This was California’s moment to transform education.” They are dealing with multiple factors and trying to find staff and prepping classrooms for preschool-age children,” said Neville-Morgan, who leads the Opportunities for All Branch, which oversees the early learning and care, multilingual support and special education divisions. “We can completely see and understand they are feeling the pressure. In addition, she said her department worked directly with school districts, provided plan templates and strategized with districts about how best to expand their transitional kindergarten classes even before the guidance was released in February. We are competing for the same teachers and that is a concern.” Noemy Salas, senior director of Early Childhood Education Programs for the Chula Vista Elementary School DistrictĮducation Deputy Superintendent Sarah Neville-Morgan said the districts had all of last year to plan for the expansion, and the multi-year rollout gives them several years to grow to meet full demand. Once they had the guidance, districts had to seek approval for their plans from local boards of education by June 2022 for a fall start date. The California Education Department did not release guidelines for how to implement the expansion of transitional kindergarten until February of this year. We are competing for the same teachers and that is a concern.” “TK is a great opportunity for students and beneficial for families as well, but the rollout is so fast that I don’t know that we have all the staffing and workforce available to meet the needs,” said Noemy Salas, senior director of Early Childhood Education Programs for the Chula Vista Elementary School District, in San Diego County. The scramble to find staff is also creating a domino effect on child care programs and preschools whose teachers are ideal candidates for higher-paying transitional kindergarten classrooms. Now districts are worried about finding qualified teachers for the next few years of the expansion. This year, some districts were able to meet most of their needs by moving teachers who were doing other jobs, including subbing, running reading programs or teaching other grades. Statewide, districts need thousands of teachers and aides to staff transitional kindergarten classes throughout the four-year rollout of the expansion. School districts had to make plans for implementing the new grade, hire teachers and aides and find classrooms for the new students.īy far, staffing has been the largest challenge for districts. That’s not much time, especially during a pandemic and in the midst of a dire teacher shortage. The state gave school districts only 13 months to prepare for the first wave of the expansion, which began this school year. Gavin Newsom announced a $2.7 billion initiative to expand transitional kindergarten to all 4-year-olds. But amidst a teacher shortage, some school districts had to move teachers already on staff or lure staff away from preschool programs. This school year the California transitional kindergarten program began expanding to eventually include all 4-year-olds.
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