A secretary drives the school bus and the superintendent subs. How a rural town makes do.

This report is part of a series about Universal Pre-K Education in Colorado from Rocky Mountain PBS. Read part one and part two. 

HUGO, Colo. — In rural communities across the state, childcare access has been a consistent problem for families, and this school year is no different, even with the launch of Universal Preschool (UPK).

UPK, launched during the 2023-2024 school year in Colorado, offers all children in the year before kindergarten up to 15 hours a week of free pre-K. The program has greatly expanded the number of children who receive support for half-day preschool.

However, as the state moved from a targeted to a universal model, there are now fewer tuition-free hours for a full-day program, which has impacted some of Colorado’s more vulnerable children.

The town of Hugo, home to about 800 people in the Eastern Plains, has pulled together to have the new UPK program meet the needs of their families.

The Genoa-Hugo School District and the local daycare, Country Living Learning Center, set up a new midday bus route between the daycare and the public school, and share UPK funding to best support the children and families they serve.

Emily Poss is the vice president of Country Living Learning Center, Lynnae Cox is the Genoa-Hugo preschool director, and Dan Melendez is the Genoa-Hugo School District superintendent.
Photo: Lizzie Mulvey, Rocky Mountain PBS

“The biggest difference for our families is that there's not a lot of options as to where to send your child to preschool,” said Lora White, the president of Country Living Learning Center and an administrative assistant for the Cheyenne, Kiowa, Lincoln Early Childhood Council, which represents rural counties in the Eastern Plains.

“You are lucky if you have two options. Generally, the only option is the public preschool,” said White.

When parents sign up for UPK, they must first complete an online application, and rank the UPK programs of their choice. The state then notifies them when a match to a school is made, and both the family and provider accept the placement.

“There's the school ranking option, but if there's only one or two options, it's like, is that even relevant?” said White.

While the number of preschool options may be fewer, it did not seem to deter families from enrolling in UPK and receiving free preschool hours in more remote areas of Colorado for the 2023-24 school year.

When comparing larger counties (those with a median population above 8,000) to smaller counties (those with fewer than 8,000 people) enrollment rates were about even. However, 0.66% of the population was enrolled in UPK in the larger counties compared to 0.71% in smaller counties.

And to make UPK work best for families, towns like Hugo are pulling their resources for families to receive the full benefit of their tuition-free hours.

“When you drive into this community, everyone is helping out each other. That’s the biggest thing I’ve really appreciated,” said Superintendent Dan Melendrez, originally from the Fort Collins area.

Genoa-Huge School serves students from preschool to 12th grade.
Photo: Lizzie Mulvey, Rocky Mountain PBS

Melendrez has worked in bigger school districts including the Poudre School District and Thompson School District and said he will never go back.

“We all have to work together on all kinds of things, whether it’s school or housing or whatever it may be,” he said. “I think that’s what you see in a small community like this, people just rally to support people.”

And if it’s something as simple as a bus route between the public preschool and the daycare, that’s a no-brainer, he said, so they started that route this school year.

His secretary, Nicole Strausberg, drives the school bus. She leaves to pick the nine preschoolers up at 12:45, then heads back to the Genoa-Hugo School. 

“It’s five minutes at the most I’m gone, and they come in and they are spunky and loud and ready for their day,” she said.

Hugo lacks the resources of a large city such as Denver, so everyone must wear multiple hats. Emily Poss, the vice president of Country Living Learning Center, is also the middle school track and field coach, and her family runs a 30,000-acre farm. Melendrez, the superintendent, will sub in for teachers when they’re out.

“I’m so proud of my staff because they do such a great job thinking outside the norm because of our resources and our space,” said Melendrez.

Ellen Emmerling has two kids at the Country Living Learning Center. Before finding Country Living Learning Center, she said she tried a couple of in-home daycares. “Some of them are really good, some of them not so great,” she said.

Since the pandemic in 2020, more families are choosing homeschooling, and the daycare options are more limited, she said, but the daycare “deserves every funding that they can get. They're so fantastic."

The transition to UPK has been a challenge for many providers and school districts, but the town of Hugo has figured out a way to make it work.

“Luckily, being in a small community, we all work together, and coordinate well,” said White, who helped establish Country Living Learning Center.

The Genoa-Hugo school district preschool is currently only open 12 hours a week. To ensure preschoolers receive all their UPK hours, Genoa-Hugo School partnered with Country Living Learning Center to cover the additional hours. If a student qualifies for 15 tuition-free hours, for example, Country Living Learning Center would offer an additional three hours, tuition-free, for the child and shares the UPK funding with the school.

“I don't think that's happening everywhere from my understanding,” said White.

They are now forced to revisit this arrangement, however, because it’s not within statute for the district to contract out hours, said Melendrez. But the Colorado Department of Early Childhood is working closely with them to find another option.

They may have to extend their preschool day and add an additional 45 minutes with only one preschool teacher on staff, which could be challenging, he said.

Nonetheless, Melendrez is certain they will work together to make sure UPK meets the needs of the families they serve. “We have a wonderful relationship with our daycare center,” he said.

Genoa-Hugo is a family, not just a school, he said.

“There’s a power in that family-feel in a rural community in just how everyone supports each other,” he said. “What you see is people really work together to find solutions.”

Lizzie Mulvey is the executive producer of investigative journalism at Rocky Mountain PBS. Lizziemulvey@rmpbs.org.