Universal Transitional Kindergarten on the Horizon: what are the implications for Oakland?

Over the next four years (2022-2026), Transitional Kindergarten (TK) will expand statewide to include all four-year-olds. This is a major structural shift in the mixed-delivery system of care for our youngest Californians. 

With an additional year of public school, Universal Transitional Kindergarten (UTK) will provide free education to Oakland’s children at an earlier age and may offer improved curriculum alignment between early education and existing K-12 systems. 

Yet without careful and equitable implementation that centers the needs of the children, families, and early educators who will be most directly impacted, UTK may pose challenges for working parents, hinder developmentally-appropriate care for young children, and destabilize the early care and education field by removing 4-year-olds from child care settings. 

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How can we support equitable implementation of UTK that centers children, families, and early educators in Oakland? 
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• Increase developmentally appropriate wrap-around services for children participating in UTK.
• Include families with young children in planning to implement UTK with an equity lens.
• Give families the option to choose the type of care appropriate for them by increasing access to affordable quality early care and education.
• Expand the supply of child care spaces for infants and toddlers.
• Deepen supports for the Early Care and Education workforce including training pipelines, increased wages and compensation, and involvement in planning and decision making.
• Ensure that new sources of funding, such as Measure AA and Measure C, support the mixed-delivery system and address the impact areas described above.

For background information and to learn more, read our brief here. ​