Universal Preschool — PLOY BURAPARATE

An image of kids smiling over some snacks. The text reads, "My 4 yedar old has been battling leukemia for the past two years. Being able to send him to preschool for free has been such a relief for us and a blessing for him to have some normalcy."

Summary

In 2022, the State of Colorado voted to instrument the Universal Preschool Program (UPP) which would enable Colorado’s children to receive at least 10 hours of free preschool per week and could be provided at no-cost for children with certain qualifying factors.

I worked as the first designer on this project, standing up this project with a service-oriented perspective from the ground up. While we were working to help deliver the digital experience to accompany the launch of UPP, the agency that would own it was also being created and policy and rules had yet to be written.

Leveraging service design, outcome-focused product management, and human-centered procurement practices, the State of Colorado successfully launched UPP Year 1 where nearly 40,000 children enrolled successfully across the state.

My role was the first designer on this project. I worked to do the user research, service blueprinting, prototyping, procurement, and delivery with our vendor partner.

A testimonial from a parent about universal preschool that reads, "I ma amazed how how well this program as rolled out; the application was easy, the emails and text messages kep everyone up to date. The website was easy to operate.."

Process

Since this was so new and most of the staff for this was yet to be hired, the preliminary work I lead was to first translate the policy of the bill into their technology implementations. I use a technique called, “Spirit of the Bill” which is intended to break down complex bill language into three distinct catagories: People, Process, and Data. I worked to read the 50 page net-new bill language and oversee the addition 300+ pages of bill text that would influence and inform the service to be delivered.

Once we began to identity the people, processes, and data required I lead the initial service design architecture for the program. We utilized these artifacts to inform the authoring of the procurement of the technical partner selection for universal preschool. We lead a human-centered procurement process, bringing in both educators, family childcare providers, and parents/guardians themselves to help select the ultimate solution.

In addition, I led change management and trainings for the new solution for a new third party intermediary that the bill required to be created, and also worked as a leader to transition this project into a sustainable state, which both required a second CDS engagement and the eventual hire of a Head of Product for the Department of Early Childhood.