
“To lose that power as a private school environment feels really wrong to me because we have to balance the respect that’s owed to the families and the respect that’s owed to the teachers and the providers,” Dory Hobbs says.
In addition, Dory Hobbs says, preschools like hers surrender control if they contract with the county. Not every preschool is suitable for every child or family. Some kids, for example, might get overstimulated in a 20-student classroom, or might thrive in an environment structured more around play than academics.
But Preschool for All doesn’t allow providers to make choices. Parents are asked to rank their preferences for six locations, and providers have no say in who is placed in their care. (Barnes says the county tries to place every child carefully based on their needs.)
Allison Morton runs Small Wonders School, which has more than 200 students across its two locations in Grant Park and Hollywood. She currently doesn’t qualify as a Preschool for All provider because she can’t install commercial kitchens at her properties. She sought more information from the county anyway.
The county’s answers to her questions about what happens if a child is a bad fit shocked her. “There is no such thing as a child who is not a good fit,” Shelly Jackson, Multnomah County’s preschool partnerships supervisor, told her in an email. (A current Preschool for All provider who spoke to WW on background confirmed providers aren’t allowed to voice that they think a child might be a bad fit.)
As a parent of children on the autism spectrum, Morton says the county’s response to her questions about 1-to-1 aides for children who need more support also didn’t make sense to her. Jackson told her that 1-to-1 staff for children is “an exclusionary practice” and not permitted under Preschool for All.
“An equity practice recognizes that different children have different needs and need different levels of support,” Morton says. “Their stance is that it is inclusive to put a child into the classroom. But inclusion is welcoming a child into a classroom.”
Barnes, the county’s preschool director, says it’s rare that PFA has to move a child because of placement issues. She says the county asks most providers to work alongside the family and support the child.
Breanne Monahan and Sherrilyn Edgar run Peace Tree School in Northeast Portland and serve 63 students. They say parents have been asking about Peace Tree’s plans to participate in Preschool for All since the measure passed in fall 2020.
But Edgar and Monahan say they won’t partake in the program until the county scraps ownership of intellectual property the preschools produce, has a plan for continuity of care (that is, making sure kids who get early child care stay at the same provider for preschool), and seeks input from private providers as it makes decisions.
“We know losing students is on the horizon if we don’t participate,” Edgar says. “[But] it’s a hard no until some things get sorted out on that end.”
All the potential preschool providers WW spoke with for this story say they are excited about the prospect of Preschool for All. But as it stands, many feel trapped between losing agency over their businesses or losing their customers to schools that can make Preschool for All work.
“My feeling is, when others are doing it, we have to do it,” Dory Hobbs says. “We’re either all in or nobody does it—we’re starting to lose kids and teachers. We either all need to jump off this cliff together or we all need to leave Multnomah County.”
Additional reporting contributed by Sophie Peel.