Multnomah County, Oregon is recruiting new preschool providers as it pushes to expand one of the most ambitious locally funded universal pre-K programs in the country, aiming to eventually reach every 3- and 4-year-old in the Portland area.

The county's Preschool & Early Learning Division is seeking new provider sites to deliver new Preschool for All slots and help refine how the program works as it scales — a sign the initiative is still being shaped even as it grows.

Voters approved the Preschool for All program in November 2020 through Ballot Measure 26-214, funding it with a progressive county income tax surcharge on high earners: 1.5% on individual income above $125,000 and an additional 1.5% on income above $250,000. The measure was passed against a backdrop of a severe childcare crisis in Oregon, which consistently ranks among the most expensive and least accessible states for child care nationally. The COVID-19 pandemic made things dramatically worse, wiping out an estimated 25 to 30% of Portland-area childcare capacity.

The program enrolled its first children in fall 2022 and has been expanding in phases ever since, with the long-term goal of reaching an estimated 14,000 to 16,000 children across the county. This latest provider recruitment is part of that phased buildout, now in its fourth year.

The road to scale has not been simple. The county has faced pressure to move faster after collecting more tax revenue than originally projected in the program's early years. Advocates have pushed for quicker expansion into East Portland and other underserved areas with large communities of color and immigrant families. And building a provider network from scratch has meant navigating new compensation standards, designed to pay early childhood educators wages closer to K-12 teacher levels, that some existing providers have struggled to meet.

As previously reported, the county has been under sustained scrutiny over the pace of enrollment growth relative to the program's fund balance. Whether adding new providers through this latest competitive process meaningfully accelerates access, particularly for families in historically underserved communities, will be an early measure of the program's continued progress.