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How should the local school district deal with “young fives,” children who don’t make the birthday cut-off to enroll in kindergarten?
The Mountain View Whisman School District’s board of trustees was set to meet Thursday, April 19, to figure out how best to move forward with its transitional kindergarten program, which will open next year.
Transitional kindergarten aims to help children with late-in-the-year birthdays better adjust to public school by placing them in a class with a curriculum that strikes a balance between preschool and kindergarten.
There are two main options, said Mary Lairon, associate superintendent of MVWSD. The first is to keep the younger, “transitional kindergartners” in an entirely separate class from the older kindergartners. The other option is to mix the two groups.
At the moment, Lairon isn’t firmly in favor of one over the other. “I can see advantages and disadvantages to both models,” she said.
Grouping the children together is the most efficient option and opens the possibility for the younger students to model the behavior of older boys and girls, who would presumably be more mature. The flip side to that coin is that if the younger students are more restless, they might draw their older peers into mischief.
Separating the groups could make the teachers’ jobs a bit more manageable, Lairon said, and ensure that the instructors are able to better concentrate on each child’s educational and developmental needs. However, it does eliminate some of the benefits of the mixed model, while also raising the potential that the district would need to hire additional staff and run more classrooms, depending on how many of each group enroll in the fall.
The concept of a transitional course from pre-school to kindergarten has been around for some time, but lately, it has become a buzzword among California educators. In 2010, state legislators passed the Kindergarten Readiness Act, in an effort to address the issue of children entering kindergarten before they were ready for the public school setting.
The act will eventually move the kindergarten enrollment cut off date up from Dec. 2 to Sept. 1, and require all elementary schools in the state to offer transitional kindergarten to all students born between Sept. 2 and Dec. 2.
School districts throughout the state have a few years to fully implement the new cutoff date. MVWSD plans to move the date back by one month incrementally each school year. In the 2012-13 session, the district will begin accepting transitional kindergartners born between Dec. 2 and Nov. 2.
Transitional kindergarten is not a requirement, so, if parents feel a child is not ready for school, they don’t have to send them, even if they are eligible. And a district is not required to put a transitional kindergarten class at every school if it doesn’t make sense logistically.
If the district were to go with the grouping option, Lairon and other school administrators have proposed putting one transitional kindergarten class at both Castro and Theuerkauf.
Should the trustees find the grouped transitional kindergarten and kindergarten classes to be a better option, administrators have suggested establishing these combination classes at multiple campuses yet to be determined.
What happens to the transitional Kindergarteners the following year? Do they go to regular Kindergarten where then they become the older kids, or do they go to first grade,where it seems they are still an age/developmental step behind?
sounds like a plan not fully thought out…. Idea probably hatched by Educational Researchers and pushed by Teacher’s union…. My extended family (cousins) were all born in Jan/feb or Nov/Dec… Both ends of the spectrum…We went to school based on calendar are (before Dec 2 cut offs). We all turned out well…..
Transitional Kindergarten = wasted money in Calif….
They go to regular Kindergarten. Overall, Transitional Kindergarten is an additional year of school.
Let’s call it “pre-K” then. In that case it sounds unfair – some kids will get state-sponsored pre-K while others do not.
PS – I was a Fall baby who struggled in the early years learning to read, but I eventually caught up. Somewhere in junior high school (as it was called back then) I hit my stride and ended up in the top half of the class. I think middle school is a more problematic area where more money could be spent keeping kids from giving up too soon and going down paths towards risky behavior.
The new law makes perfect sense. Read on~
http://www.senatorsimitian.com/entry/sb_1381_kindergarten_age/
It is the uncertainty of state funding that puts the school districts in a limbo. For now, all school districts do what’s best for them financially and logistically.
My twins went to a transitional kindergarten in Los Altos for the 1980-81 school year. I consider it to this day as the greatest gift I could have given them. They were born “premies” and transitional kindergarten gave them a year to catch up. They were then able to easily keep up with the class when they entered first grade in 1982. They were accepted by every college to which they applied, including Stanford, CalTech and UC Berkeley. Today, one is a chemical engineer/environmental lawyer and the other is an artichtect.
I’m still not sure how this saves money.
At least the following is included in the bill which gives parents a leg to stand on if they feel/can demonstrate their child is ready;
A child born after September 1st may still be admitted to kindergarten on a case-by-case basis, if the parent or guardian applies for early admission and the school district agrees that it would be in the best interest of the child.
What is the purpose of “transitional kindergarten”? Kindergarten is just preschool, nothing else. Why would anybody give a child two years of preschool?
It is not as if they are actually learning any academic skills.
California State standards for kindergarten have increased dramatically over the past 15 years. Much of what was expected in first grade then is now expected in kindergarten. For example, in language arts students need to be able to sound out single syllable words with short vowels, read 20 high frequency words and, write 3 simple sentences on topic independently, in addition to knowing all the letter names and sounds. In math kindergarten students need to identify and recreate patterns, name all numbers from 0-30 out of order, count to 30, create and read simple graphs and, add and subtract numbers to 10.
Academic content and skills abound in kindergarten. Younger less social and emotional mature students benefit from the second year transitional kindergarten provides.
Lisa:
Big deal. California is ranked 47th nationwide. One in four students never graduates high school. I guess that’s what happens when state standards “increased dramatically”.
I love this associate superintendent. She doesn’t say, “Hold kids back because of some random bureaucratic whim? What a stupid idea!” No: instead, she says, “We have a transitional kindergarten specially designed for these younger children. It will be in the same classroom with the same teacher as the regular kindergarten.” Brilliant! In fact, exactly like this year’s kindergarten class.