Can California's Universal Transitional Kindergarten Plan Make the Grade?

KQED's Forum

KQED

News Commentary, News, Politics

4.2 • 727 Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2024

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

California set an ambitious goal of making transitional kindergarten universal by fall of 2025. TK was originally created for kids born in the fall who were too young to enroll in kindergarten. Now, state leaders want to make it accessible to any 4-year-old. That means adding a whole new grade to all of the state’s elementary schools within a five year period that started in 2021. The rollout has come with a plethora of challenges from a shortage of classroom space to a lack of qualified teachers to logistical headaches for parents. We’ll look at how California’s $2.7 billion expansion of TK is going. Guests: Elly Yu, senior reporter, LAist Daisy Nguyen, early childhood education and care reporter, KQED Hanna Melnick, senior policy advisor and director of early learning policy, Learning Policy Institute Blanca Torres, producer and reporter, KQED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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1:39.2	Coming up on Forum, will every California family that wants to enroll their four-year-old in transitional kindergarten be able to next fall?
1:45.1	That's the goal the state set a few years ago, to make a new grade level before kindergarten, universal, by the 2025-26 school year.
1:49.2	But some school districts are struggling to hire enough teachers and staff or secure the
1:53.4	needed classroom space, while some parents are finding the program inaccessible or inconvenient.
1:59.6	We take a closer look at how California's ambitious expansion of TK is going.
2:04.6	That's next on Forum.
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