Park City School District serves 217 preschoolers across four elementary schools, a 41% jump in two years.

Preschool Director Missy Tschabrun presented the program's annual update to the Board of Education on Wednesday, Sept. 16. Enrollment grew from 154 students in 2024-25 to 208 the following year, then climbed to 217, where it has held, TownLift reported.

Jeremy Ranch Elementary leads with 88 preschoolers. Trailside has 49, McPolin has 44 and Parley's Park has 36.

The growth comes as the district's K-12 enrollment sits at 3,956 students, 38 fewer than projected. Kindergarten enrollment is 222, also 16 below projections. According to the district's Sept. 16 presentation, smaller incoming kindergarten classes could prolong the broader enrollment decline, even as some secondary classrooms remain crowded with larger groups moving through upper grades.

The district expanded its 3-year-old program from two half-days to five full days per week. That change helped drive retention: of 95 three-year-olds enrolled in 2025-26, all 81 who remained in the area returned for the four-year-old program. The 14 who did not had moved out of the city, state or country.

For the 2026-27 school year, the district rolled out the Frog Street curriculum at all four campuses. The program centers on language development, structured peer conversations and play-based learning. A puppet named Fernando introduces vocabulary and math concepts.

"It is amazing what a frog puppet can do for pre-K," Tschabrun told the board.

State assessment results back up the optimism. Four-year-olds averaged 85.8% in literacy and 88.3% in numeracy on the Preschool Entry and Exit Profile. Three-quarters of preschool graduates began kindergarten at or above benchmark on the Acadience reading assessment.

Results were lower for multilingual learners. Of 28 multilingual four-year-olds assessed, 17 reached the proficient level. The remaining 11 placed in the two lower tiers. The district has developed a five-year plan to strengthen oral-language instruction for those students, including bilingual classroom labels, small-group support, bilingual materials for families and a coordinated kindergarten transition.

The preschool program started in 2011-12 with half-day classes at McPolin Elementary. Since then, the Park City Education Foundation has invested nearly $1.5 million and the district has invested more than $6 million to expand preschool to all four schools, according to PCEF. Vail Resorts' EpicPromise program has funded the effort since 2014.

The district also piloted a summer preschool session for 16 students with greater instructional needs. Average daily attendance was 12. Participants improved their combined letter-sound score by 24.6% and maintained full mastery of counting standards. The district plans to offer separate summer classrooms for three- and four-year-olds next year.