The folks at the North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law have posted an in-depth look at the legal landscape surrounding pre-kindergarten in North Carolina. In this introduction, NCICL sets the stage for the analysis.

Over the years, North Carolina courts have interpreted the North Carolina Constitution to require the State to provide children attending public schools the “opportunity to attain a sound basic education.”  The courts recognized that some children were not being given that opportunity, specifically “at-risk” children entering kindergarten. As a result, the constitutionally mandated “opportunity to attain a sound basic education” morphed into a requirement that the State provide “at-risk” children with access to pre-kindergarten[2] because a State funded pre-kindergarten (formerly More at Four and now NC Pre-K) was deemed the only method developed by the State to address at-risk children entering kindergarten.  This requirement grew from the landmark decision in Leandro and its progeny.