Universal TK vs. Preschool

We are going to be staying with our preschool next year for a few reasons. One is that our preschool is Spanish immersion and the public school we're sending our kid to is primarily English for TK and starts Spanish immersion with K. Also, our 5 year old did a year of TK (instead of K which he was eligible for) and he really struggled. The academic work, level of structure and the large elementary school environment is a lot. If we can put that off a year, we'd like to. We also loved our preschool teachers and were less impressed with the TK teacher. She wasn't a good fit for our other kid and probably wouldn't be again. We are able to afford another year of part-time preschool tuition so we're going to go ahead and stay put. 

I work in the district. TK used to function as “kindergarten light” because the kids were nearly kindergarten age and just didn’t make the cut-off. Now that it is essentially just preschool, there is no advantage to TK over preschool, especially if your child is thriving in their current preschool. There is no admission advantage in BUSD and no academic advantage. It simply gets them into a large institutional setting a year earlier. I would only advise TK for specific situations like: an older sibling already attends the elementary school and you want one drop-off, all of your child’s preschool friends are graduating to kindergarten anyway, or your child is very mature and wants a more challenging environment.

The biggest pro is the ~ $25k that you get to keep instead of spending it on preschool! Our younger son is in TK and we are so happy with it. We LOVED his preschool so much and it is sad to leave, but he has transitioned well to TK and really loves it. It is very much another year of preschool - lots of play (pretty much all day long), a very gentle and loving teacher, a bunch of recess time. I'd say the big downside is that afterschool is not awesome. He goes to on-site care and it's fine, but definitely not as good as the school day just in terms of the level of attention, types of activities, etc. But on the whole, we have no regrets about choosing TK!

My son is in his second year at Berkeley Hills Nursery School (BHNS). He was not eligible for TK this year (mid-April birthday), but if he had been, I would have kept him at BHNS. My second son will start preschool next Fall (August 2024) and his birthday puts him in the "traditional TK" age (late-October). We are strongly leaning towards 3 years at BHNS rather than 2 years of preschool and 1 year of TK (which would be at Kensington Hilltop).

Our reasoning is mostly along the lines of the other responders - less structure, more play, and a much lower student-to-teacher ratio. I would like both of my boys to have as much of the special, sweet, and carefree play before they enter the more-structured public elementary environment. Also, I believe TK is a shorter day than preschool, so TK would give us less hours of childcare. Lastly, since we are going to public elementary, I see this year of preschool as a touch of private school.