There’s currently one type of preschool offered in the San Bruno Park Elementary School District — part day.

Many parents Director Pauahi McGinn serves have multiple jobs. A full-day program would benefit the child but also help the parent succeed, she explained. When McGinn requested applications to fund a full-day program, she learned it would require a different kind of contract, with a different way of reporting, in addition to other increased paperwork.

“It’s the paperwork that holds it up,” she said.

Even though the community she serves needs the extended program, McGinn could not afford the extra costs of accounting and clerical work for the various state-run agencies.

Those problems are aimed to be streamlined through Assembly Bill 2759 known as the California State Preschool Program Act of 2008, backed by Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento. Currently, California has five child development programs for preschool-aged children: State Preschool, Full-Day State Preschool, Prekindergarten and Family Literacy, Prekindergarten and Family Literacy Full-Day and General Child Care and Development Programs. Each requires similar information presented in different ways. The clerical work would be streamlined by the bill allowing programs like McGinn’s to expand. It will be heard by the Assembly Appropriations Committee today.

Those benefits would be felt locally by preschool operators who said the time saved could go into other areas like supporting the program, teachers, parents and improving curriculum.

Gloria Marshall, executive director of Creative Montessori in East Palo Alto, has contracts with two different agencies at the state level and two others at the county level.

“AB 2759 would immensely reduce my paperwork, make more sense regarding eligibility requirements for parents, allow my program to better suit children’s needs by not forcing kids to change classrooms mid-year, and possibly we would be able to serve more kids,” she said.

Additionally, she said the bill will allow legislators to begin looking at preschool programs as a whole instead of individual programs.

In San Mateo County over 3,220 children ages 0 to 12 are affected by state-subsidized programs. A majority of those students are preschool age, according to the San Mateo County Office of Education.