Enroll Your 3 or 4 Year Old In the Seattle Preschool Program Today – Classes Start In September!

The start of the 2024-2025 school year is almost here! If your child is 3 or 4 years old by August 31 and lives in the City of Seattle, they are eligible to enroll in the Seattle Preschool Program (SPP)! The Seattle Preschool Program helps prepare Seattle three and four-year-olds for kindergarten in partnership with community-based organizations, Family Child Care (FCC) providers, and Seattle Public Schools. SPP offers Dual-language classrooms, extended day care options, and educators specialized in serving children with behavioral or developmental needs. Parents can learn more about SPP sites and how to begin the application process at seattle.gov/applySPP.

Translated SPP applications are available at seattle.gov/applySPP in English, Amharic, Chinese, Oromo, Somali, Spanish, Tigrinya, and Vietnamese. Families who need language assistance to complete the application process can contact DEEL at 206-386-1050 or email [email protected].

Tuition for the Seattle Preschool Program is designed to fit the needs of all Seattle families, with a sliding scale based on household income and family size. Most families qualify for free or reduced tuition, with a priority to eliminate cost barriers especially for children experiencing homelessness, in foster care or kinship care. Currently nearly 70% of families pay no tuition.

DEEL has added 16 new SPP classrooms for the upcoming schoolyear to bring high-quality and affordable preschool to children citywide. Read the news release here. The award-winning SPP program recently received, for the second year in a row, a CityHealth gold medal for high-quality, accessible preschool programming. In SY 24-25, SPP plans to have 27 partner organizations, with 97 preschool sites and 151 classrooms, adding 279 seats this year with the capacity to serve nearly 2,500 children citywide.