Universal Prekindergarten Expansion in California: Progress and Opportunities

In 2021, California committed to providing universal prekindergarten (UPK) for all 4-year-olds and expanding access for income-eligible 3-year-olds by 2025–26. California UPK includes several early learning programs, including transitional kindergarten (TK), the California State Preschool Program (CSPP), Head Start, and locally funded early learning programs.

To support UPK expansion, California’s legislature and administration established the Universal Prekindergarten Planning and Implementation Grant in 2021, which allocated $200 million to all local education agencies (LEAs) serving kindergarteners, which include school districts, charter schools, and county offices of education. The 2022 budget added another $300 million to the UPK Planning and Implementation Grant program, with funds released in 2023. LEAs may use the funds to support TK and CSPP, as well as to strengthen partnerships among prekindergarten (PreK) providers. The California Department of Education surveyed all grant recipients in August 2023 about their UPK programs.

This report provides an update on UPK implementation across the state through an analysis of survey responses from 1,384 LEAs, which represent almost all (95%) public school districts and two thirds (65%) of charter schools that serve elementary grades. Findings provide insights into LEAs’ progress in UPK implementation related to service delivery models, facilities and transportation, instruction and assessment, strategies to support student needs, workforce development, implementation challenges, and technical assistance needs.

Key Takeaways

• Most LEAs offered TK at all elementary school sites. In the 2022–23 school year, 81% of LEAs offered TK at all elementary sites, and 82% of LEAs offered a full-day TK option. Forty-six percent of UPK classrooms in California were TK stand-alone classes; 33% were California State Preschool Program, Head Start, or other early learning classes; 18% were TK and kindergarten combination classes; and the rest (2%) were combination classes of TK with either CSPP or locally funded preschool.
   
• Half of California’s LEAs expanded TK faster than legislatively required through early-admittance TK. LEAs are required to expand children’s age eligibility gradually each year until all 4-year-olds are age-eligible by the 2025–26 school year; however, LEAs have discretion to offer early-admittance transitional kindergarten, which would allow children to enroll before the legislatively determined age eligibility. LEAs that offer early-admittance TK do not receive state funding for educating early-admittance TK students until their 5th birthday and must cover the costs themselves. Fifty percent of all LEAs offered early-admittance TK in the 2022–23 school year, and 48% of all LEAs planned to continue offering early-admittance TK in 2023–24.
   
• Many LEAs want to serve more PreK students through the California State Preschool Program. Over 300 LEAs currently run a CSPP program for 3- and 4-year-old children. Of these districts, about a third have applied to expand their program or plan to expand in the coming year. Among LEAs that do not yet have a program, 12% plan to apply for a contract in the future.
   
• Most LEAs had sufficient classroom space for projected TK enrollment, although facilities remain a top challenge in UPK implementation. Eighty-two percent of LEAs reported that they had sufficient classroom space for anticipated enrollment in the 2025–26 school year. However, the 249 LEAs (18% of all respondents) that indicated not having enough classroom space reported needing a total of 946 additional UPK classrooms to accommodate projected enrollment by 2025–26. (LEAs reported a total of 15,425 existing UPK classrooms statewide in the 2022–23 school year.) Furthermore, in an open-ended question on UPK challenges, more than one third of LEAs noted facilities-related challenges such as finding funding to update existing facilities to meet requirements, having age-appropriate bathrooms and playgrounds, and improving spaces for early learners.
   
• Just over half of LEAs reported using curriculum that is specific to literacy, math, or social and emotional learning. High-quality curricula that focus on specific areas of child development are linked to improved child outcomes. Just over half of LEAs reported using a social-emotional learning curriculum (56%), 52% reported using a PreK curriculum specific to literacy, and less than one third (30%) are using a PreK math-specific curriculum in their TK classrooms. One fourth of all LEAs (26%) used kindergarten curriculum in their TK classrooms. In the open-ended response question, several LEAs reported challenges with choosing or implementing appropriate curriculum, indicating a need for state guidance in this area.
   
• Over one fourth of LEAs did not offer supports for multilingual learners. Two fifths of California public school students speak multiple languages; however, 27% of LEAs reported that they did not offer a dual language program, home language program, or home language support to assist multilingual learners in the 2022–23 school year. About 4 in 10 of the LEAs not offering a language model have student populations in which one third or more of the students are English learners. The majority of all LEAs (57%) offer only English instruction with home language supports, and 10% offer only dual language programs.
   
• Most LEAs had sufficient staffing for lead TK teachers, but many struggled to find classroom aides and expect future challenges in finding staff who meet upcoming teacher requirements. Ninety-two percent of LEAs reported that they had enough fully qualified TK teachers to accommodate TK classrooms. Across all LEAs, respondents reported that just 1% of lead teacher positions were vacant in the beginning and middle of 2022–23. However, they struggled to find classroom aides, resulting in a statewide vacancy rate of 12% at the beginning of the 2022–23 school year and 8% in the middle of the year. Additionally, LEAs cited staff recruitment and retention as a common challenge facing UPK implementation. In particular, they are facing difficulties finding staff who meet the early childhood education requirements for TK teachers that will go into effect in 2025–26, when all TK classes receiving state funding will be required to be staffed by lead teachers with a valid teaching credential as well as 24 units of coursework in early childhood education or child development, a Child Development Teacher Permit, or equivalent experience.
   
• LEAs prioritized offering teachers professional development in literacy, social and emotional learning, and curriculum use, and over half sought additional assistance in offering coaching and mentoring supports. In 2022–23, the most common professional development topics LEAs offered to TK teachers were children’s literacy and language development (53%), children’s social-emotional development (48%), and curriculum selection and implementation (32%). Over half of LEAs (52%) also noted that technical assistance on coaching and mentoring would be most helpful in supporting professional development for UPK implementation.
   
• Funding is a top concern for many LEAs as they expand UPK. Over one tenth of LEAs noted that securing sustainable funding and resources for UPK implementation was one of the biggest challenges they faced in the 2022–23 school year. Costs associated with staffing, facilities upgrades, and curriculum development often exceeded the funding provided by the state, placing a strain on LEAs’ budgets. This concern was also prevalent among basic aid districts that do not receive additional funding for TK students.

In addition to statewide insights, the survey revealed promising practices and wide access with UPK expansion in California’s four largest districts during their first year of implementation. Los Angeles Unified, San Diego Unified, Fresno Unified, and Long Beach Unified educate about 800,000 students in total, or 14% of California’s public school students. All offered full-day TK and CSPP within their districts, provided dual language programs in TK, used domain-specific literacy curriculum, implemented established early childhood assessments, provided professional development on early learning to school leaders, and expected to have sufficient classroom space to meet UPK enrollment by 2025–26.

Overall, LEAs are making promising progress toward expanding UPK across the state. However, the survey data from the 2022–23 school year indicate that LEAs are facing challenges with facilities, staffing, and sustainable funding, and they may need additional supports to implement developmentally appropriate and high-quality learning practices that support the needs of all PreK students. LEAs also requested a wide range of technical assistance from the state, most commonly related to professional development, guidance on updating facilities, support in surveying parents’ UPK needs, and projecting and increasing UPK enrollment. The findings in this report may help policymakers and practitioners identify areas for additional investments and supports. As California moves forward with the expansion of UPK, more research and data will be needed to monitor progress and needs.

Universal Prekindergarten Expansion in California: Progress and Opportunities by Victoria Wang, Melanie Leung-Gagné, Hanna Melnick, and Marjorie E. Wechsler is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

This research was supported by the Ballmer Group and the Heising-Simons Foundation. Additional core operating support for LPI is provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Raikes Foundation, Sandler Foundation, Skyline Foundation, and MacKenzie Scott. We are grateful to them for their generous support. The ideas voiced here are those of the authors and not those of our funders.