Schools
Capo's Transitional Kindergarten on Hold Under Brown's Budget
Capo Unified was going to offer a special program for students who don't turn 5 by the new cutoff date, but governor's proposed budget could eliminate the program.
Capistrano Unified has frozen its plan to launch a transitional kindergarten class for students who don’t quite qualify for regular kindergarten in September.
The so-called TK program could get cut under the for the 2012-13 year.
“The district’s TK program is on hold until we get a more definitive view of the state budget,” said Marcus Walton, spokesman for the .
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Brown is calling for a November ballot measure that would temporarily increase the sales tax by a half cent and lodge additional taxes on people earning $250,000 or more a year. But even if voters agree, funding for transitional kindergarten is gone.
“The budget summary states that it is time for reinvestment and reform, not for program expansions,” wrote Pamela Watkins, CUSD’s director of elementary and early childhood programs, on the district’s website. “Sadly, it does not provide funding for the new transitional kindergarten (TK) program as previously planned.”
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In 2010, the Legislature voted to change the qualifying fifth birthdate for kindergartners from December to Sept. 1. The new law gave school districts the option to switch directly to the September cutoff or ease into it by pushing back the deadline one month each year for three years, starting with the 2012-13 school year.
Capo's Board of Trustees . At the same time, it voted to offer those students who didn’t quite make the new qualifying ages an opportunity to attend a transitional class that would have ultimately given them two years of kindergarten.
The district had planned a meeting for parents interested in the TK program for Tuesday, but that meeting is now canceled, Watkins wrote. She urged parents to keep checking back for more information.
“As we regroup, we will consider offering fee-based preschool options for students who do not qualify to attend kindergarten in fall 2012,” Watkins wrote.
Using the demographics of this year’s kindergarten class, 281 students would have qualified for the transitional kindergarten with a Nov. 1 enrollment cutoff date, Julie Hatchel, assistant superintendent of education services, told the Board of Trustees in September.
