The little boy clung to his mother as she carried him through the wooden half-door of the preschool classroom on Tuesday morning. Tears streamed down his face. It was going to be a tough drop-off.
While other children finished bananas, raisin bagels, and milk, Vraja Johnson, the lead teacher, ushered the mother and son toward a cozy corner in the back of the classroom. She spoke softly in English and Spanish to the nervous preschooler. Several minutes later, when his mother had slipped away, the boy nestled into a large blue beanbag, clutching Tucker the Turtle, a stuffed animal that helps preschoolers understand that it’s OK to retreat into your shell — and to come back out when you’re ready.
It was the first day of preschool in the Otters’ classroom at El Nidito, a bilingual child care program at The Family Center in Fort Collins. The little boy and his 11 classmates are among 40,000 children enrolled in Colorado’s universal preschool program this year. The $349 million program offers tuition-free preschool — typically a half day — to all children in the year before kindergarten…