Advice about Transitional Kindergarten in Public Schools

My child doesn't quite meet the cutoff date for TK for the 25/26 school year, but I think he could really benefit from the transitional year. I contacted OUSD, and it looks like they are firm on the cutoff date. Are there any alternative TK programs outside of OUSD that accept August birthdays?

Hello,

Our family just moved from Albany to El Cerrito. We are zoned for Madera and have a child eligible for TK for the 2025-2026 school year. With enrollment coming up, I wanted to get opinions from other parents on the TK program in El Cerrito, your experience with Madera in particular, and any tips for the enrollment process. 

Right now our eligible child is in a preschool that she adores, so we have the option of keeping her there until she is ready for Kindergarten, which is the decision we will need to make. 

Thank you for your candor and advice!

Next year all 4 year olds are eligible for public school TK. What are the pros/cons of doing this vs. keeping your child at their dedicated preschool for year 4? Anyone else deciding between these options? What are the considerations? TIA.

My son will qualify for TK next fall, and I’ve gotten conflicted advice about sending him to BUSD for that year (vs waiting until Kindergarten). I’d love to hear parents’ experience with TK, whether it is truly play based and developmentally supportive, or whether it feels early to send kids to a big public school environment. Has anyone had the experience of choosing TK over an additional year of private preschool and feeling either really great about the decision, or somewhat regretful? 
 

From a logistical standpoint, does every qualifying child get into TK, or is there a waitlist? Should I have a backup option regardless? 
 

My daughter's birthday is on December 3rd. One day over the cut-off date for TK. Does anyone know how flexible the school board is for letting us enroll anyway?

Hi Parents

I would love to hear any of your advice or stories of your personal experiences with putting your children into TK vs K.  Our daughter is a fall baby and misses being eligible for Kindergarten just by one month.  She is very mature and focused for her age and it seems obvious to us that she is ready for Kindergarten.  Her pediatrician saw her at her 4yr old checkup and said without a doubt that she is ready for Kindergarten.  Yet with the new cutoff dates, she would have to do a year of preschool and then a year of TK before even entering Kindergarten at age 6.  Has anyone tried to enroll their child straight into Kindergarten instead of TK?  Are the public schools accommodating to parents' requests?  We'd love to hear about your experience, and especially if you have experience with the Piedmont school system.  My daughter can go straight to Kindergarten if she stays in her current private school, however the public school is telling us that even if she completes Kindergarten in private school, she will have to repeat Kindergarten when she transfers to public school due to her birthday.  Would love to hear about your experiences on transfers also.  Thanks so much for your help!

Hi everyone, Our son was assigned to the T.K. program at LeConte for the 2018/19 school year. I'd like to hear feedback please from parents whose kids have done Transitional Kindergarten at either LeConte or at King Child Development Center. I checked the archives, I don't see anything helpful about King CDCs TK. Were considering getting on the waiting list to transfer our son to King, but I;m really hoping to get some advice and feedback from the community here first, to hear about your experiences, whether good or bad, Etc. I'm sure LeConte is nice, but we were hoping for King for several reasons. And, one of our son's preschool mates who he just "graduated" with was assigned to King... and his parents and I really were hoping for them to be together. A couple of additional notes and thoughts for us: * Our son is very bright, VERY full of energy, and definitely ready as far as academics are concerned, but still occasionally really struggles with his bigger emotions and with following directions (i.e., even though he's an exceptionally sweet and sensitive person, sometimes if he feels really angry or embarrassed it just overwhelms him and he either shuts down/hides or goes the opposite path and will lash out/hit). We take a pretty serious non-violent, "Daniel Tigers Neighborhood"; (LOL) approach in a lot of ways when it comes to helping him through these anger episodes and difficult moments, and his preschool has also been amazing in supporting him. What we do works well. But Im concerned about how teachers at school might handle this.... especially since he's going to be going from a 1:6 teacher to student ratio at his preschool all the way up to a 1:20 or more ratio at TK. Anybody have any experience with the teachers of TK at either location recently, and any thoughts on how they've handled helping kids at this age/stage learn self-discipline, how they approach reward versus punishment systems, etc.? Basically, if we get somebody who is old-school and uses taking away recess time or shaming as punishment, it is seriously not going to work. Any time that our son has excess energy and he needs to run it off, if he's not able to do that his behavior just goes downhill faster. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt... thanks in great part to our amazing preschool weve come to know that taking things away from him and forcing him to try to sit still or shaming him dont usually work well. Getting down on his level and helping him empathize, and then helping him redirect his energy if he is still having a hard time or being defiant, does work. * He also, since he was a newborn, has struggled with chronic constipation. He is under care of his pediatrician, a naturopath, and Stanford Childrens for this organic constipation, present from birth (starting at just days old, breastfed only). They still have not been able to ascertain the cause. We have a letter from from the Dr. stating that he needs to have unrestricted access to the bathroom, that he should never be instructed to not use the bathroom etc, so hopefully that should help. So Im wondering, has anybody else had any experience with either LeConte or King when there is a medical issue such as this? Do either of them use a reward system for helping reinforce potty use? Don't need advice about constipation, thanks, weve tried it all including diet/nutrition ;) Just wondering how the schools handle this or similar issues. Thanks!

Hi wise parents, we are exploring TK options for our kid. We've become aware that our neighborhood school has a set of ipads in the TK classroom, and uses them routinely for instruction (for math, for example). We've been careful to limit screentime for our child thus far, and are not thrilled to know that the kids will be on screens starting in TK if we enroll at our neighborhood school. Is this typical? Does your TK or K classroom routinely encourage/require use of computers or tablets? Do we have to start looking into private schools if we don't want our kid learning via screens starting in TK or K (and are private schools any better)? (For what it's worth, we're not generally anti-tech--we just don't think learning from computers/tablets is necessary or preferable at such a young age!)

Hi There- jumping the gun a bit, what can l say!  My son was born sept 30 2014, just turned 3.  Does anyone know if the TK program will still exist in 2 years?  If it does not exist, do children do another year of preschool since they will not be old enough for kindergarten? We are zoned for Mira Visat school, but from what I can see they do not have a TK program. How have other children done transitioning from preschool or daycare, the to a different TK school, then a year later changing to a different assigned school for kindergarten? Seems like a lot of change for a little kid!

Has anyone heard of a Walnut Creek/ MDUSD elementary that allows kids to enroll in TK if they are born before Sept 2? My son will turn 5 on August 30, 2018 and is therefore technically supposed to enroll in kindergarten next year. One of his pre-school teachers told me that if an elementary school has extra space in their TK classes, they will often allow kids with August and July birthdays enroll. Has anyone heard of this happening? And if so, which schools? I am on the fence as to whether he will be ready for kindergarten next year and was thinking this could be a good middle of the road option.  Thanks in advance for any thoughts or information! 

Hello,

My daughter will be 5 yrs old at the end of October.  She is required to enter TK (transitional kindergarten) because she will not meet the age requirement at the time school starts in August.

I do not want her to go to TK because she is more advanced academically and is probably doing some Grade 1 work.  As far as socially, she is currently in a multi age class and her social skills is not more different then her TK and K peers.

I have spoken to the principal but there is a numbers game and filling vacancies in the schools.  She claims we can have a meeting to access her for K once she turns 5 but I am sure that the class will be full and no space available to move her.  Also, is there any possibility of moving her from TK to 1st grade?

Any suggestions?  Thoughts?

Thank you 

Our daughter misses the 2017 kindergarten birthday cut-off by 35 days.  She will already have completed 3 years of pre-school by next fall and we are trying to petition BUSD for a waiver from mandatory T-K.  She is already ahead of age in terms of reading, writing, math, and maturity (thanks to older sisters).  We are seeking advice from parents who have tried successfully/unsuccessfully to petition BUSD?  Otherwise, do people have other options to have our daughter start kindergarten early?

Hello, we have a 4 year old boy with a summer birthday, who was born over 3 months premature, so we are strongly considering delaying K for one more year. He is good at sitting, paying attention, listening to directions etc. but is a little bit delayed in terms of fine motor skills. We live in El Cerrito and we are looking into private TK programs since I am not sure he will be eligible for public WCCUSD TK, even though he was supposed to be born in November. Nomura's Bridge K program is on the short list, and I would love to hear reviews from other parents who have enrolled their child in that Bridge K class. Any other recommendations for Bridge K programs convenient to El Cerrito?

Also, have any of you enrolled your child in kindergarten with the expectation that he would do 2 years instead of 1? That has been brought up to us as an option but I wonder if that is going to be difficult for our kid, making friends and then having them move on while he repeats. I would love to hear from other parents who have been in this situation. Thanks so much!

Hi Parents!  We are trying to decide whether to send our son to TK at Malcolm X or continue in his current preschool for one more year and I'd love to hear from current or recent TK families. 

Thank you so much! These decisions are hard I really appreciate your thoughts!

Fall Birthday Mama