BOSTON UNIVERSAL PRE-KINDERGARTEN

Welcome! We’re excited you are considering preschool for your child. Preschool is also known as Pre-Kindergarten. In Boston, we have Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK), a program that is funded by the City of Boston and promises to deliver on high-quality choices that are free of cost to Boston’s three and four year old children. UPK is a 6.5-hour school day for 180 days per year.

The Boston UPK model offers the same high quality programming in a variety of settings:

1. Boston Public Schools (BPS) - known as K0 (for 3-year-olds) and K1 (for 4-year-olds)
2. Community Centers
3. Family Child Care
4. Independent Schools

Boston’s UPK program was first offered at Boston Public Schools and since 2019 has expanded to providers outside of BPS in an effort to make UPK accessible in more locations around the city and better serve families.

All UPK programs - regardless of where they are offered - are standardized and quality based. They are all working to implement the Boston Public Schools Focus on Pre-K curriculum, which is part of the BPS Focus on Early Learning curricula series for grades pre-k through 2. This is a nationally recognized curriculum developed by Boston Public Schools.