Assembly leaders advocate for school construction bond, expanding transitional kindergarten

Expect a new effort to put a school construction bond before state voters and a big push to expand transitional kindergarten in the next state budget, two Assembly leaders on K-12 education issues said Tuesday during the Virtual Legislative Action Day of the Association of California School Administrators.

Here are two highlights of separate interviews with Patrick O’Donnell, D-Long Beach, who chairs the Assembly Education Committee, and Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, who chairs the education subcommittee of the Assembly Budget Committee.

Transitional Kindergarten: With billions in one-time state funding for K-12 projected for 2021-22 beyond Gov. Gavin Newsom’s January estimates, McCarty said he and other legislators will press for expanding TK gradually to include all 4-year-olds. The state-funded program is currently limited to children who turn 5 in September, October and November.

It hasn’t been determined how many years it will take to fully phase it in, he said, but he favors starting with “pilot districts” — reimbursing  districts that already offer TK for children who turn 5 later in the school year, using their own general funds to supplement state money. He would then favor shifting state pre-kindergarten funding that has been going to 4-year-olds to 3-year olds, he said.

McCarty cited the learning and pragmatic financial benefits of expanding TK. It is “crystal-clear,” he said, that “the kids who go to pre-kindergarten are doing better when they go to kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade.” And for districts facing declining enrollment, he said, get them state funding a year earlier.

Facilities bond: O’Donnell led the effort in the Legislature to put the ill-fated Proposition 13 bond on the March 2020 ballot. The $15 billion bond, which would have funded renovations and new construction for pre-K to 12 schools, community colleges and state universities, was defeated 46% to 54%.

O’Donnell said he will push for lawmakers to try again in 2022, though for a smaller construction bond. He said it should fare better because it won’t be named Prop. 13. He agreed with other observers that many voters confused it with a separate initiative that would have amended the better known Prop. 13 property tax limitation that voters passed in 1978. Confused voters tend to vote no, he said.