Photo by Kevin Jarrett
Gov. Jerry Brown’s attempt to eliminate funding for Transitional Kindergarten created so much confusion that a handful of school districts sought waivers from it out of fear they would have to bear the cost of the program.
The State Board of Education will consider those waiver requests at its meeting today, even though TK survived the governor’s attempt to de-fund the new program, making the districts’ concerns moot. The California Department of Education has recommended that the State Board reject all of the waivers.
“We’re not pursuing the waiver anymore,” said Martinrex Kedziora, assistant superintendent of Moreno Valley Unified School District. “The waiver was due to financial uncertainty.”
Moreno Valley is one of nine school districts and a charter school in Riverside County that asked to delay implementation of TK for one year.
The districts range in size from the 5,600-student Perris Elementary School District to Moreno
With budgets, as with the weather, the problem’s not just the heat - by Seth Rosenblatt
Although not the most familiar refrain to West Coast natives, residents in the rest of the country know that although the summer heat may be tough to take, it’s actually the humidity that truly makes us uncomfortable. Through the last few years of state budget crises, school boards across the state have adopted an analogous mantra: “It’s not just the cuts, it’s the...