Scarborough School Board members said they were hesitant to expand the district’s pre-kindergarten program in the face of financial constraints at a workshop last week.

Currently, Scarborough serves one, 16-student pre-K class through a grant-funded partnership with Shooting Stars Preschool. Shooting Stars hosts the classes at their location while Blue Point School provides administrative and other support.

Dr. Kelly Mullen-Martin is the district’s liaison for the partnership with Shooting Stars. At her presentation at the Feb. 27 workshop, Mullen-Martin said that Scarborough has the fewest number of pre-K classrooms of any school district in the area.

Portland has the most with 18. As for bordering towns, Cape Elizabeth has two full-time classrooms and South Portland has four, while Saco has two part-time classrooms and Gorham has four.

However, expanding a pre-K program requires an investment. The startup cost, including furnishings and the salaries and benefits for two teachers, is estimated at $175,000 per classroom.

“As you build programs … those classrooms need access to school nurses, multilanguage teachers, social workers, special education,” Mullen-Martin said. “You just have to consider those pieces are going to increase as well and drive the costs.”

State funding for pre-K programs is also limited as they are not mandated by the state.

“It is a local decision,” Mullen-Martin said. “It’s supported by the DOE, it’s encouraged by the DOE, but it’s not a mandate that you have a pre-K program in your district.”

The percentage the state would pay toward a public program is based on how much the district already receives from the state annually, said Superintendent Diane Nadeau

“The (state) funds that we receive overall for our school budget equates to about 11%,” Nadeau said. “That means that local taxpayers would incur 89% of the cost of public pre-K.”

The School Building Advisory Committee is currently working on a new school project and requested the board to provide direction on how much planning it should do for a potential pre-K program.

“We’re in the process of cutting scope to get to a budgetary number. That’s the reality of the situation the school building project is in,” said Charlie Peters, chair of the committee. “Future expansion, frankly, unless we get some sort of mandate from this body, is probably one of the things that’s going to get cut.”

The consensus of school board members was that they would like to expand the pre-K program, but now is not the best time.

“I personally would love to have a universal pre-K program in Scarborough,” said board Chair Shannon Lindstrom. “My concern is we have a lot of asks in front of this community right now. We have a budget coming, that’s always a difficult ask every year. We have a school that we desperately need; we need a solution for the kids we currently have.”

Board member Alissa Peterson cautioned against including pre-K classrooms in the new school project so as not to mislead voters.

“I’m very uncomfortable labeling things as ‘this is a pre-K classroom’ without having a very, very intentional plan,” she said. “I do not want to feel as though we misled the public if there is not a strong appetite for this (right now).”

Board member Jenna Leong agreed now likely isn’t the right time, but said it’s something they ought to continue exploring.

“We’ve had it in the back of our minds for a while now but I’d like to still keep it in mind as something we could potentially add on later down the line,” she said.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correctly state Blue Point School’s relationship to the Shooting Stars pre-K class.