McHenry County toddlers who might be eligible for pre-kindergarten this year could have a harder time getting a spot in a classroom, as local school districts are keeping smaller class sizes than usual for their youngest learners because of COVID-19.

Woodstock School District 200, which has by far the largest pre-kindergarten program for 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds among area public school systems with around 400 students most years, is seeing waitlists for students wanting to start in the program grow beyond their normal levels, district spokesman Kevin Lyons said.

“The District has worked to maintain pre-K class sizes at or below 15 students per classroom due to COVID-19 restrictions, so we do have a larger than normal number of students on our waiting list,” Lyons said.

Before the pandemic, class sizes were sometimes closer to 20, he said.

At the end of last September, when all District 200 students were in fully remote learning because of the virus, there were only 249 students enrolled in District 200′s pre-kindergarten program, a big dip from the average of about 400 in the years before the pandemic, according to Illinois State Board of Education records.

District 200 normally has to keep a minimum of 15 students per class and at least 360 enrolled in the overall pre-kindergarten program in order to comply with the federal grant funding that supports early childhood education. Federal officials offered flexibility on the minimum enrollment numbers amid the public health crisis and there was no threat of District 200 losing any funding because of last year’s enrollment drop, Lyons said.

Right now, there are about 300 students in District 200′s pre-kindergarten now, he said. But, by the end of the year, officials expect there to be about 400, which would bring its enrollment closer to the pre-pandemic average, Lyons said. Children who have their third birthday during the academic year are sometimes able to join the pre-kindergarten program partway through the school calendar, which is why the program’s enrollment tends to grow throughout the year.

Pre-kindergarten programs in the area prioritize registering students who face certain socioeconomic challenges or developmental delays, and are assessed through a points system that takes into account factors such as premature births, household income, the age of a student’s mother, being a twin and others.

“Because we have children turning 3 throughout the school year, the district wants to be certain that they can enroll those children who are on a higher tier of needs into classrooms,” Lyons said. “That’s why we’re not running pre-K classrooms at full capacity now.”

Some of the students set to start pre-K during the school year already have been identified through the district’s program serving some kids from their births to age three, like those of teenage parents, Lyons said.

“It’s in everyone’s interest that children are ready by the time they get to kindergarten, which research shows is of critical importance,” he said.

Pre-kindergarten class sizes have not shrunk at Wonder Lake-based Harrison School District 36, which hosted 34 students for its early childhood learning program last year and kept in-person learning intact outside of a temporary move to remote learning amid the winter holiday season last year, Superintendent Sue Wings said.

Making cuts to the students allowed into the pre-kindergarten program was not discussed among leaders of District 36, which is among the county’s smallest districts in terms of enrollment. District 200 is among the largest, and its students, pre-kindergarten included, did not return for any in-person learning until February last year, when hybrid education delivery began before a full return to classrooms later in the year.

“We follow the same screening process as [District 200], and we did not change or alter our requirements. We also did not consider shrinking class sizes. We felt that the cleaning processes we had in place for that classroom and the way we arranged each lesson so that items were not shared between morning and afternoon classes, we were able to keep our staff and students safe,” Wings said.

Alden Hebron School District 19 also saw its pre-kindergarten class sizes drop last year as officials worked to make classrooms out of unconventional spaces in elementary school buildings as a safeguard against COVID-19, but enrollment has increased again this year, Superintendent Tiffany Elswick said.

Before COVID-19 invaded Illinois, District 19 had 56 preschool students, Elswick said. Forty spots were funded by grants and another 20 were made available through a tuition-based preschool program that was started in 2018. Last school year, there were only 38 preschoolers, with Elswick attributing the fall to the pandemic, and this fall there are 45 pre-K students and another two planning to start class in November.

“The district was able to bring back our students last year maintaining the 6-foot guideline by utilizing our larger spaces, gym, library, and multiple purpose rooms as classrooms at the elementary level. Fortunately, Alden Hebron School District 19′s grant funded Preschool for All program was able to offer remote learning and in-person learning to our preschoolers last school year,” Elswick said.

Her district’s half-day preschool program was split into two sections to keep class sizes smaller for the students whose families chose in-person learning, she said.

“Preschool may not have looked like a traditional preschool-centered program; however, our preschoolers were able to access a quality education which benefited them academically as well as socially and emotionally,” Elswick said.

Harvard School District 50, which had a larger share of pre-kindergarten students comprising its total enrollment of pre-kindergarten through eighth graders last year than most McHenry County school systems, had about 30 fewer pre-k students last year than in the years before the pandemic, state records show.

Because District 50′s early childhood education program is grant funded, as it is in other districts, the Harvard system was not able to consider disallowing enrollment by students who become eligible for pre-kindergarten partway through the academic year, officials said in a statement.

“The compliance of the grant is to continue enrollment until at capacity and then have a waitlist established for openings that may occur,” District 50 officials said. “We have full confidence in all aspects of our staff regarding cleaning, spacing, and masking, in addition to the instruction provided.”