Inside Colorado’s free preschool initiative
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Two Denver-area Catholic parishes asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to reconsider a lower court decision that said parish preschools participating in Colorado’s state-funded preschool program couldn’t deny admission to LGBTQ children or children from LGBTQ families.
The appeal to the Supreme Court comes about six weeks after the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Catholic parishes, which had argued that enrolling children from LGBTQ families would conflict with their religious beliefs.
Gov. Jared Polis lauded the circuit court’s Sept. 30 ruling, which was a major win for the state.
If the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case, the justices could answer a question at the heart of the case: Can private religious schools that accept public education dollars refuse to enroll certain kids based on religious principles? The state and two lower courts have said no. The Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority, could give a different answer.
A spokesperson for Colorado Department of Early Childhood, which runs the state-funded preschool program, said officials won’t comment on pending or active litigation.
The Catholic preschools sued the state in 2023 as Colorado launched its new universal preschool program, which provides tuition-free preschool to 4-year-olds statewide. The $349 million program serves more than 40,000 children and allows families to choose from public, private, or religious preschools.
St. Mary Catholic Virtue School in Littleton and Wellspring Catholic Academy in Lakewood wanted to join the program when it started, but didn’t want to admit LGBTQ children or children from LGBTQ families.
They asked for an exemption from state rules banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, but the Colorado Department of Early Childhood refused. The two preschools never joined the program, and in August 2023, the parishes that ran the preschools sued the state.
Of more than 2,000 preschools participating in Colorado’s universal preschool program this year, about 40 are religious.
Attorneys from The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the Catholic preschools in the case, have argued that Colorado is discriminating against the preschools based on religion.
“Colorado is picking winners and losers based on the content of their religious beliefs,” Nick Reaves, senior counsel at Becket, said in a press release Friday.
The release suggests that Colorado’s rules barring discrimination have hurt Catholic preschool enrollment.
Since universal preschool began, “enrollment at Catholic preschools has swiftly declined, while two Catholic preschools have shuttered their doors, including one that predominantly served low-income and minority families,” the press release said.
Wellspring, one of two parish preschools involved in the case, did close last year when the K-8 school it was part of closed because of low enrollment and financial problems. A Catholic preschool in Denver also shuttered when the K-8 school it was part of — Guardian Angels Catholic School — closed at the end of the 2024-25 school year. At the time the Archdiocese of Denver announced the closure of Wellspring and Guardian Angels, it also announced the consolidation of two Catholic high schools into one campus.
Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.
