After months of progress, and with a little over a week left before the start of the 2025-26 school year, Speckled Frog Play Care Center was notified that they are no longer in the running to serve as a universal pre-K option.
Executives with Speckled Frog said they’d spent two months working with the district, including director of pupil personnel services Lisajane Kappler, to be approved. They said they’d submitted the paperwork and were meant to appear on the agenda for the Board of Education’s meeting held on Tuesday, August 26. But in a letter to the media — and during public comment at that meeting — they claim they received a telephone call from Saugerties School (Saugerties Central School District) Superintendent Daniel Erceg on Sunday, August 24 saying the district no longer planned to move forward with the application.
At the August 26 meeting, Speckled Frog founder Angie Paone said they’d only applied because the district asked them to back in May of this year.
“Why were we contacted?” Paone said. “We were contacted because your current UPK (at the former Mt. Marion Elementary School) has 140 slots and at that time only had 30 enrollments.”
She said the Speckled Frog was prepared to open at least 44 UPK slots, spending the ensuing months ensuring they were ready to meet the state rigors for consideration, including hiring teachers who were masters-certified in working with kids from birth to age two.
“Do you know how hard it is to find a master’s certified teacher that’s certified in birth to grade two?” Paone said. “Do you know how much salary you have to pay a certified teacher? You do, right? Because today you’re voting to put people in place to pay the salaries. We learned, we found the teachers, we turned in the paperwork, we did everything we needed to do.”
Paone also claimed that the Mt. Marion pre-K hub has been plagued with issues with its leadership, and that the district was aware of these issues and has done nothing in response.
In a letter to the media, Speckled Frog elaborated on their issue with the SCSD.
“The district receives almost $600,000 a year to offer this service,” read the letter. “The district (is) supposed to work with any agency that has a qualified program as long as there is money and availability. With the district’s preschool not even at half capacity and a neighboring program like Speckled Frog with more enrollment, it should be a no-brainer that the service is needed…This program would be beneficial and crucial to some families in providing preschool education for students at no cost to them. Saugerties Central School is now denying these families this benefit.”
Paone said receiving the call from Erceg on a Sunday night while staff was working to prepare the Speckled Frog to work with the district was a shock.
“Not only have we hired the teachers, we’re paying their salaries,” she said. “Some of them are higher than the salaries you’re hiring for tonight. We renovated our entire center. We moved around every single thing we do for our program. We just purchased a building right down the road from here so that we can provide not only spaces for 44 students…but we can take a total of 70 UPK students. The money is available. We met the requirements. Our program speaks for itself.”
Kristen Lane, a Speckled Frog parent, also spoke at the school board meeting. She said her work schedule made the Speckled Frog the best available option.
“Last week they informed us at a meeting that they met all the qualifications that allowed them to offer universal pre-K to my four year old,” she said. “I was absolutely elated that my child had to participate in the program and because they offered pre-care and post-care it would not interfere with my work hours. This also meant that Speckled Frog will receive funding from the school district allocated by the State of New York and lessen the financial burden placed upon the parents of the children.”
Lane said bearing the $570 cost herself, with the Speckled Frog no longer an SCSD pre-K option, is difficult.
“I have a mortgage I’m paying,” she said. “Losing this program really means a lot to me.”
District officials did not address Speckled Frog during the school board meeting, and Erceg did not return queries to discuss the issue. But during the meeting, some trustees said they planned to look into the matter.
“I, for one, would like to learn a little bit more about all of that, how that took place…and what we can do to rectify that issue if we can,” said Carole Kelder.
Board Vice-President Katie Emerson Hoss said Lane had given her something to think about.
“I would really like particularly to thank the parent who came up and are advocating for their child,” she said, “because I know how hard that is and how important it is for us to hear your voices as well as everybody else’s.”
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