New Law May Bar Your Child from Kindergarten Next School Year

Is your child a “young five”? A Senate Bill (D-Simitian) now requires entering kindergarteners to turn five years old by Sept. 1. Those who won’t can attend “transitional kindergarten” to appropriately prepare them when they enter kindergarten the following year.

The bill will be phased in over three years beginning with the 2012-13 school year. If your child was born in November, he or she will not be allowed to enroll in kindergarten until the following 2013-2014 school year. 

Enrollment began on Jan. 28 at the for transitional kindergarten and will continue throughout February. However, the program is at risk due to the most recent budget proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

If passed, districts will not be required to offer transitional kindergarten, and the district will not have the funds to offer this program.

The district may not know the status of funding until late spring or summer, though enrollment will still be open. Thus, the district encourages parents to have back-up pre-school or childcare arrangements lined up in case the program is cancelled.

What Are Potential Back-ups?

Many schools in the area, such as , will be offering the transitional kindergarten program.

Mount Carmel School has always had a kindergarten age cut-off of Sept. 1 with no exceptions. 

“Starting a child too young at school only sets them on the wrong path,” Anthony explained. “And we always want to start them to always be successful.”

However, the school had been looking to implement a program like transitional kindergarten for the past few years, said Principal Teresa Anthony. The bill proposed by Senator Simitian spurred this process along.

“We were losing families that were going into public schools where the cut-off age was Dec. 1,” Anthony said.

For the 2012-13 school year, Mount Carmel will offer a full 180-day program, with days that are 80 percent the length of a kindergarten day.  Tuition will similarly be 80 percent of the kindergarten tuition.

Anthony said there was a large demand for the 16 spots in the program, and acceptances will be given based on interviews with parents.

There are also a number of pre-school programs in Redwood City and the surrounding areas. For a list of full-day and part-day programs, visit http://www.redwoodcity.org/parks/childcare/childcareresources.html.

For more news about Redwood City and surrounding areas, including unincorporated San Mateo County, follow us on Twitter and "like" us on Facebook.

Get Patched in daily by signing up for our newsletter.