Preschool For All Expansion (PFAE)

Latest data: FY 2022 (July 1, 2021–June 30, 2022; school year 2021–2022)

For children ages 3 and 4, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) provides funding for the Preschool for All (PFA) program. The Preschool Development Grant – Expansion Grant is intended to enhance the state's infrastructure to provide high-quality preschool programs and to expand high-quality full-day preschool programs for 4 year olds in high-need communities.

Source of definition: Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), Early Childhood

These data are available by state, county, township, state Senate district, state House district, congressional district, ISBE region, IDHS region, municipality, unit and elementary school district, and Chicago Community Area.

Preschool for All serves 3- and 4-year-old children (and 5-year-olds who are not yet eligible for kindergarten). For details on the components of, and other information related to, the Preschool for All program, see ISBE's Preschool for All page on its website. For information on the Preschool For All Expansion program, see ISBE's Preschool for All Expansion pageand/or the Preschool for All/Preschool for All Expansion Implementation Manual (updated May 2022).

Number of sites

The number of sites at which children are served in ISBE PFA Expansion programs.

The data are derived from the following source: ISBE, Early Childhood

These data are available by state, county, township, state Senate district, state House district, congressional district, ISBE region, IDHS region, municipality, unit and elementary school district, and Chicago Community Area.

Number of children proposed to be served

The number of children proposed to be served (at any one time) or enrolled in ISBE PFA Expansion programs. (See notes below for specific meaning of “number of children.”)

The data are derived from the following source: ISBE, Early Childhood

These data are available by state, county, township, state Senate district, state House district, congressional district, ISBE region, IDHS region, municipality, unit and elementary school district, and Chicago Community Area.

The number of children outside Chicago is “proposed capacity.” That is, each PFA program informs ISBE of the number of children it proposes to serve at each site for the year. The number of children within Chicago is actual enrollment, which is what CPS reports to ISBE and ISBE provides to IECAM.

Note on IECAM data compared with ISBE data: IECAM data represent the number of children proposed to be served (at any one time) in PFA Expansion classrooms (as indicated above). These data are intended to closely approximate capacity to serve children. Children leaving a PFA Expansion program and new children entering during the year will further affect the total number of children served across the year as a whole. Thus, the IECAM data are not the same as the official total “number of children served” across the year, which is calculated by ISBE after the close of the school year.

If the total number of children served across the year is required for your purposes, please contact ISBE.

For past years, there are some differences in the data definition/description, compared with the most recent year. These are indicated here.

Note on estimation of data for sites in Chicago: For FY2016, data on the number of children proposed to be served in PFA Expansion were not available for each of the 51 sites in Chicago, but only for Chicago as a whole. Therefore, IECAM is unable to report the exact number of children for sites. To estimate the number by site, IECAM divided the total number of children for the city by the total number of sites. This process allows the data to be reported for all those geographic regions whose areas are entirely or partly within Chicago; which would otherwise not be possible. These regions are Illinois state House and Senate districts, congressional districts, Chicago Community Areas, ZCTA ZIP codes, and postal ZIP codes.

Agencies or organizations that have received grants from the Illinois State Board of Education to provide or subcontract the operation of PFA classrooms in their area.

Source of information: Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE)

Geographic region: Grantees may serve single or multicounty area.

Grantee data is available upon request.