News Room: SB 1381: Kindergarten Age

Simitian was recognized for his work championing the cause of early childhood education with the Early Learning Lifetime Achievement Award by the nonprofit advocacy group Preschool California. read more ...

On Wednesday, surrounded by four-year-olds in a transitional kindergarten (TK) classroom created by his legislation, State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) will be recognized for his work championing the cause of early childhood education. At 10 a.m. at Taft Elementary, the nonprofit advocacy group Preschool California will present Simitian with its Early Learning Lifetime Achievement Award. read more ...

In an editorial, the San Francisco Chronicle said: California's new "transitional kindergarten" program, which is proving highly popular with parents and educators, almost did not happen. Gov. Jerry Brown's 2012-13 budget would have diverted the $223 million to other programs. Fortunately, legislators stood their ground, and the state is moving forward with plans to gradually shift the cutoff date for kindergarten from December to Sept. 1. read more ...

Today, as some major Bay Area school districts begin a new school year, the youngest of students are entering a new grade, the first new level in California primary education in over a century—it’s called Transitional Kindergarten.

11th District Senator Joe Simitian was a driving force behind the new grade. He says it benefits the children and the entire educational community.

“Over all the years we have had too many kids who have been held back over the years unnecessarily, too many kids who need remedial help, too many kids who were placed in special education unnecessarily and not only has that been a struggle for them and their families, but it has been a cost to the schools and the public at large,” said Simitian.

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As the school year begins, districts throughout California will begin offering transitional kindergarten (TK) – the first new grade level in the state since 1891. This school year, more than 800 school districts are expected to offer transitional kindergarten, the first year of a two-year kindergarten for children with fall birthdays who will be too young under a new cutoff date to enter regular kindergarten. read more ...

Early Intervention for School Success (EISS), a statewide program dedicated to increasing student achievement and lowering retention rates, has named State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) “Education Advocate of the Year” for his work authoring Senate Bill 1381, the Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2010. read more ...

Gov. Brown’s latest proposal to eliminate Transitional Kindergarten hit a wall yesterday in the state Assembly. By a 3-to-1 vote along party lines, the budget subcommittee on education finance rejected the governor’s plan. read more ...

California's preschool and kindergarten set are targeted to take some of the biggest hits to funding in the state budget proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown. The governor should withdraw his plan before it undercuts the critical years of education for some of California's most vulnerable children. Almost one-fifth of the $4 billion in state program cuts Brown has proposed would come from early childhood education -- child care, preschool and the new transitional kindergarten scheduled to start in the fall. These programs should be among the state's highest priorities. Children are our most precious resource, and their success paves the way for California's economy to grow and prosper. read more ...

Before lawmakers approved the 2010 bill, a major concern was what would happen to children who no longer qualify for kindergarten, particularly those from low-income families that could not easily afford private pre-kindergarten programs. State leaders compromised by providing money for school districts to run the transitional program for those students, said Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto. "The governor is talking about depriving 125,000 kids a year an opportunity to go to school," Simitian said. "I think it's a non-starter." read more ...

The California Reading Association will honor State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) tonight as its Policymaker of the Year. Simitian is receiving the award for his Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2010 (SB 1381), which requires children to be five years old to start kindergarten and provides an additional year of “Transitional Kindergarten” for children with fall birthdays. read more ...

Few 4-year-olds are ready for kindergarten.

That was the message delivered Monday by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, during a countywide education forum at New Brighton Middle School. More than 300 educators, including preschool and kindergarten teachers, superintendents and school board trustees, packed the auditorium for Simitian’s second annual “Together for Kindergarten.”

Simitian shared with the crowd the impetus for a new law he wrote last year that changed the kindergarten entry age. Kids starting kindergarten must turn 5 by Sept. 1 of the fall they wish to start school. Currently, students can start school if they’ll turn 5 by Dec. 2.

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Lauding the efforts of State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) as an advocate for education, the California School Boards Association has honored him as 2010 “Outstanding Legislator of the Year.” read more ...

Two Palo Alto teachers, reading specialist Natalie Bivas and kindergarten teacher Diana Argenti, were honored Nov. 9 for suggesting a bill to State Senator Joe Simitian that would require children to be five years old when they begin kindergarten.  Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the bill September 30.

In this KQED Radio interview—at the link below—Natalie Bivas and Diana Argenti talk about their experiences in the classroom that led them to propose the bill, and Sen. Simitian describes how they persuaded him to carry it.

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Columnist Patty Fisher wrote about the two teachers who inspired Sen. Joe Simitian’s bill to raise the age at which children start kindergarten.

We hear a lot about gridlock in Sacramento. We hear that only powerful special interests and highly paid lobbyists have the clout to push legislation through the Capitol maze.

And then every once in a while, we hear about people like Natalie Bivas and Diana Argenti, two Palo Alto elementary school teachers who saw a problem that had baffled the Legislature for two decades, came up with a solution, defied powerful special interests and got a bill passed to fix the problem in just a few months.

Teachers have been complaining for years about California’s Dec. 2 cutoff, one of the latest in the country. But instead of just complaining, Bivas and Argenti wrote letters to elementary school teachers all over the Palo Alto district seeking support to change the cutoff. Armed with signatures from every single teacher, they paid a call to state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto.

What happened next amazed everyone. The bill passed on the last night of the session, with just a few minutes to spare.

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State Sen. Joe Simitian is holding a reception November 9 to honor two Palo Alto teachers, Diana Argenti and Natalie Bivas, who inspired him to author Senate Bill 1381, the Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2010, which was signed into law September 30. The reception will be from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Palo Alto Unified School District Board Room, 25 Churchill Ave., Palo Alto. read more ...

California will require kids to be 5 years old when they start kindergarten and create a new grade level for pre-K children after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation aimed at improving student achievement.

The bill approved late Thursday will push up the date by which children must turn 5 to enter kindergarten from Dec. 2 to Sept. 1. The change will be phased in one month at a time over three years starting in fall 2012.

“This is a victory for kids on two fronts,” said state Sen. Simitian, D-Palo Alto, who authored Senate Bill 1381. “We start kids when they’re ready to succeed in school, and for younger children we provide a ‘get ready’ year of instruction as well.” The estimated $700 million saved by delaying kindergarten for roughly 120,000 children annually will be used to pay for “transitional kindergarten,” a new grade level for children with fall birthdays who will be too young to start regular kindergarten.

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California’s youngest students have been given a better chance to succeed from their first day in school with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s signature yesterday on the Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2010 by State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto). Simitian’s measure requires children to be five years old to start kindergarten, and provides an additional year of “Transitional Kindergarten” for children with fall birthdays. read more ...

Columnist Teryl Zarnow tells how she held her son back a year from entering kindergarten because he was less than 5 when the school year began. She knew she had made the right decision. Over the years, she observed kindergarten as a school volunteer with each of her children. “With three children,” she writes, “I went to kindergarten three times”

“Even then—when kindergarten still had a play kitchen in one corner—it was asking a lot of a 4-year-old. Students spent a week studying the letter ‘A.’ They traced it and glued rice to outline its shape. On Friday, they ate apples.

“Most states require a child to turn 5 by Sept. 1, but California is one of only four states enrolling children younger. This year, after 13 tries, the state Legislature passed a measure to change the cutoff date from Dec. 2 to Sept. 1.

“It’s about time.”

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Kindergarten teacher Robin Gieman calls them “rollers”—children who lie on the carpet and roll around when they should be listening to a lesson.

They’re not misbehaving. They’re just not quite ready for prime-time kindergarten, usually because they are too young. “Those with fall birthdays can just be very wiggly,” the veteran teacher said. “We prefer children who are able to sit and pay attention.”

Two years from now, Gieman may have fewer “rollers” in her class at Nimitz Elementary School in Sunnyvale. If Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signs a bill headed to his desk, the cutoff date for children to be 5 before starting kindergarten will gradually move from the current Dec. 2 to Sept. 1.

“We’re used to thinking of kindergarten as a year kids had to get ready for real school. Now kindergarten is real school,” said the bill’s co-sponsor, Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, a former school board member. Educators have long lobbied for changing the kindergarten cutoff date, but for two decades bills to do that have failed, Simitian noted.

 

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An editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle calls on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign Sen. Simitian’s AB 1381, to require children to be 5 when they begin kindergarten. 

Fourteen studies reviewed by the Public Policy Institute of California in 2008 led it to conclude that the state need to shift its age of entry for kindergarten. Too many 4 1/2-year-olds were struggling in class - and the effects of starting too early reverberated throughout their schooling.

State Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, had seen the studies. Even more compelling was a petition he received from 289 teachers.

A legislator who is known for turning constituent ideas into state laws decided to give the idea yet another try. His SB1381 would require that entering kindergartners must turn 5 by Sept. 1 - instead of the current Dec. 1.

SB1381 went through the state Senate and Assembly by wide margins, and with bipartisan support. It is backed by a broad array of policy experts and education advocates. It is a rare opportunity to improve our schools while saving money at the same time.

The fate of SB1381 now rests with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He should sign it into law.

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A bill that would require pupils entering kindergarten to reach 5 by Sept. 1 and that would create another level of instruction for younger children was passed by the Legislature and awaits the governor’s signature.

The bill, SB-1381, which was approved by the Legislature last week, would also provide a year of transitional kindergarten for children with fall birthdays, essentially creating another grade level for an estimated 120,000 4-year-olds.

California is one of only a few states with a kindergarten cutoff date later than Sept. 1, and many educators believe that puts younger children at a disadvantage when entering today’s academically demanding kindergarten classes.

“Today’s kindergarten is not what most of us think of when we remember our own experience decades ago,” said state Sen. Joe Simitian (D- Palo Alto), who wrote the legislation. “It’s a pretty rigorous place these days, and the youngest are struggling to keep up. One thing that caught my attention was a kindergarten report card that had a space for algebra skills, and I thought, ‘OK, this is a lot more challenging.’ Too many kids are just not ready

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Thanks to the persistence of some Palo Alto teachers, future kindergartners may be at least three months older than the youngest ones who started school this fall.
A bill introduced by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, and approved Tuesday by the Legislature would increase the minimum age of the state’s kindergartners if signed into law by the governor.

“There’s just a mound of research that indicates pretty clearly that when kids start too young, they struggle to keep up and that struggle continues for years and years,” Simitian said Wednesday.

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Aiming to give children a better chance to succeed from their first day in school, the California Legislature has approved Senate Bill 1381, the Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2010 by State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto). The measure increases the minimum age for entering kindergarten from 5 years old by December 2 of the school year to 5 years old by September 1 of the school year. For children born between September 2 and December 2, a new Transitional Kindergarten would be established. read more ...

For decades, millions of Californians with children who have fall birthdays have struggled over whether to pack their 4-year-olds off to kindergarten – or hold them back because they might be too young to start school.

This week, California state legislators may be the closest they’ve ever come to making that decision for parents, with room for some exceptions.

A bill by Sen. Joe Simitian, a Palo Alto Democrat, would roll back the date that entering kindergartners must turn 5 from the current Dec. 2 to Sept. 1.

Educators hope the change in the age limit will reduce the number of children in special education and those who are held back, as well as help close the achievement gap that divides affluent and lower-income kids.

 

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Diana Argenti and Natalie Bivas, two teachers who presented a petition to Sen. Simitian urging California to require children to be older when they begin kindergarten, explain in an opinion piece why the Legislature should set the cutoff to start school at age 5 by Sept. 1.

Over the past 10 years, kindergarten has become increasingly academic, though teachers still make time for art, music and play. For some children, it is too much.
They try to keep up, but fall behind right away. They keep lagging their classmates when they are 7 and 10 and 15 - or until they give up.

As teachers, it breaks our hearts, especially when their struggle has such as an obvious cause: They started kindergarten too young. It has an obvious remedy: Require kindergarteners to be 5 by Sept. 1. We’re calling on the Legislature to pass Senate Bill 1381, authored by Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, that will make this overdue change.

 

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Columnist Patty Fisher applauds Sen. Joe Simitian’s bill, SB 1381, to require children to be 5 by Sept. 1 in order to begin kindergarten.

Sen. Joe Simitian’s bill, SB 1381, isn’t a rush job designed to plug a budget hole. It’s a sound proposal to phase in the Sept. 1 start date, eventually saving $700 million a year. Half of that would go toward state-funded preschool for young fives.

It all began as a grass-roots effort by two Palo Alto teachers…The two presented Simitian with nearly 300 signatures from Palo Alto teachers supporting a cutoff change. . . . . Simitian introduced a bill and was surprised when it breezed through the Senate. “Maybe the timing was right,” he said. “The evidence is growing that this is a sensible thing for kids.”

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Last fall, 24 kindergarten students walked into teacher Keiko Nobusada’s classroom at Oakland’s Thornhill Elementary School, their ages ranging from 4 to 6.

“The developmental levels between a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old are so great,” Nobusada said. “It’s very difficult for that child who turns 5 in November to compete with a child born a year earlier.”

And that’s the crux of a bill in Sacramento that, if approved, would require that a child whose fifth birthday is on or after Sept. 1 wait a year to enter kindergarten.

“Do you really want kids to start school before they’re ready?” asked the bill’s author, state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto. “The answer to that question is obviously no.”

 

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Today the State Senate approved legislation by State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) to change the minimum age for children entering kindergarten. read more ...

For better or worse, kindergarten has replaced the cookies, milk and naptime of old with reading lessons and numbers worksheets. It’s hard enough for a 5-year-old to negotiate; teachers complain that those younger than 5 are especially likely to fall behind. That’s why most states have changed their laws, requiring children to have turned 5 close to the start of the school year in order to enter kindergarten. California is one of a dozen that haven’t; here, the cutoff date is Dec. 2.

A bill by state Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) would do more than remedy the situation. [...]

SB 1381 is a smart and thoughtfully designed bill that deserves swift passage.

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Editorial:

For nearly all parents of kindergartners, the start of school is fraught with worry. Will little Jack or Julia make friends? Learn to read? Play well with others? For parents of “young 5s” — kids whose fifth birthday falls between the start of the school year and California’s late cutoff date, Dec. 2 — it’s even more stressful. And with good reason: These children are far less prepared for what has become a rigorous kindergarten curriculum.

State Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, would like to solve this problem and save the state some money, too.  [...]

It’s rare that doing the right thing for students also saves the state money. Rather than squabbling over details, lawmakers should seize this opportunity to do both.

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Editorial:

A bill by Bay Area state Sen. Joe Simitian would move the state’s kindergarten cut-off date to Sept. 1, putting it in alignment with most U.S. schools.  [...]

In an ideal world, California would have as much as it needs for every program it wants. But the state is in a deep budget hole, forcing deep cuts to all of its programs, including and especially public education. It must embrace compromises such as this one, which saves money and makes an improvement to education. We urge the members of the state senate to stand up against the special interest opposition and support this legislation before its own cut-off date of May 28.

It’s the right thing to do for the future of the children, and the future of California.

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California has one of the latest cutoff dates for kindergartners in the United States. Most states require a child to be 5 years old before entering kindergarten.

The result is that California has about 100,000 4-year-olds in kindergarten. [...]

Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, has introduced Senate Bill 1381, seeking to phase in a new cutoff date over three years. By 2014, all children would have to be 5 on Sept. 1 before entering kindergarten.

The question then becomes, what happens to the kids who would no longer be in kindergarten and who have working parents? Simitian’s bill takes care of that. Half of the $700 million in savings would go toward expanding preschool programs. [...]

This bill provides an opportunity to increase the number of quality preschool slots for California’s 4-year-olds – and to reduce some of the budget strain on public schools. In tough budget times, these kinds of creative solutions will help the state save money, while making investments in the future.

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Howard and many other local educators support a bill by State Senator Joe Simitian that would phase in earlier kindergarten cutoff dates, shifting the date by which a child turns five from the current Dec. 2.

Starting in 2012, the cutoff would move to Nov. 1, followed by Oct. 1 the next year and finally Sept. 1 in 2014. The bill, SB 1381, was approved by the Senate education committee.

Educators have long sought such a change. [...]

While parents often see the grade level question as an academic or even intelligence issue, Dunton explained that social development, especially what she calls the ability to “self-regulate,” plays just as important a role.

“That is the piece that hugely interferes with overall success in school,” she said.

Karen Richmond, a teacher at Valencia Elementary in Aptos with 17 years of kindergarten experience, agrees and offered examples of the challenges faced by four-year-olds in a kindergarten classroom.

“Four-year-old children often have separation anxiety issues, have not had adequate experience in preschool or a pre-K environment, struggle with fine motor such as holding a pencil and cutting with scissors, sitting still, attending to directions and tasks, sharing, taking turns, not to mention simply not being ready to independently access the academic curriculum presented,” she noted.

When they get frustrated, all the students in the classroom can pay the price, she added.

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With an ongoing budget crisis in Sacramento, fueled by a weak state economy, it would be nice if a way could be found to reduce state spending on education while actually improving it. Such a goal might appear to be contradictory, but a bill by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, shows otherwise.

His SB 1381 would save about $700 million a year because there would be an estimated 100,000 fewer children qualifying to begin school, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Half of the money saved would go toward preschool programs and the rest toward the general fund, which could be used for other educational purposes.  [...]

Most other states require children to be age 5 on or before Sept. 1 to begin kindergarten. It is time for California to institute the same policy to improve academic performance and use scarce education money more effectively.

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In response to Palo Alto teachers’ lobbying efforts last year, state Sen. Joe Simitian is proposing a new law to change age requirements for California kindergartners.

Students now must be 5 years old by Dec. 2 to enter kindergarten, much later than most states’ cutoff dates. Many teachers say the youngest students in their classes are not ready to start kindergarten and consequently fall behind.

Simitian, D-Palo Alto, introduced new legislation to gradually move the cutoff date up to Sept. 1, his office announced in a statement Monday. Senate Bill 1381 would phase in the change over three years, beginning on Nov. 1, 2012.

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Today State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) announced legislation to change the minimum age for children entering kindergarten. The proposal, supported by policy experts and education advocates, would boost kindergarten readiness and save an estimated $700 million annually, totaling $9.1 billion over a 13 year period. read more ...