PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. Florida pays for free pre-K for 150,195 four-year-olds at 6,240 providers, and church-run preschools are written into the law that makes it work. That is why the Catholic preschool case the Supreme Court heard on Tuesday matters here, even though it comes out of Colorado.
We read Florida’s statewide VPK provider contract, the document every private provider signs. Its discrimination section ties providers to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which covers race, color and national origin. It does not list religion, sexual orientation or gender identity. Colorado’s preschool agreement lists all three, and that list is what kept the Archdiocese of Denver’s preschools out of the state program and put St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy in front of the justices.
What Florida’s VPK contract actually says
Section 1002.55 of the Florida Statutes names the kinds of private providers that can offer VPK. The list includes a “faith-based child care provider exempt from licensure under s. 402.316.” It also includes accredited child development programs that operate “on a military installation,” so base child care centers can take part too. The school-year program runs at least 540 instructional hours.
The statewide provider contract, Form DEL-VPK 20 (February 2023), sets the rules once a provider is in. Paragraph 53 says the provider agrees to follow “the antidiscrimination requirements of 42 U.S.C. s. 2000d,” whether or not it receives federal money. It bars refusing to admit a child “in violation of” those requirements. That federal law opens with the words “on the ground of race, color, or national origin,” and those are the categories it covers.
We found nothing in the statute or the contract that tells a church preschool whom it must enroll based on a family’s beliefs about marriage or sex. Other laws can still apply in some cases. But the state’s own VPK paperwork is far narrower than Colorado’s, and the enrollment numbers come from the Florida Department of Education’s 2024-25 VPK data packet.
How the Colorado program ended up in court
Colorado voters approved Proposition EE in 2020, and the state launched universal preschool in 2023. Families get up to 15 free hours a week in the year before kindergarten, worth more than $6,000 a year, CBS News reported. The state estimates about 40,000 eligible children and nearly 2,000 providers, religious ones among them.
Every school must sign an agreement to give children “an equal opportunity to enroll.” It covers race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and other traits. The Archdiocese of Denver oversees 34 Catholic preschools that enroll families who line up with church teaching on marriage and sexuality, according to CBS. The archdiocese asked for an exemption and Colorado said no. The archdiocese, two parishes and two parents sued, and a federal district court and the 10th Circuit both sided with the state. The Supreme Court took the case, No. 25-581, in April.
What the justices signaled on Nov. 3
A majority seemed ready to say Colorado’s exclusion has to face strict scrutiny, the toughest test in constitutional law, SCOTUSblog’s Amy Howe reported. Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted that only 34 schools were affected in a program with about 2,000 and asked why the state wouldn’t “seek the win/win.” Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked why Colorado could set a condition that some schools “will be unable to agree to.”
Chief Justice John Roberts said the effect of Colorado’s rule was “pretty much the same” as the Maine tuition law the Court struck down in Carson v. Makin in 2022. Justice Samuel Alito pointed to Colorado’s earlier losses at the Court in cases involving a baker, a website designer and a counselor.
The strongest case for Colorado
Colorado Deputy Solicitor General Helen Norton told the Court that “Colorado welcomes religious preschools” and asks them only to follow the same rules as every other school that takes public money. Justice Elena Kagan said Carson and similar cases involved laws that singled out religious schools, while Colorado’s rule applies to everyone. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson told the archdiocese’s lawyer, Nicholas Reaves of the Becket Fund, that his schools “want to discriminate by exclusion.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor pressed the hardest question: if this rule falls, could a religious preschool turn away Black children? Florida’s contract already answers that one for its own program. Race is exactly what Title VI covers, and every VPK provider, church-run or not, signs on to it.
What a ruling could change for Florida VPK faith-based providers
A decision is expected by the end of June 2027. If the Catholic schools win, a future Florida governor or Legislature would have a much harder time adding a Colorado-style condition to VPK. If Colorado wins, states keep more room to attach broad nondiscrimination terms to preschool money, and Florida’s narrower contract stays a policy choice that Tallahassee could change.
The scope of the opinion matters as much as the winner. A narrow ruling about Colorado’s exemptions and matching preferences would say little about other states. A broad ruling on Carson would reach every state that pays private preschools. We flagged the term’s other big fights in our Supreme Court term preview, and more church-and-state coverage lives on our Faith page, including the federal report on banks that cut off customers over faith and politics.
I’m a faith guy, and I want churches in the room when the state hands out pre-K money, not pushed out the door. Justice Kavanaugh asked the question I’d ask: with about 2,000 schools in the program, why couldn’t Colorado find a way for 34 Catholic preschools and every family to get what they need? Florida’s contract shows a state can protect kids from racial discrimination and still leave room for churches. What I’m watching in June is whether the Court says that in plain words a church preschool director can actually use.
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Rocci J. Stucci is the founder and CEO of Stucci Media and host of The Rocci Stucci Show.
