California schools are getting a new grade: Here’s what changes and how it will affect you

If there were ever a time to expand free early education for California children, this might be it.

Teacher Shannon Faltermier sees the need every day in her transitional kindergarten classroom at Thomas Kelly Elementary School in Carmichael, where 4-year-olds raised during the coronavirus pandemic seem to be a bit behind the students she remembers from before COVID-19.

Only two of her 23 students attended preschool prior to her class. Because young children were socializing less, their social skills are lacking, she said. She’s slowed down the pace, teaching children how to ask a question, or how to ask to use the bathroom.

“Kids need to know their letters and sounds and how to hold a pencil,” Faltermier said. “And just as important, they need the social skills that prepare them for learning.”

Next fall, tens of thousands more California 4-year-olds will have opportunities to attend class through a phased expansion of the state’s transitional kindergarten program. By fall 2025, all California 4-year-olds will be eligible for the program, a change that both helps prepare children for elementary school and gives parents a break on daycare expenses.

The $2.7 billion expansion, signed into law in 2021 by Gov. Gavin Newsom, essentially adds another grade to elementary school. Schools are getting ready now by identifying space and making plans to hire credentialed teachers for the program.

The new law will grant access to free schooling to more than 260,000 additional students when the program is fully implemented over a four year period.

Parents are doing the math to calculate when their toddler will become eligible for the program.

Today, kids who turn 5 between Sept. 2 and Feb. 2 can attend state-funded transitional kindergarten.

In the next school year, the age group expands to birthdays between Sept. 2 and April 2. Another batch of birthdays between Sept. 2 and June 2 opens up in fall 2024 before the state achieves full universal transitional kindergarten in 2025.

“This is a big win for families who can’t afford preschool,” said Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, who wrote the bill expanding transitional kindergarten. “We have state-funded preschool, but there is an income threshold. You are too rich to get the free preschool but too poor to pay $2,000 a month. Now parents can do a free TK program and pay a little bit of money for after school care.”

But it’s not just daycare savings. Parents say they’re excited for their children to start class earlier, too.

Sacramento parents want TK

For some parents, the program, which could save them thousands of dollars in childcare, couldn’t come soon enough.

Michelle Leung said she wishes her 4-year-old daughter could attend transitional kindergarten, especially given that her 10-year-old son’s school has a program already in place. But Leung’s daughter was born in the month of April, and is not quite eligible for the program.

So Leung enrolled her daughter in a daycare program that cost her $1,150 each month. She has since moved centers and now pays nearly $400 each month for her daughter’s Folsom preschool program which runs three hours a day, four days a week.

Leung said the savings could go a long way.

“Maybe we can eat out more,” Leung said. “Food costs increased so much and it will definitely help with grocery costs as well.”

Connie Bi-On, a former teacher in Elk Grove Unified, said she is keeping a close eye on the program and what it will offer her son, who turned 3 in November.

“I’m doing what I can to make sure my son is getting a good quality education from me at home, but it would be great for him to join a high-quality program outside of the home,” Bi-On said of her son, who was born in November. 2019. “He’s getting consistent socialization with peers and that’s an important part of development at this age.”

Transitional kindergarten won’t be mandatory. Neither is kindergarten.

But for many parents, the program brings excitement.

Karina Riley of Folsom said she is happy her son missed the kindergarten enrollment deadline of Sept 1. Both Riley and her husband were born in November. She started school a year “late,” her husband started “early,” sparking a discussion between them as to how to decide when to enroll their son.

“We both had different views on when we would start our son who would be born in the fall, before we realized the deadline had changed,” she said.

Riley said she is concerned about the disparities between 4- and 5-year-olds who started classes and those who didn’t.

“That discrepancy will only continue as they grow and I’m hopeful that TK will highlight the importance of investing in our children’s future with their early education,” Riley said, adding that the program “will hopefully also benefit our children from low-income families to begin school sooner with childcare being as expensive as it is.”

Additional funding goes a long way

Faltermier of Thomas Kelly Elementary has been teaching transitional kindergarten for 11 years in San Juan Unified.

The district doubled the number of school sites that offer transitional kindergarten in recent years. Approximately 435 students are enrolled in transitional kindergarten this year at 21 school sites across the district.

Seven of those sites are full-day programs, and 14 are half-day programs that serve students for about four hours each day. Without a lunch break, the four-hour programs offer about the same instructional minutes as the full-day program, said Thomas Kelly Principal Josh Costa.

Additional funding will help subsidize after school care is also available for working parents who choose to enroll their children in longer school days. McCarty said some of the funds will be spent on retrofitting classrooms at some schools and purchasing additional portables on other campuses.

Faltermier’s class is filled with puzzles, worksheets and activities that teach fine-motor skills.

“Kindergarten is more academic now, because of the requirements,” Faltermier said. “We make sure they know their letters and sounds by the end of the year. It’s just not paper and crayons.”

Like many other teachers, Faltermeir spent thousands of dollars on classroom supplies, and countless hours applying for grant money.

Years ago, Faltermier was the only teacher in a classroom filled with 31 children. With the additional state funding, Faltermier now has two aides, bringing down her student-teacher ratio and creating a pipeline of future transitional kindergarten teachers to meet the demand across the state.

Classrooms after COVID-19

The pandemic deeply affected kindergarten readiness programs, according to National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers Graduate School of Education. Across the country, 71% of 4-year-old children attended preschool programs prior to the pandemic, but in the 2020-21 school year, preschool participation dropped to 54%. Children in low-income families had the lowest participation numbers at 14% attendance.

Like many other teachers, Faltermier sees a difference between her students today and years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Her students now are taking six months longer to acquire some skills.

Children grab toys from the bin, and hurry to a corner to play alone. Faltermier reminds them to make eye contact when speaking. Several children are not potty trained fully, and after years of staying home many children struggle using a public restroom.

That preparation goes a long way to make them ready for kindergarten. When transitional kindergarten is universally implemented in California schools, the state can collect reliable data to measure how access to the program affects student achievement.

Research shows early education is crucial for student success. Students are less likely to be placed in special education services, less likely to face retention in school, and gain an abundance of maturity and skills to excel, according to experts, like Deborah Stipek, former dean and professor at Stanford University School of Education.

“I noticed such a growth in my oldest when she went to TK, and originally I was totally against it,” Rancho Cordova parent Christine Tran said.

Tran’s daughter was academically advanced, so she tried to test her daughter out of transitional kindergarten, an option many schools offer to families. But her daughter’s shy personality signaled to the transitional kindergarten teacher that she was not socially ready for kindergarten.

“I reluctantly (agreed), and it was the best decision I ever made,” Tran said, adding that in the hours she volunteered in her daughter’s class, she saw just how helpful the program was for her daughter.

“TK really preps them for kindergarten, school structure, and introduction to sight words, and a lot of time with the teacher,” Tran said.

The benefits of transitional kindergarten are most apparent in low-income students and English language learners.

Studies from the American Institute for Research show that students learning English who attended transitional kindergarten had stronger math and literacy skills than English learners who didn’t attend those classes.

While transitional kindergarten is optional for children in California, Faltermier witnesses firsthand how much children improve in her classroom.

“They will be going into kindergarten with skills like how to color a picture, they will know their sounds,” she said. “We make sure they have a strong foundation so they go to kindergarten ready to learn.”

This story was originally published December 14, 2022 at 5:00 AM.