HOPE Toledo is putting its universal pre-K program on hold while it grapples with an uncertain future that rests in the hands of state officials and local taxpayers.
Providers that partner with HOPE Toledo were informed in February that the organization would not be providing funding for next year’s class, and the organization’s leadership sought a $200,000 bailout from the city and county in March to complete the school year.
Without intervention from state officials clearing the path to the ballot in 2025, the organization will not have a method of funding its subsidized early-childhood education programs, which served 336 4-year-olds last year.
The nonprofit, led by the Rev. John Jones, said its “window of opportunity” in the general assembly is closing, with “lots of ground to cover” as it lobbies legislators to amend the Ohio Revised Code to add early childhood education to the list of purposes for which a levy can be placed.
Lucas County Commissioner Pete Gerken said the county’s legal counsel doesn’t believe the county can place a levy on the ballot on its behalf, leaving the organization with dwindling hope that depends on Ohio’s lawmakers paving its path forward.
“Right now, there’s no future path for [HOPE Toledo], but it’s still alive, and it’s going to depend on the state government and the voters at some point,” Mr. Gerken said.
Pete Kadens, the retired cannabis CEO and Ottawa Hills native that catalyzed the nonprofit, said the lack of support has “unnerved” him, and he worries about the city’s future without meaningful investment.
“If you don’t understand that the most important thing we can do in this community is support our youth, you are going to continue to support the brain drain in this community,” Mr. Kadens said. “And until our community understands that, there is going to be struggle. There just is.”
A ‘moonshot’ idea’s first flight
HOPE Toledo was officially founded in December, 2019, coming on the heels of several years of conversations with the community and the 2017 campaign promises of Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz, who called universal pre-K his “moonshot” idea.
Initially, Mayor Kapszukiewicz was reluctant to create a program using public money, preferring a public-private approach. But at the end of his first year in office, Mayor Kapszukiewicz convened a working group of community leaders to meet with Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, who had successfully passed a quarter-percent income tax increase to fund that city’s Preschool Promise program two years earlier.
Dayton’s universal pre-K program had secured $8.3 million in annual funding through Montgomery County’s human services levy and the city’s income tax increase, guaranteeing services for about 4,000 4-year-old children. The city’s income tax rate came up for renewal in March, 2024, and passed with a 40-point margin, exceeding the 12-point margin it initially passed with.
Toledo officials began exploring the potential for a similar approach to the program. A working group composed of the city of Toledo, ProMedica, the Greater Toledo Community Foundation, and the United Way of Greater Toledo commissioned a study to build out scenarios of how the program would work.
An initial exploration by a consulting agency, hired by the Toledo Community Foundation and ProMedica, was based on the passage of a proposed ballot initiative that would have increased city income taxes by half of a percent. City officials said the funds would be used for a variety of projects in the city, including roads and public safety, but $5 million would be put toward Mayor Kapszukiewicz’s universal pre-K initiative.
However, when the income-tax increase landed on the ballot in March, 2020, voters rejected it by a 12 percentage point margin. Rev. Jones said the defeat was likely due to the uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus, which came to the forefront in March, 2020.
“When the mayor put it on [the ballot], none of us knew that COVID was right around the corner,” Rev. Jones said.
The ProMedica Foundation stepped in to fully fund the first year of the program, which was intended to provide local data that could be used in a future proposition to voters. The first class, with about 200 children, began pre-K in September, 2021.
Serving students, working parents
One of the reasons Rev. Jones believes the Toledo ballot initiative failed is because the public is under the impression that pre-K is already provided through Toledo Public Schools and other public school districts.
“What I get told repeatedly, is Toledo Public [Schools] is doing already the early childhood education,” Rev. Jones said. “They are not. No K-12 school district receives funding to service a child before the age of 5 unless they are special needs — and that’s in the law.”
Amy Allen, director of student support services at Toledo Public Schools, said the district only services children who are eligible for grant-funded programs like Head Start. The gaps in who the school can cover are large.
“It’s complicated because there is no one funding source. So there’s kind of a money grab, everyone goes after what you can, and then you kind of put together a program as best you can,” Ms. Allen said.
But even though pre-K isn’t mandatory, Ms. Allen said it provides a firm foundation for the rest of the students’ careers.
“Really, our focus is on all of those soft skills that would make learning a little bit easier when they get into kindergarten. The kindergarten curriculum is pretty rigorous, so when we’re able to get [children] into a preschool program, we’re able to spend some more time focusing on other skills that are important before they start hitting the academics hard.”
Because the state of Ohio doesn’t fund pre-K programs, students must qualify for grant funding through income requirements, have a disability, be in foster care, or be experiencing homelessness. For all other students, parents must pay to send their children to a private pre-K center.
Rev. Jones said it costs about $15,000 — more than in-state tuition at most Ohio colleges — to send a child to a high-quality early-learning center in Ohio. HOPE Toledo’s pre-K program provides an average of about $6,000 in assistance per child, making the nonprofit a cash-intensive operation.
Vanice Williams, who owns First Light Child Care Center, said many parents can’t afford to work because of the high cost of child care. She said HOPE Toledo filled a gap in the income requirements and allowed working parents to receive assistance.
“I have parents that don’t qualify for many programs because they’re ... the working poor. They’re just over the limit, and they’re finding babysitters or just not working,” Ms. Williams said.
Ms. Williams is also a Toledo city councilman and has abstained from votes involving HOPE Toledo.
Rev. Jones said the return on investment for early childhood education shows up in the individual lives of students, but also to to the economic trickle-down that education has in the community.
“That return shows up in Mom and Dad being able to go to work. That return shows up in kids being ready to go to school and not utilizing resources,” Rev. Jones said. “For children who have access to high-quality early learning, they will do better as they enter kindergarten, as they do third-grade reading, as they do eighth-grade math, and ultimately they will graduate on time, which means they’ll be able to earn more money over their lifetime.”
A bridge to the ballot
The coronavirus pandemic, which Rev. Jones said killed the initial ballot initiative, ended up being the catalyst for HOPE Toledo’s pilot program. When $350 billion from the American Rescue Plan Act made its way to city and county governments, HOPE Toledo found enough extra funding from the local governments to start providing services for just more than 300 4-year-olds.
City council passed a plan to spend $180 million of its ARPA funds, which included $2.5 million for HOPE Toledo’s pre-K program over two years. The county commissioners similarly passed their plan, which committed $1.5 million to the program for the same period. The commissioners have also disbursed approximately $760,000 through the temporary assistance for needy families program.
Rev. Jones said those funds were always intended as a bridge to another attempt at a ballot initiative, but the timing of the ask was something that was uncertain. Initially, the organization hoped to ask voters for tax money in 2024, so it could continue the program without interruption.
“We knew at the end of 2024, which was just a few months ago, that if we didn’t raise any more money that we would run out,” Rev. Jones said. “We had to go and find a way to scale and sustain, and the only way to do that is through public investment.”
However, the organization was “encouraged” not to place its initiative on the 2024 ballot due to the amount of other organizations asking for taxpayer funding.
“We made a very conscious decision, as a board, to listen to what we were hearing from people in the community,” Rev. Jones said. “We had a conversation that said, if we are going to wait to go the ballot until 2025, then that means we need to do one of two things: raise money to clear this school year, get to the ballot, and then move forward; or we don’t do this school year, and still try to go to the ballot.”
The board decided to continue the program for the 2024-2025 school year but stop providing services in 2025-2026. The one-year hiatus would allow for the 2025 ballot initiative and some time for the proceeds to make its way into the nonprofit’s accounts.
‘Die on the vine’
As the organization continued to offer its services during the 2024-2025 school year, the money eventually ran dry. It returned to the city and county with a plea for $100,000 in additional funding each — not to continue offering services for another year, but to make up for missed payments to its pre-K providers.
HOPE Toledo approached Toledo City Council, which added the program’s $100,000 ask to its list of grants for youth engagement programming — allowing HOPE Toledo to bypass the application process alongside two other organizations: Connecting Kids to Meals and the local chapter of the NAACP. That funding was approved in March.
At the county, the organization’s leadership met more reluctance. During the meeting approving the $100,000 “bailout,” commissioners offered blunt criticisms, targeting not only the sustainability of HOPE Toledo, but also the corporate community, state legislators, and the governor’s office.
Mr. Gerken, who has been part of the nonprofit’s board for 10 months, said the program’s leadership was asking the governments to put in even more money so it “doesn’t die on the vine,” despite the city and county contributing the majority of its revenue.
“I’m disappointed that we got to this point at this time, in March, trying to pay bills that go back to January,” Mr. Gerken said during the meeting. “I’m going to do this because we need to pay people for their work — we need to support our kids. But this is not sustainable, this doesn’t help us for the next year. This is a Band-Aid.”
Lucas County Commissioner Lisa Sobecki expressed more pointed frustration with the corporate community, which she believes hasn’t followed through on their commitments to investing in early childhood education.
“I will put my money where my mouth is, but I will say: We need others at that table to start walking that walk that they have been talking about. Now is the time that they step up or shut up,” Ms. Sobecki said, before motioning to approve the funds.
However, Mr. Kadens said the commissioners’ tone in the meeting was patronizing, given that the $1.5 million in funding came from federal sources.
“I just frankly thought their stance in the last meeting was total [expletive],” Mr. Kadens said. “The money that you’ve given HOPE Toledo to this date was not your money. That money came through the federal government, through ARPA funds.
“The truth is, it’s going to take a comprehensive amount of sacrifice from our city, our state, our stakeholders, and our corporations to make this happen. And I know that’s hard, but don’t patronize me by telling me how hard it was to give this $100,000 because you already gave us so much money. It wasn’t your money,” Mr. Kadens continued.
‘Toledo ain’t raising $7 million a year’
Tight budgets in the city and county have left the organization looking for funding from companies and foundations to fill the gaps, but the hope for a pre-K program with a large amount of private funding is nearly as dim as it was when Mayor Kapszukiewicz pitched the idea to voters during his 2017 campaign.
“I love Toledo — I’ve been here all my life. But Toledo ain’t raising $7 million a year to do early childhood, not privately. It’s just not going to happen. So the public resources would be helpful to make that happen,” Rev. Jones said.
Mr. Kadens found that out early in his fund-raising campaign. In January, 2019, he announced the formation of the nonprofit, which would have a five-pronged approach to “Help Our Population Educate,” creating the acronym for the nonprofit.
He aimed to raise $60 million in private donations to sustain the first two prongs of the program for its first five years, with the goal of fighting poverty by expanding access to preschool and tuition-free college. The goal for its long-term operation was even more lofty, at $200 million.
Amid frustration with the lack of donors and little support, Mr. Kadens personally staked one of the five programs early, hoping to provoke interest by donors. In January, 2020, Mr. Kadens announced the HOPE Toledo Promise, which provided free tuition for Scott High School graduates and one of their parents for four and a half years.
Mr. Kadens still says he is disappointed by the lack of support in HOPE Toledo has experienced since its inception.
“I’m frustrated. I’m unnerved. I wish the results were different, but look, I believe and I hope that at some point the city and its overseers and its stakeholders will get the message that if we don’t invest in these kids, this community will continue to struggle and suffer,” Mr. Kadens said.
The HOPE Toledo Promise ended with the class of 2022, sending its last of three cohorts to Ohio colleges. Rev. Jones said the program ran out of money, and no other donors stepped up to extend the promise to future classes. HOPE Toledo has graduated 31 parents and students, and about 125 will graduate this year, according to Rev. Jones.
However, Mr. Kadens said the work that HOPE Toledo has done in the community should still be celebrated.
“Two things can be true at the same time: One, this can be an organization that’s struggling and has financial challenges, and, two, it can also be an organization that’s doing the most important work in the city of Toledo,” Mr. Kadens said. “I’m really proud of what John [Jones] and this team has done, and I’m proud of how many families the organization has supported over the years.”
‘The little engine that couldn’t’
HOPE Toledo’s chances of making it back onto the ballot have become increasingly slim. Rev. Jones said the general assembly does not seem likely to amend the Ohio Revised Code to explicitly allow early childhood education nonprofits to request a levy on the ballot, despite lobbying by the commissioners and Rev. Jones himself.
The provision in state law is the same one that allows organizations like the Imagination Station, the Toledo Zoo, and libraries to request levies be placed on the ballot. According to Rev. Jones, there is nothing in the code that explicitly allows early childhood organizations to tax citizens.
Rev. Jones said their organization believes the county commissioners have the authority to ask taxpayers on behalf of HOPE Toledo, but the nonprofit’s legal opinion is at odds with the county prosecutor, who believes the commissioners do not have the authority to seek a levy on its behalf.
As long as those two legal opinions are at odds, Mr. Gerken said he plans to lean on the advice of the county prosecutor. That means without an opinion from the state permitting the commissioners to seek a levy for the nonprofit, or state legislators amending the Ohio Revised Code, the path to the ballot appears to be blocked.
“It’s just not a sustainable model, and we tried to make it work. It’s like the little engine that couldn’t — we chugged up the hill as far as we could, but we need a push,” Mr. Gerken said.
First Published April 12, 2025, 11:00 a.m.
