LA’s Public Preschool Initiative….A Timeline

To understand the ecosystem of public early childhood education here in Los Angeles, you have to first understand where the system began...

2012

The Transitional Kindergarten systems lauches in CA! This change occurred in response to new guidelines that altered the cutoff for students to start school in the state.

Until 2012, children who were 4 years old on Sept. 1 were eligible to start kindergarten as long as they turned 5 by Dec. 2 of that year. However, the cutoff then changed, and children had to be 5 by September 1 to enroll in kindergarten. This left about 100,000 children having to wait an extra year to start school. Transitional kindergarten was originally created to serve these 4-year-olds, the ones who would have previously been eligible for kindergarten. According to Edsource, teachers referred to these students as “the fall babies.”

2020

The pandemic hits, and T.K. enrollment statewide drops significantly.

2022-23

The Transitional Kindergarten system begins its expansion with the goal of serving all students who will be four by September 1 of the year they wish to start school.

2024-25

LAUSD recently announced that 2-4 4-year-olds are eligible to attend LAUSD early education centers regardless of income. (There were income limits on this program previously.

Now that we are all caught up, it is important to point out that from 2020 onward LAUSD’s public TK program has seen success but early childhood education programs have consistently been underattended. According to reporting by LAist, they have been around 70 percent full. We do not yet know what the program will now look like under the districts new decision to allow families from all economic backgrounds.

Sources:

https://laist.com/news/education/early-childhood-education-pre-k/california-preschool-program-lausd-under-capacity-higher-income

https://edsource.org/2022/10-things-california-parents-should-know-about-transitional-kindergarten/682477

https://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/ad/csppenrollmentagency.asp

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-07-24/child-care-industry-in-tailspin-as-transitional-kindergarten-expands