COVID-19 disrupted the Denver Preschool Program’s efforts.

The Denver Preschool Program (DPP) aims to increase children’s participation in preschool by offering tuition support. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the DPP supported participating programs by waiving attendance requirements and maintaining tuition payments. As preschools re-open fully, there are questions about the types of post-pandemic practices teachers engage in and whether these practices can mitigate any harmful effects stemming from the pandemic.

NORC is conducting a study of post-pandemic preschool teaching practices.  

The study by NORC at the University of Chicago will collect data from approximately 150 DPP children and their teachers. We will ask parents about their children’s social-emotional and executive functioning skills and teachers about the types of support provided to parents and their instructional focus on academic skills, peer interactions, and emotional regulation. 

We will use latent profile analysis and two-level HLM to identify particular groups of teachers who report a greater emphasis on social or academic skills and examine how these teachers’ self-reported practices relate to children’s developmental outcomes.