SLO County school district won’t get state funding for transitional kindergarten
A bill that would have funded transitional kindergarten in the San Luis Coastal school district was struck down by California legislators in May.
The bill was introduced by Assemblymember Dawn Addis, D-Morro Bay, after the San Luis Coastal district threatened to cut its transitional kindergarten program amid budget cuts earlier this year. The district is facing a multi-million-dollar deficit that has resulted in cuts to staff positions and programming.
The district ultimately took transitional kindergarten off the chopping block after a series of contentious board meetings and staunch opposition from parents and staff.
Addis’ bill was meant to ensure that the district wouldn’t have to face that same decision again in the coming years — but according to CalMatters’ Digital Democracy website, AB 1391 was held by the appropriations committee on May 23.
That essentially killed the bill, Addis’ team told The Tribune.
“My goal was to make the funding for these programs truly equitable for every California student, make sure that every four-year-old going into school had funding attached to them no matter what district they were in,” Addis said. “So disappointing that we weren’t able to get it across this year, but it’s an issue that we’re going to continue to work on, knowing how important it is to California’s children.”
Local district doesn’t receive state funding for transitional kindergarten
California law currently mandates that school districts offer transitional kindergarten to all 4-year-olds, and the state offers funding for the program to most districts — but basic aid districts, like San Luis Coastal, were carved out of that funding stream.
Basic aid districts are those that rely mostly on local property taxes for their budget rather than the state education funding formula.
The exclusion of basic aid districts has left San Luis Coastal to fund another grade of students without any extra funding — even as the district’s budget has shrunk due to the depreciation of Diablo Canyon and the expiration of COVID funding.
District officials have in the past described transitional kindergarten as an unfunded mandate.
San Luis Coastal superintendent Eric Prater told The Tribune he was thankful for Addis’ and local teachers’ efforts to secure funding for his district, but was disappointed that the bill failed.
He said the district intends to continue advocating for the funding necessary to sustain and strengthen its transitional kindergarten program.
“Next year, we plan to continue working with the California Legislature to push for equitable funding — because every 4-year-old deserves access to high-quality early education, no matter where they live,” Prater wrote to The Tribune in an email.
He continued: “It’s important to clarify that while the state refers to TK as ‘universal,’ over 150 basic aid school districts — including ours — receive no funding to implement this additional grade level. For context, if San Luis Coastal received the standard per-child state allocation for each TK student, we would gain over $6 million annually.”
Prater said that state education superintendent Tony Thurmond sent a letter to all basic aid districts last spring notifying them that they are still expected to offer transitional kindergarten even if they don’t receive any allotted funding from the state.
“We’ll continue advocating for fair and adequate support so that all California children can benefit from a truly universal TK program,” Prater added.
There was no reasoning provided for the bill’s failure, Addis told The Tribune — but she acknowledged that some federal decisions complicated this year’s budget process for California lawmakers.
She added that future efforts to secure funding for transitional kindergarten in San Luis Coastal were in the works.
“Everything’s on the table for me in terms of how we move through this,” she said.
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