Category: Transitional Kindergarten
Chronic absences in early grades linked to higher risk of district transfers, study shows
Top Takeaways Chronic absences could be an “early warning signal” of student mobility. In grades K-3, Black students and students […]
February 25, 2026
Clarifying transitional kindergarten’s curriculum keeps kids playing
Top Takeaways The definition for transitional kindergarten would no longer include “modified kindergarten curriculum.” Early education experts herald the proposed […]
February 18, 2026
Call for sustained funding for California’s UPK program
Transitional kindergarten teacher Claudia Herrera shows a chart to preschool student Kaitleen Hernandez-Garcia. Sarah Tully, EdSource This fall, California achieved […]
January 6, 2026
EdSource’s Best of 2025: Our favorite Education Beat podcast episodes
Credits: Zaidee Stavely/EdSource; Lasherica Thornton/EdSource; GoFundMe; Palo Alto Unified; and Becca Esquivel Makris. EdSource’s “Education Beat” podcast gets to the […]
December 30, 2025
Lessons from Nixon’s veto in California’s UPK rollout
San Francisco’s UPK Mixed Delivery Working Group convening in Fall 2025 brought together child care providers, educators, policymakers and parents […]
December 23, 2025
California rethinks how to identify 4-year-olds who need extra help learning English
Top Takeaways The state superintendent of public instruction has until March 31 to approve screening tools that will be required […]
October 28, 2025
‘Can you come wipe me?’: Younger 4-year-olds pose new challenges for TK
Top Takeaways State guidelines are vague and leave it to local districts to determine how to help students who need […]
August 29, 2025
TK, Head Start, preschool and more: What’s the difference?
The Cruz family has experienced two sides of a prekindergarten journey: one that transitions from preschool into kindergarten and one […]
August 29, 2025
Finding the ideal TK teacher: A challenge of credentials and preschool experience
Top Takeaways As California expands transitional kindergarten for all 4-year-olds, districts struggle to find teachers with both early education expertise […]
August 28, 2025
Inside transitional kindergarten: Where play, curiosity and early learning meet
When Krystyna Kalishevskyi emigrated from Ukraine with her family last year, she had experienced more trauma and fear than a […]
August 27, 2025
California expands TK, but thousands of 4-year-olds remain unenrolled
The number of students enrolled in TK has grown each year, but it is still far less than the number […]
August 27, 2025
Advocacy group leader talks about the challenges of transitional kindergarten
Michael Olenick has spent his life pondering the preschool years. His mother, a childhood development professor, was one of the […]
June 23, 2025
Transitional kindergarten comes of age in California
Top Takeaways Transitional kindergarten, or TK, becomes available to all 4-year-olds in the fall. Smaller child-to-staff ratios, 10-to-1, are slated […]
May 21, 2025