Eleven new public preschool classrooms are slated to open across the state this August thanks to Lieutenant Governor Sylvia Luke and the Ready Keiki Initiative. The first 11 classrooms are expected to open this fall for the 2023-2024 school year, enrolling 20 students in each classroom at no cost to parents.

The state appropriated $200 million to build more preschool classrooms across the islands and nearly half of it has been spent.

Ready Keiki, an initiative of Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke to bring universal preschool access for the state’s 3- and 4-year-old children, rolled out a new website and data tracker on Wednesday.

More access to preschool through the State’s “Ready Keiki” program took big steps ahead on Wednesday, May 17. The initiative is led by Lieutenant Governor Sylvia Luke.

Ready Keiki launched a school-finder website where parents can locate public, charter and private preschools across the islands.

Lt. Governor Luke has worked closely with the Ready Keiki partners since the plan was first announced in January.

Eleven new public preschool classrooms across Hawaii are planned to open this August.

Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke is leading the "Ready Keiki" initiative to help support families who cannot afford preschool.

"Parents who cannot afford to send their kids to preschool aren't sending their kids to preschool, so it's a social justice, social equity issue," Luke said.

Renovation work for the state’s new expanded preschool classrooms is ahead of schedule and under budget, Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke said.

The state on Wednesday signed the first 11 contracts for Ready Keiki preschool program at a cost of about half previous estimates.

“We can tell you that 11 classrooms came in under budget. Instead of $1 million per renovated classroom, it is coming in at about $500,000,” said Luke.

I’m going to do something that’s not often done around here: I’m going to praise state legislators.

Specifically, I’m praising Hawaii’s representatives and senators for passing HB 961, which allocated $39 million for the state’s Open Doors Preschool program. The funding will be used to expand pre-K opportunities for 3- and 4-year-olds.

In one of the largest private efforts in recent history to ease Hawaii’s chronic shortage of schoolteachers, full-tuition scholarships for 150 people to become teachers through an online bachelor’s degree program were announced Wednesday under a partnership between Kamehameha Schools and Chaminade University.

The Mu‘o Scholarships are being offered in alignment with the state’s Ready Keiki initiative to create preschool access for all of Hawaii’s 3- and 4-year-old children by 2032.

They say [the teacher shortage] is one of Hawaii's most pressing community issues, so the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, Chaminade University, and Kamehameha Schools are working together to try to solve it.

The education partnership will give full-tuition scholarships to educate, train, and prepare people who want to be teachers in this state.

Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke said 50% of keiki in Hawaii between three and four years old do not attend pre-school.

Her Ready Keiki initiative aims to build 450 preschools in 10 years, but Hawaii’s teacher shortage is a hurdle.

“Where are we going to get many of our preschool teachers? That’s why this is a great day where we’re announcing this partnership,” said Lt. Gov. Luke.

Lieutenant Governor Sylvia Luke continues her effort to increase preschool classrooms throughout Hawaii.

A bill to greatly expand access to preschool for Hawaii children by making more and larger state subsidies available, and by allowing families with children as young as 3 to apply, has passed its last major hurdle at the state Legislature.

House Bill 961, Conference Draft 1 — a key component of the Ready Keiki initiative led by Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke to expand preschool access for all Hawaii 3- and 4-year-olds by 2032 — was passed unanimously Wednesday by House and Senate conferees.

Measures to usher in universal preschool access have passed through conference committee at the state Legislature.

Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke has been working on an initiative called Ready Keiki, which has a goal to expand early childhood education and care in the next decade.

House Bill 961 increases financial assistance through the Preschool Open Doors program, by expanding subsidy eligibility to include 3-year-old children in fall 2024.

The decision raises hopes that Hawaii can boost the number of children participating in the Open Doors program from about 1,200 to about 4,000.

Although some Hawaii lawmakers have grumbled that a new agency in charge of public school construction is moving too slowly, its leader says the first 11 classrooms in the state’s Ready Keiki preschool initiative are on track to welcome students this fall — below budget and a year ahead of schedule — while three Oahu high schools are in advanced discussions to become Hawaii’s first major teacher housing projects.

Proposals to increase preschool attendance and stabilize child care centers are receiving the most attention in this legislative session.

Ready Keiki, a plan to greatly expand free public preschools in Hawaii, appears to be off to a flying start.

Eleven free preschool classrooms for 3- and 4-year-olds are scheduled to open a year ahead of schedule in August to help low-income families across the islands, Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke said Monday.

Lieutenant Governor Sylvia Luke made a visit to Ke Kula ʻO Nāwahīokalaniʻōpuʻu Iki Laboratory Public Charter School on Hawaiʻi Island where she saw firsthand the achievements and challenges of Hawaiian language education from preschool to high school.

These are some national stats, but underlying the promising new state “Ready Keiki” program are the worrisome local facts as well. Fully half of Hawaii’s more than 35,000 3- and 4-year-olds have not attended preschool, according to the proposal unveiled last week by Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke.

Hawaii is committing to providing universal preschool by year 2032. This comes amid a national push for the federal government to provide universal preschool in all states. Hawaii Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke is leading the effort in Hawaii. She joined American Voices with Alicia Menendez to discuss.