Preschool Supply and Demand Toolkit
How do we know whether preschool programs are meeting the needs of children and families—especially those from historically underserved communities? Early education programming is offered across a wide range of public, private, community, faith-based, and child care settings. However, education agencies often lack consistent data on program capacity, enrollment, location, and family preferences, making it difficult to identify gaps in access and ensure enough options for all families.
This toolkit provides resources and best practices for analyzing preschool supply and demand, and lessons learned from eight early childhood agencies. With clear supply and demand data, agencies can move from reactive decision-making to proactive planning—strengthening access, advancing equity, stabilizing the preschool market, and ensuring communities are prepared for future needs.
Preschool Supply and Demand: Balancing Available Programs and Family Needs
This toolkit helps agencies assess preschool supply and demand—the balance, or mismatch, between available programs and families’ needs and desires—by providing resources, best practices, practical data tools, and lessons learned from eight early childhood agencies. Through a five-stage process, agencies can establish and integrate reliable data, identify gaps and unmet needs, and turn analysis into action to strengthen access, advance equity, stabilize the preschool market, and prepare communities for future needs.
Preschool Supply and Demand: Resource Library
Code for Pulling & Aggregating Public Population Data
This customizable code template helps pull and aggregate relevant, publicly available population-level data to identify and map childcare supply and demand.
Data Dialogue Protocol for Understanding Related ECE Data Systems
This set of protocols and notetaking guides collects information on how each agency’s or partner’s data systems function—how data is entered, processed, maintained, and updated.
Data Linkage Flow Chart and Guide
This guide is meant to help agencies and partners determine the best ways to link and deduplicate preschool supply and demand data based on available data, both in terms of the method and software.
Data-Based Preschool Program Implementation Monitoring Framework and Toolkit
This program monitoring planning tool and framework—which includes guiding instructions and two excel workbook templates—is intended for LEAs and SEAs who are newly implementing preschool expansion programs or who have not yet enacted data-based
Focus Group Protocol for Understanding Community Needs
This flexible protocol is intended for agencies hoping to conduct focus groups with families, providers, and partners around ECE needs within the community.
Identifying Focal Populations: STEP Forward with Data Framework
This guided activity from Child Trends helps agencies and partners—in partnership with their communities—understand supply and demand within specific populations of children and families.
Metric Deep Dive for Supply: STEP Forward with Data Framework
The STEP Forward with Data Framework Metric Deep Dive for Supply provides agencies and partners with metrics that can be used to measure supply and demand.
Practitioner Data Inventory
This tool, a resource from the NHSA, can be used in a Community of Practice or other group setting to facilitate a conversation about how agency staff define and address salient problems of practice using existing data resources.
Preschool Supply and Classroom Planning Timeline
This timeline template shares key dates, milestones, and decision points that should be in place to make timely, accurate, policy-relevant, and collaborative preschool supply and demand projections for the upcoming school year.
