As those inside the district voice a repeated refrain that declining enrollment will likely plunge LA Unified into bankruptcy, new data show it still attracted nearly the same number of kindergarten students last year as it had nine years earlier when it had 133,000 more students overall.

The data come as a surprise amid declining enrollment as the county’s birth rate has dwindled and parents have opted to send their kids elsewhere as charter schools proliferate and many suburban school districts continue to outperform LA Unified.

In 2006-07, the district had 49,896 kindergarteners enrolled as of the October “norm day” an enrollment count used to allocate resources and funding from the state. Nine years later, 49,289 students were enrolled in kindergarten at the beginning of the 2015-16 school year, the data show.

School board member Monica Garcia highlighted these numbers at the last special meeting the board held aimed at tackling its long-term financial situation. She expressed hope that the district can hang on to those students through graduation.

“Let’s keep them,” Garcia said of the kindergarteners.

But the data show, so far, the district isn’t.

The class of 2006-07 kindergarten students, has turned into 36,876 ninth-grade students in 2015-16, a 26 percent decrease. The students will graduate in 2018-19.

And the data show the decline is happening as early as first grade. The number of district kindergarteners who have gone on to first grade has decreased over the past five years, plummeting 17 percent just last year.

In a memo to the Board of Education, Chief Facilities Executive Mark Hovatter, whose office compiled the data, wrote that the increases in kindergarten enrollment “may not be a true indication of future enrollment growth.” He said transitional kindergarten has led to an increase in kindergarten enrollment.

Transitional kindergarten students are included in the kindergarten data, although district officials did not say how many of those students were in transitional kindergarten. So it is unclear how much transitional kindergarten has affected the numbers.

Transitional kindergarten was established by the state Legislature in 2010. It essentially created a two-year kindergarten program.  Teachers must have a credential, the curriculum is a “modified” version of the kindergarten curriculum and students are generally in school for a full day. Since implementation in 2012, the state rolled back the eligibility date one month each year from Dec. 2 to Sept. 2. Now students can be enrolled in transitional kindergarten if their 5th birthday falls between Sept. 2 and Dec. 2. If a student turns 5 on or before Sept. 1, the student enrolls in kindergarten.

“It increases the total pool of children that are counted to be in kindergarten,” said Rena Perez, director of the district’s Master Planning and Demographics.

Transitional kindergarten was piloted in the district in the 2010-11 school year, with 36 classrooms. The following year, the transitional kindergarten program grew to 109 classrooms, and it has continued to expand.

Carola Matera, an assistant professor at Cal State Channel Islands’ School of Education who specializes in early childhood education, said she believes transitional kindergarten has a big impact on enrollment numbers.

She said parents who might have opted to send their child to private school are attracted back to the public school district by transitional kindergarten. She said because transitional kindergarten teachers must be credentialed and receive professional development and support, the program is more attractive for parents than some private school options.

“All of this builds a level of confidence to go back to the public school system to take advantage of it,” Matera said.

She also said transitional kindergarten was highly marketed in Los Angeles, especially to Latino parents, and in the media when it was implemented.

“The other aspect of this is that for parents who would have gone to private schooling, they saw this as an opportunity to start early,” Matera said.

No one can say for certain whether the district’s kindergarten enrollment would be declining without transitional kindergarten, but the data shed light on the trends.

The number of kindergarten students decreased 6 percent from 2006-07 to its lowest point in 2010-11 with 46,934 students. Then, after transitional kindergarten began, the number of kindergarten students steadily increased every year since to 49,289 in 2015-16.

In contrast, the number of kindergarten students enrolled in charter schools steadily increased over the 10-year period, as the number of charter schools in the district grew. From 2006-07 to 2015-16, the number of children enrolled in kindergarten increased 179 percent from 2,556 to 7,131 students.

Kindergarten is not mandatory in California, so some parents don’t enroll their child in school until first grade. Before transitional kindergarten was implemented, the district saw a jump in the number of students that enrolled in first grade compared to kindergarten.

Dean Tagawa, who heads the district’s Early Childhood Education program, said one reason for the boost in kindergarten enrollment could be that more parents are opting to enroll their children now that the district has a two-year kindergarten program. Parents who might have kept their children out of kindergarten for a year because they felt their child wasn’t ready are now enrolling their kids in transitional kindergarten, he said.

“We know there’s a group of parents that really like the idea of having a ‘TK’ option, in the past they might not have utilized kindergarten,” Tagawa said.

Matera said it’s too early to determine what impact transitional kindergarten had on whether parents opt to keep their child in the school district for first grade.

The number of first-graders in the district has fallen 22 percent since 2006-07, according to the data. From 2006-07 to 2009-10 there was a small increase in the number of students who attended first grade from kindergarten. But in 2010-11, the opposite trend occurred. The number of first-grade students as compared to the previous year’s kindergarten students dropped each year. Part of the reason for that drop could be because of the expansion of transitional kindergarten — students are staying in kindergarten for two years and so some of the kindergarten students in the data are not eligible for first grade.

The Independent Financial Review panel assembled last year that released a report in November addressed declining enrollment and made several recommendations about ways to increase enrollment.

The panel of outside experts found several reasons for the district’s declining enrollment, which has dropped 100,000 students over the past six years. The group estimated that about half of the enrollment loss is due to increased enrollments in charter schools. The remaining loss could be attributed to declining birth rate, students dropping out of school and students moving to other school districts, the panel said in its report.

Data from LA County show the birth rate has fallen dramatically in the last 20 years. In 1990, there were 204,124 births throughout the county. In 2011, there were 130,312 births, according to a briefing from the Department of Public Health’s Office of Health Assessment & Epidemiology.

The health department also found that the number of children under age 10 living in the county has fallen nearly 17 percent since 2000.

The study pointed to a number of factors for the declining birth rate, including a decline of people migrating into LA County and an increase in the number of people migrating out of LA County, likely caused by the recession; a rise in unemployment; changes in contraception methods used by women; women getting married at an older age, and an increase in the proportion of women who don’t have children.

Birth rates have decreased for mothers from all racial backgrounds, the study found.

The Independent Financial Review panel gave the district and school board a number of recommendations on how to improve enrollment. It recommended that the district focus on which students are leaving the district and why. It said that any improvements the district made in reversing the trend of declining enrollment “must start with analysis of which students are being lost, at which grade levels, at which schools and why.”

Amid the expansion of independent charter schools in Los Angeles, the district has taken steps to attract more students and their parents to LA Unified, including expanding magnet programs, opening pilot schools with smaller enrollment and expanding dual-language program offerings. The district hosted a forum this past weekend on sharing best practices between pilots, magnets and charter schools.

The Independent Financial Review panel recommended that district officials do extensive follow-up with students and parents who have opted to leave the district. LA Unified has said it will conduct surveys of those leaving the district.

Garcia, who is the school board’s longest-serving member, said she believes there are many reasons why students are leaving and those reasons vary across the diverse district.

She said she thinks the absence of student achievement across the district has contributed to the decline in enrollment, as well as families that opt to send their children to schools with smaller class sizes, the declining birth rate and the exodus of families from Los Angeles amid the housing crisis.

“I think it’s great that we’re interested in learning what is happening with the families,” she said.

A new report from the American Institutes of Research shows that young children have up to five months of learning advantage compared with children who don’t get an extra year of kindergarten.

But the report — Impact of California’s Transitional Kindergarten Program, 2013-14 — also points out that there’s a long way to go in funding the pre-school program evenly throughout the state, finding enough children to enroll and creating enough of a diverse curriculum for the young students.

TK is the first year of a two-year kindergarten program, giving children an additional year of early education. Transitional Kindergarten Expansion (TE or TKE) is a new grade level that is replacing some preschool programs at 117 school sites in LAUSD.

“Children in transitional kindergarten are getting a significant boost in kindergarten readiness,” said Deborah Kong, president of Early Edge California, an early education advocacy group. “Now with new clarity in law about funding for expanded TK, districts are encouraged to offer an additional option to young learners and their families to build a strong foundation for success in school.”

All LAUSD elementary schools now offer TK programs, but as the report points out, many of those classes are mixed with kindergartners because there aren’t enough pre-school-aged children to fill an entire class. The district currently has 117 schools providing TKE classes for 4-year-olds, thanks to $14.3 million approved by the school board, with another 173 to follow in the 2016-2017 school year.

The report found that TK improved literacy skills and children who attended TK were significantly better able to identify letters and words in kindergarten than their peers who did not attend. TK also improved math knowledge and problem-solving skills
, such as counting objects, understanding measurement and completing word problems,

Further, being involved in TK helped children regulate their own behavior, remember rules and think flexibly, the report said. The state budget allowed school districts and charter schools to use state money to provide TK to children as soon as they turn 5.

The report also found that more than half of TK teachers said they received no professional development training specifically related to TK, and of the 42 hours of professional development, about 11 hours on average was spent on TK.

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“This involves 26,000 of our children at LA Unified,” said Dean Tagawa, the LAUSD administrator for Early Childhood Education. “To have expanded Traditional Kindergarten at LAUSD is huge.”

Tagawa gave a report this week updating the Early Childhood Education and Parent Engagement Committee on the expanded TK program in the district. The district allocated $14.3 million to the program that would otherwise have reduced the number of pre-school children served. The remaining 173 schools that have SRLDP students will move to TKE programs in the 2016-2017 school year.

The expanded programs are full-day programs and won’t require new classrooms or new equipment because some will replace SRLDP pre-school programs that are being phased out. However, the teachers require professional development training. Most of them started in August, and some will start in October. Some principals will complete their training by January 2016, and teacher assistants are starting their training this month.

“The training of the teachers has gone well so far,” Tagawa said. “A lot of them were a little overwhelmed at first.”

Tagawa said that early education shows a vast word gap between those who have pre-school education and those who start school at age 5. He said studies show that there is a reduction in Special Education referrals and remediation and intervention for students who get early education.

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The bill is sponsored by Early Edge California, an educational advocacy group that is working to ensure that children have early experiences to be successful learners by the end of third grade. The agencies are hoping that the broad coalition will be an impetus to win the governor’s support.

“AB 47 will keep the promise to preschoolers,” said Deborah Kong, president of Early Edge California. “Far too many of our vulnerable children are starting behind and staying behind simply because they don’t have access to a preschool program. AB 47 helps us right this wrong.”

Support also comes from State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, who issued a statement saying, “Preschool programs are a wise investment for our society. Research shows that these programs help lower the achievement gap and the high school drop-out rate, while also reducing crime and teenage pregnancies.”

The President’s Council of Economic Advisers showed in a study that every dollar invested in high-quality early education can save more than $8 in the form of students being held back, dropping out or getting involved in crime.

Known as the Preschool for All Act of 2015, AB 47 was proposed by Assembly Member Kevin McCarty and would ensure that all eligible 4-year-old children who aren’t currently enrolled preschool or transitional kindergarten will have access to the California State Preschool Program by June 30, 2018. Funding is contingent upon appropriations in the annual budget. The Assembly voted 69 to 4 and the Senate approved it 28 to 11, with Republicans joining in support.

McCarty, a Democrat who represents parts of Sacramento, said, “Thanks to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in the Legislature, and to this broad coalition of supporters who helped me push this bill to the Governor’s desk. I am proud to author a bill that invests in quality early childhood education and puts California’s future first.”

LA Unified is listed as a supporter along with the Los Angeles Urban League, Los Angeles Universal Preschool, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, Jewish Community Relations Council and United Way of California. School districts including Alamada, Butte, Santa Barbara, Compton, Santa Clara and Sacramento are also in support.

Click here for a full list of supporters.

In the plan, none of the new classes will require additional classrooms, nor result in any change of teachers, according to district officials. The $14.3 million to pay for the transition was approved by the school board earlier this year and will be an ongoing transition into this school year.

Superintendent Ramon Cortines spoke yesterday at the Edward R. Royal Learning Center and said, “This district moved this year with a TK program. A program that moved from part time for very young children to six hours and we are going to move thousands of more children for next year.”

Cortines added, “Let me tell you the problems — not problems — the issues that we are facing in middle school and high school, they are solved when children first start their education. We need to make sure we put the emphasis on the early education.”

The program involves nearly 14,000 students. The Preschool for All bill, AB 47, that the governor must take action by Oct. 11, would provide sufficient funding to guarantee “every low-income 4-year-old with access to preschool” by 2017. 

The district plan is to provide quality preschools for low income children who turn 5 after December 2 in a six-hour program that runs 180 days, following other elementary school calendars. It sets a 24-students-per class maximum and will be part of the Breakfast in the Classroom program.

The pre-school program will follow the standards included in the Preschool Learning Foundations, not the kindergarten Common Core State Standards. The curriculum has structured and unstructured chances for children to build socialization and communication skills. They don’t plan a nap time, but instead will have story time and quiet games.

Because the children will be in classrooms previously using the SRLDP classrooms, the district doesn’t anticipate any increase in need for classroom space. The district also provided a timeline for professional development training for these transitions for principals, teachers and teacher assistants. A parent engagement program will be developed by January 2016.

The district is also working with 13 schools that have a California State Preschool Program for 3-year-olds in three-hour programs.

The state research showed that preschool programs provided a return of $15,000 for every child served. The state pointed out that investing in “high-quality preschools, the overall savings in prison system expenditures alone are estimated to be $1.1 billion a year due to the reduction in prison population by 13,000.”

To find out which schools are starting with the transition to TK, click here.

*UPDATED

A recent panel discussion at the Milken Institute took on the issue of digital technology in the classroom under the assumption that “traditional education, built around books and classroom activities, no longer prepares students for today’s digital world or the job market that it has created.”

As LAUSD looks to reboot its digital approach in the wake of the iPad disaster, the questions posed by the Milken panel are ever more relevant, including how digitally savvy are the school board members who will lead the district into its digital future? Let’s take a look and some Twitter feeds for a few answers.

Twitter is a common social media tool many government leaders use to communicate directly with their supporters and constituents. President Obama, Gov. Jerry Brown and countless local government leaders use it on a regular basis.

But what about the LAUSD board? Like many things, there is a deep division.

In the “needs improvement” category, there are George McKenna, Bennett Kayser, Monica Ratliff and Richard Vladovic.

McKenna’s Twitter feed (@drgeorgemckenna) has 32 followers and has never sent out a single tweet. Kayser (@Lausd_Kayser) has 159 followers and has sent out 41 tweets, the last of which was in November. Ratliff does not seem to have a Twitter account, although one that appears attached to her 2013 campaign, @TheOnlyTeacher, has 179 followers and has never sent a tweet. And then there is Vladovic (@richardvladovic), who has 106 followers and has sent out a grand total of four tweets in the last year.

The board’s other three members are displaying supreme social media skills, by comparison. Monica Garcia (@Monica4LAUSD) has 1,459 Twitter followers, and has sent out 1,167 tweets. Tamar Galatzan (@TamarGalatzan) has 985 followers and has sent out 706 tweets. And Steve Zimmer (@lausd_zimmer) has 1475 followers and has sent out 534 tweets.

Transitional kindergarten

The LA Unified board this week approved a resolution that asks the state to consider expanding the number of children eligible for transitional kindergarten. State law currently limits transitional kindergarten enrollment to four-year-olds born between Sept. 2 and Dec. 1.

The resolution, sponsored by Ratliff and Kayser, asks Brown and the state legislature to consider allowing all four year olds to enroll.

“I brought this resolution forward to establish a tool the district could use to provide a full-day developmentally appropriate program for more four-year olds, with the possibility of collecting additional revenue, once these students turn five,” Ratliff said in a statement.

Kayser added, “We must engage our neediest students and their parents as early as possible,” said Kayser, “so we can get them to kindergarten on par with less challenged, more affluent peers.  As a teacher, I know that the so-called ‘schools-to-prisons-pipeline’ is really a ‘pampers-to-prison-pipeline,’ and that we must do more on the front end of these children’s lives to change their educational outcomes.”

Campus steps

California ranks worst among states in counselor-to-student ratio, according to the U.S. Department of Education, which pegs the state’s number at 1,016-to-1. The national average in 250-to-1.

So for students who don’t feel like waiting to see their college advisor comes a new free website and app aimed at helping them with the admissions process.

Campus Steps “allows a student to easily track their coursework, search colleges based on various criteria and directly communicate with their counselor via text or email. The platform matches students to colleges based on database of more than 8,500 public and private four-year universities, community colleges and trade/vocational schools, regardless of their academic level, socioeconomic background or location,” according to a press release.

Campus Steps said it is in talks about how to work closely with LAUSD .

*UPDATED to correct the number of Twitter followers of Monica Ratliff

The Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2014, introduced by Darrel Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and co-sponsored by Torlakson and Early Edge California, will expand access to transitional kindergarten programs to all four year old children, no matter when their birthday. Currently, children with birthdays early in the year are excluded.

“It’s impossible to overstate how important these early years are to a child’s future success in school,” Torlakson said in a press release. “Transitional kindergarten—particularly a full-year, full-day program—can make all the difference, especially for families who may be struggling to give their young children these valuable learning opportunities.”

According to the proposal, 46,000 four-year-olds would be added each year for the first five years of the program, which will cost a total of $990 million by 2019-20.

The move to expand early education comes as Governor Jerry Brown announced new spending increases on public education, the result of the state’s first real surplus in years. Details of Brown’s budget for the next fiscal year emerged yesterday.

Previous Posts: High-Quality Pre-K Top Priority for Americans, New Poll Shows; California Awaits Obama’s Pre-K Funding Specifics