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Burlington school board approves higher early-childhood tuition effective Dec. 1
Summary
The Burlington Community School District board approved new early-childhood weekly tuition rates at a special meeting Oct. 30, 2025, citing rising staff salaries and operating costs and saying no current grants are available to offset the increases. Families will be notified by mail or the districts ParentSquare app.
The Burlington Community School District board on Oct. 30 voted to raise early-childhood tuition rates, with the new fees taking effect Dec. 1, 2025.
A district staff member told the board the early-childhood program is funded separately from the districts K-12 budget and that "we are gonna need to raise the rates" because of higher employee salaries and increased operating costs. The staff member presented the rates the board approved: $265 per week for 1- and 2-year-olds, $255 per week for 3-year-olds, $130 per week for 3-year-old preschool-only enrollment, and $245 per week for full-day 4-year-old preschool childcare. (These figures correct obvious numeric transcription errors in the meeting record.)
Director Brian Ross moved to approve the December tuition schedule and Director Anderson seconded the motion. The board decided the matter by voice vote; the chair called for ayes, heard no opposition or abstentions and announced the motion passed.
Board members and staff discussed how families will be informed about the increase. The staff member said a notice would go to families either by mail or through the districts ParentSquare app and confirmed the notice had been emailed to board members earlier that morning. The staff member also said that start-up grants that helped launch the program "have kind of decreased over the years" and that no current grants are available for ongoing support; the district has a full-time grants employee who would apply if funds become available.
When asked on the record, the staff member invited community members to contact the district with information about grants or contributions, saying, "If anybody listening today at noon, if they wanna send us some money or tell us about a grant, we'd all we'd be all for it." The board took no additional actions tied to outside funding at the meeting.
The board subsequently moved and seconded a motion to adjourn and ended the special session.
Clarifying details: The meeting transcript contained typographic errors in the quoted weekly rates (for example, a line showing "$2.55 a week"). The article reports corrected, normalized weekly amounts based on the pattern of numbers the presenter read aloud; the transcript evidence for the rate amounts appears at the meeting record between 00:01:11 and 00:01:41. The notice-to-families method was described in the meeting as mail and ParentSquare; parts of the transcript about the districts billing portal were unclear and therefore are not specified here.
