New Hampshire Schools Offer Preschool?! Exploring New Hampshire's Preschool Landscape
In 2025, researchers at the University of New Hampshire conducted the second annual public elementary school census to track the availability of public school-affiliated preschool programming statewide. These programs are provided by a local school district and serve three- and four-year-old children and are typically located within elementary schools. Despite not being required to offer this service, there are 147 public school-affiliated preschool programs in the state, and over 90 percent of programs serve children with and without disability. In total, these programs serve approximately one-in-five of New Hampshire's 25,000 three- and four-year-olds. This Carsey Policy Hour covered these underreported program offerings and reach, in addition to findings on program implementation.
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About the Speaker
Tyrus Parker joined the Carsey School in 2024 as a Research Scientist II for the Center for Social Policy in Practice. A sociologist and demographer by trade, Tyrus was drawn to the Carsey School's dedication to making an impact in local New Hampshire communities, which he has a soft spot for from growing up in the mountains of Conway, New Hampshire. His graduate research revolved around changing fertility rates across the United States and examining how the country is becoming diverse in different ways. He is a bit of a "UNH lifer" having received all his higher education degrees from the University.
Did you ask the school districts about transportation?
That's an area we went back and forth on by including in the survey, and we opted not to just for brevity for the schools. Anecdotally, from my time looking into these programs, most of them do not provide transportation, so that could create barriers for certain types of families who are interested in these programs. I don't want to speak for all the schools, but from what I've seen, I see more programs mention that they don't provide transportation. I rarely see programs that specifically mention that they do have it.
Can you explain what an IEP is?
It's an individual education program. It can cover a range of different things, but it's students who might need extra help in a certain area with their learning. It's a more personalized, custom education plan.
What is Title I?
Title I funding is for schools that have a higher concentration of low-income students. It's an additional funding stream for those types of schools.
How does New Hampshire's 1 in 5 enrollment rate compare to other states?
The implementation of these programs differs tremendously across the states. I know Maine just recently launched four-year-old preschool programming, but I don't know enrollment rates compared to New Hampshire; it would depend on the state's laws and policies.
Do other states have the same funding resources for their preschool programs, or is New Hampshire different?
Every stat can get IDEA Part B funding, and every stat can get Title I funding, but the key differentiator with New Hampshire, compared to potentially other states in this regard, is that there's no dedicated state funding for the programs, whereas other states may have that.
Would state funding be critical to seeing an increase throughout the state?
There are a lot of factors there. I'm interested once we complete data collection this year to see if there's another increase in enrollment. The 8% increase year-to-year is pretty notable to me, but that does factor in that there's some new programs in the midst. I could see an increase in interest in the programs continuing, but it's also dependent on what a family needs. If a program is only open a couple of days a week for half day, maybe that doesn't suit the needs of many families, or maybe there's a parent who stays at home who wants to get their kids ready for kindergarten, so they have no interest in these programs. It can be totally dependent on the family.
What are the data gaps that are most limiting our understanding of New Hampshire's preschool landscape right now?
Childcare is complex; there are so many different ways to look at it and so much to understand how families interact in this space. Families have very different needs, which just compounds it. There's so much you could possibly look at, so there are a lot of gaps.
I do really like this comment about programs connecting with childcare providers. That's something that right now is completely unknown at a level we could discuss. I'm sure there are some instances of programs with childcare providers to cover the second half of the school day or a workday, and give the kids high-quality childcare. There are a lot of unknowns because there are so many different permutations of this.
Any concluding remarks?
These preschool programs—New Hampshire's not really known for this, but they exist. We have 140 locations providing this, compared to 260 locations providing kindergarten. There's interest; 1 in 5 three- to four-year-olds in the state are enrolled in them. The coverage can be limited in these programs, but it's clear that New Hampshire families are interested in enrolling their children in these, and it's another piece of our complex ECE puzzle that we're trying to understand and provide what New Hampshire working families need. This is just part of the equation, I think, that goes underserved.
