Erin McCloud finds herself in an odd position. She’s about to close one of the two preschools she operates in Southeast Portland, because of a government program designed to increase preschool capacity.
While it sounds like a paradox, the pinch McCloud faces isn’t wholly surprising. Since its launch in the fall of 2022, Multnomah County’s Preschool for All program has disrupted the early child care industry. At McCloud’s Little Hands Garden School, families have started pulling their kids out of her school in June if they get into Preschool for All, and other kids who get off fall waiting lists for the program leave the school each September and October.
So McCloud decided if she couldn’t beat Preschool for All, she’d join it. She applied in April for subsidized preschool seats, which would be made available to families in the middle of the 2025–26 school year. The county told her in May that she qualified as a provider.
But that’s where the story really gets strange—because when it came time to assign seats, Multnomah County turned her down.
On June 2, the county told McCloud and about 27 other providers that they wouldn’t receive seats during the midyear cycle, citing limited seat projections and space. It awarded midyear seats to 13 providers.
The county’s notification that McCloud wouldn’t receive seats left her in disbelief, and then scrambling. Without those seats, she says, she’ll only have enough enrollment to fill one preschool in September. So she’ll close her South Tabor location—and the 16 seats that go with it—after this academic year.
“I really thought that a ‘congratulations, you qualify’ letter would be followed up by, ‘We will convert four students you already have into the program so you don’t lose them.’ I already have kids that are on the wait list too for the program,” McCloud says. “I have a school that could have become a [Preschool for All site] that is now going to close. They’re losing a potential of 16 seats there that will probably never exist again.”
McCloud’s decision to close her second site comes even as Preschool for All reports sky-high demand it cannot meet. “Every year, we have about double the amount of applications for seats than we have,” Leslee Barnes, the county’s preschool and early learning director, told reporters in April when she announced the county would provide 3,800 seats in the fall cycle of the 2025–26 school year. “I don’t expect that will be any different this year.”
In its quest to create 11,000 publicly funded seats by 2030, the county has said it will need to convert 7,000 seats from private providers and is still ramping up. For the 2025–26 midyear cycle, the county even encouraged some providers to apply for seats.
“We are reaching out to already qualified providers to see if you are interested in PFA seats that are planned to begin January 2026,” read a March 12 email from the county to a provider.
So why did it turn down McCloud? County officials say the timing just wasn’t right.
“We’re still on track to universal preschool access by 2030, and we are absolutely committed to partnering with qualified providers,” says county spokesman Ryan Yambra. “Our intention is that qualified providers who meet PFA requirements receive seats. We understand that it can be disappointing and frustrating for providers who may not receive midyear seats. The fall is the time when PFA is looking to significantly increase the number of seats, and we encourage qualified providers to request seats for September 2026.”
The result of the county’s denial, McCloud says, is that she must reduce the Portland area’s number of preschool seats by 16, closing a school entirely.
She is left with questions why the county won’t expand the program more aggressively. And she’s not the only one.
Meg Neal, who runs Portland Play Project in Northeast Portland, says they were enthused when they heard of the proposal for a countywide universal preschool program back in 2020. The ballot measure, meant to make child care more accessible to families, is currently funded by a marginal income tax, 1.5% of income over $200,000 for joint filers ($125,000 for single filers) and another 1.5% on income over $400,000 for joint filers ($250,000 for single filers).
Neal considers applying to be a provider “the right thing to do,” they say. “Theoretically, this program is a beautiful program, and it is my greatest wish that families can have free preschool.”
It also provides a meaningful subsidy to preschools.
Currently, Preschool for All reimburses providers between $16,536 and $23,592 per student each year, according to the county’s website. (The exact figure depends on the school’s calendar.) For five-day preschool, McCloud charges $1,550 per month, for a total of about $18,600 each year, and Neal charges $1,575 per month for their 10-month preschool, coming to about $15,750. (The yearly costs WW calculated for these providers do not account for holidays and breaks when schools are closed.)
But both say the program’s reimbursements, although higher, are not enough to cover county requirements such as higher pay for staff and increased liability insurance. McCloud says the lowest she’s been quoted for the $1 million sexual abuse coverage required by the county is $5,000 a year, more than five times what she currently pays for coverage.
When Neal first applied for seats for the 2024–25 school year, they say the county turned them down in part because it identified a need for “growth in understanding racial equity and inclusion,” for which they have since undergone training. In emails shared with WW, an official also told them the county had found noncompliance with the state’s Central Background Registry. A licensing specialist with the state Department of Early Learning and Care told the county the department had never cited Neal’s preschool for noncompliance.
Then, in early spring, the county reached out and asked them to reapply for seats. A county employee told them that if they received seats in the middle of the year, they could give them to kids already enrolled in the school. Neal applied for eight slots and told their at-need families to be on the lookout for free child care.
Then came another rejection for seats. “My confusion was, why did you ask me to reapply?” Neal says, adding that their initial reaction to the news was a combination of disappointment for families and relief that they wouldn’t have to iron out the logistics of participating.
Yambra says the midyear seats program is not mainly intended to increase capacity. “The primary goal of midyear seats is not to dramatically increase the number of overall seats, but to ensure that new Preschool for All facilities can be used without waiting,” he says, adding that the county planned for about 200 midyear seats this coming year. (This past midyear cycle, Yambra says the county added 154 seats. As of mid-February, he says, 134 of them were filled.)
Providers who don’t get seats during a cycle, Yambra says, are considered for seats in future ones—and all qualified providers who made room for seats in the fall received them. He says the county may deny providers seats if they don’t have enough experience, have health and safety violations, or don’t match Preschool for All’s values.
But none of those conditions applied to Neal or McCloud. In fact, they’re both the kind of providers Preschool for All is trying to attract.
McCloud has 15 years of experience in early child care and operates a unique school that offers outdoor enrichment through activities such as foraging and adventures on Mount Tabor. What’s more, at least six of the families at McCloud’s preschool are currently on the waiting list for Preschool for All. Neal has a master’s degree in education and has run their preschool, which features a similar outdoor vibe, for nearly a decade.
Now, both say they’re concerned that Preschool for All’s current approach to enrollment will hurt small providers, who can’t afford to have even a couple of vacancies in their programs.
Neal says Preschool for All has disrupted a landscape of collaboration among early child care providers. They hope the county will at least start notifying families earlier of their acceptance to the program so that other independent providers have time to find new families.
“I feel really supported by other providers. It doesn’t feel like competition. I’m giving other schools families when I’m full, they’re giving me families when they’re full,” Neal says. “Preschool for All feels like competition. It’s like me against them.”
McCloud, too, says the program has effectively trapped her; she’s losing kids to it but will struggle to accommodate the county’s many standards if she joins.
“I have to take them or I won’t be in business,” she says, when asked if she’d accept seats in fall. “We’re all going to basically be forced. Nobody wants to pay for preschool anymore because they know they don’t have to.”
She worries what will happen to small neighborhood preschools like hers, which she says have deep roots in their communities. She’s watched families form lifelong friendships with each other. “They become a part of each other’s lives,” she says. Her first class of preschoolers will graduate high school next year.
“Some of my high schoolers have volunteered at the preschool with the little guys. There’s this feedback loop that’s happened,” she says. “This really cute thing—well, this won’t exist anymore.”