I don’t usually write with clickbait in mind, but this one earned it.
This morning, I’m sitting in Panera, and I run into someone I see there all the time. She looks at me and says, “Did you watch the BOE meeting yet?”
I said no, sometime today I will.
She just starts laughing, like she’s trying to get the sentence out.
Then she says, “They were talking about how kids who don’t go to preschool are more likely to end up getting arrested.”
Now I’m laughing, because I assume she’s stretching something.
She wasn’t.
Which, I guess, is great news for anyone who either can’t afford daycare or just doesn’t want to send their kid… you can now relax knowing you’re apparently rolling the dice on incarceration. Good to know.
What Was Actually Said
This came up during a discussion about the preschool program and whether increasing costs could limit access, especially for families in free and reduced lunch programs.
Board member Wilbur Pan said:
“There’s data out there to show that if you go to preschool compared to kids that don’t go to preschool, you’ll be less likely to get arrested as an adult… you’ll have a higher starting salary…”
To be fair, that idea comes from a real study, the HighScope Perry Preschool Study from the 1960s, which followed a small group of kids over decades and found correlations between preschool attendance and long-term outcomes like income and arrest rates.
Here’s the study if you want to look at it:
https://highscope.org/project/perry-preschool-study/
So this wasn’t made up.
But context matters.
The Context Everyone Felt
This wasn’t happening in a vacuum.
You had custodians and their supporters in the room, people concerned about privatization and losing their jobs. There was real tension, real stakes, real people sitting there trying to understand what decisions are being made.
And in the middle of that, the conversation shifts to long-term studies about preschool and arrest rates.
That’s where it starts to feel off.
The Pushback
Antoinette Evola stepped in pretty quickly and addressed how that kind of statement lands.
“I want to be very careful when you put a message out there that the students that don’t attend pre-K are at risk for being incarcerated…”
And then:
“Should families be concerned that their kids are going to become criminals because they didn’t get to do a half day program? That’s ridiculous.”
That’s the moment where the conversation shifts from research to reality.
Grounding It Back in Reality
Evola also made the point that gets lost when you start pulling in broad studies:
“You cannot compare the studies of a district that have high crime… to a town like ours.”
And then just put it plainly:
“I didn’t go to preschool… and I was never incarcerated.”
Other Voices
There were other perspectives in the room.
Laurie Herrick took a different angle and asked:
“If we take that away… does that cause us to spend more money down the road?”
In other words, are we saving money now… only to pay for it later?
And Marianne Tanious pointed out the issue with the study itself:
“The Perry Preschool project… is from the 1960s and it’s highly flawed.”
Then brought it right back to where the conversation actually is:
“We have no money.”
What This Was Really About
Nobody was arguing that preschool doesn’t matter.
That wasn’t the point.
The point is where you are right now as a district.
You’re dealing with a budget deficit. You have people in the room worried about their jobs. You’re making decisions that affect families immediately.
And in the middle of that, the conversation drifts into long-term projections about arrest rates tied to preschool attendance.
That’s where the disconnect shows up.
The Head Tilt Moment
It’s not anger. It’s not outrage.
It’s just that moment where you sit there and think:
How did we get here?
From a budget discussion… to whether skipping preschool leads to getting arrested.
Back to Panera
So yeah, back to this morning.
We weren’t debating policy. We were just laughing at how the conversation even got there.
And honestly, that’s probably the most honest reaction to it.
Because sometimes the takeaway isn’t to argue every side.
It’s just to recognize when something takes a turn that makes you stop for a second.
