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This story was originally published on CalMatters.

Almost 20 years ago a San Diego nonprofit created a preschool to focus on the “little guys” — children who experience domestic violence and other serious traumatic events before kindergarten.

Today, Mi Escuelita is still going strong and it’s something of a model in showing other schools how to address childhood trauma.

Mi Escuelita provides services for kids in a single location that for most other families would require intricate coordination among multiple health care providers, educators and social programs.

The children learn in a classroom that is always staffed with at least one therapist, they participate in one-on-one therapy, and join group therapy sessions. Their parents take part in special classes, too, where they learn ways to support their children.

Researchers from UC San Diego have paid close attention to Mi Escuelita and followed how its graduates fared after leaving the preschool. The university also works with the school to evaluate outcomes from each cohort of students. Here are four takeaways from those reports.
The kids leave ready for kindergarten

Students who graduate from Mi Escuelia outperform or do at least well as their peers in kindergarten, according to a UC San Diego analysis of their scores in reading and math tests.

It looked at kindergarten students in the Chula Vista Elementary School District from 2007 to 2013 and found a higher percentage of Mi Escuelita met math, reading and writing standards than the district’s general population.

That’s not a given because research shows that children exposed to domestic violence have lower verbal ability than their peers, which can set them back in school.

And they do well for years

The length of UC San Diego’s study allowed its team to follow Mi Escuelita graduates through fifth grade. The results suggested that their preschool experience helped the kids throughout their childhoods.

Their average scores on several standardized tests exceeded those of the general population at Chula Vista Elementary School District, especially in math.

“Taken together, the Mi Escuelita program demonstrates clear benefits to children who may otherwise fall quickly and unsparingly behind with regard to school readiness,” the UC San Diego researchers wrote.

Better relationships at home

Some families turn to Mi Escuelita in moments of distress, such as after experiencing domestic violence. The preschool provides counseling for parents and students alike, which may contribute to behavioral improvements at home.

Over the past five years, 64% of the families in the program reported sensing fewer conflicts and 83% of them noticed an increase in closeness.

“Families reported that children’s communication, behavior, and listening skills improved both at home and at school,” a UC San Diego team wrote in an evaluation of student and parent surveys that spanned 2020 to 2024.

It takes a village

Running Mi Escuelita costs about $1.3 million a year, a sum that nonprofit South Bay Community Services raises through a mix of donations and government funding. That cost — along with the challenge of hiring trained educators and therapists — makes the program difficult to replicate.

But, other schools and government agencies are watching Mi Escuelita to see what kind of services they can carry over to other venues.

“We can spend less later on intervention programs and alternative facilities,” said Hilaria Bauer, chief early learning services officer at Kidango, a Bay Area nonprofit childcare provider. “There will be less truancy, less big behaviors or expulsions or alternative programs, and all of those ‘fix’ initiatives if we really focus on the time in the life of a child that really makes a change.”