Photo by Kevin Jarrett

Photograph by Kevin Jarrett

UPDATE:  The State Board rejected all requests for waivers from Transitional Kindergarten. See this EdSource "Quick Striking" for more details.

Gov. Jerry Chocolate-brown's attempt to eliminate funding for Transitional Kindergarten created so much confusion that a handful of school districts sought waivers from it out of fright they would have to comport the cost of the programme.

The State Lath of Instruction will consider those waiver requests at its meeting today, fifty-fifty though TK, as it is commonly referred to in the field, survived the governor's attempt to de-fund the new program, making the districts' concerns moot. The California Department of Education has recommended that the State Lath turn down all of the waivers.

Transitional Kindergarten is essentially a second year of kindergarten that's geared toward younger children, the kids with fall birthdays.  They often struggle in regular kindergarten, which has become more academic in contempo years due to increased emphasis on preparing even the youngest students for the world of high-stakes testing and accountability.

Nine school districts and a charter school in Riverside County have asked to filibuster implementation of TK for one year. They range in size from the 5,600-student Perris Elementary School District to Moreno Valley Unified, with more than 36,000 students.

As the similar language in their waiver requests illustrates, district officials met with each other over the past few months to discuss the state of affairs.

"Nosotros do not have the resource to pay for these costs upwardly front end without a guarantee of receiving ADA for the Transitional Kindergarten students," wrote Hemet Unified School District. "The commune does not have the fiscal resource to pay for the expenses of the program without a guarantee of receiving ADA funding for the Transitional Kindergarten students," maintained Moreno Valley Unified in its appeal to the Section of Education. (ADA refers to state tuition payments based on educatee attendance.)

Val Verde Unified Assistant superintendent Michelle Richardson said district officials were planning on flying upwardly to Sacramento today to plead their case, until they learned that the California Department of Pedagogy recommended rejection of all nine waivers. Richardson said they always intended to run TK, but sought a waiver because they were concerned they didn't take enough time to develop a high-quality program past the start of the school yr.

"Hither'south what happened. When all of the insanity ensued in Sacramento and it was on and it was off, it was on and it was off, we followed the governor maxim it was off. And so the Legislature said yes, but we lost time," Richardson explained.

Funding Defoliation

Several other districts are proverb they are no longer pursuing the waivers at present that coin for Transitional Kindergarten has been approved.  Nevertheless, since they did not officially withdraw the requests, the State Lath must still vote on them.

"Nosotros're not pursuing the waiver anymore," said Martinrex Kedziora, banana superintendent of Moreno Valley Unified School Commune. "The waiver was due to fiscal uncertainty." Kedziora said the district never had whatsoever issues with the idea of TK; in fact, they support it. "Anytime you give kids more opportunity in schoolhouse they exercise better," he said. "I tin can't look for it to brainstorm."

Temecula Valley Unified got tangled in the same misunderstanding over funding. Andree Grey, the director of curriculum educational activity and cess, said when they applied for the waiver "it was during the time when at that place was so much turmoil about funding, nosotros applied for the waiver just on that unknown situation that was happening." Since and so, the commune has enrolled 61 students in TK and handed out paperwork to another 86 families.

The future of TK was thrown into the wind earlier this year when Gov. Brown recommended eliminating funding for it in his 2012-13 budget proposal. Even though the program will serve kids who would otherwise be in regular kindergarten, the governor eyed cutting the $132 million that would move from kindergarten to TK to help fix the budget deficit.

Over the next few months, as it became clear that the Legislature wasn't interested in killing the program, Gov. Brown offered weekly variations. Lawmakers finally concluded the discussion last calendar month when they approved a country budget that includes funding for Transitional Kindergarten.

The Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2010, or Senate Bill 1381, authored past Democratic State Senator Joe Simitian of Palo Alto, raised the historic period for admission to kindergarten and required school districts to establish Transitional Kindergarten for the estimated 125,000 children who would no longer exist eligible for regular kindergarten.

The neb phases in the new age requirements over three years. For the upcoming 2012-thirteen schoolhouse yr, children will take to turn five by Nov 1 to enroll in kindergarten. The following year it moves to Oct ane, so up to September 1 for 2014-15 and on. Until and so, California had one of the latest kindergarten cutoff dates in the country, allowing children to enroll fifty-fifty if they wouldn't turn five until December ii of that school year.

Simitian is hoping to stave off any more confusion past going before the Land Board today to explain the specifics of the bill to members and to school district officials, some of whom, according to the Department of Educational activity, are however submitting waiver requests.

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