BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
1381 (Simitian)
Hearing Date: 08/31/2010 Amended: 08/30/2010
Consultant: Dan Troy Policy Vote: ED 8-0
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BILL SUMMARY: SB 1381 would change the date by which a child
is required to be admitted to kindergarten at the beginning of
the school year (or any time later in the school year) from
December 2 of the year in which the child will have his or her
5th birthday to November 1 for the 2012-13 school year, October
1 of the 2013-14 school year, and September 1 for the 2014-15
school year and each year thereafter. A corresponding change
for admittance to 1st grade would be made for a child having his
or her 6th birthday during the year.
The bill would also create an ongoing "transitional"
kindergarten program - the first year of a two-year kindergarten
program that uses a modified kindergarten curriculum that is age
and developmentally appropriate - for those pupils impacted by
the change in age of admission date. Effectively, this bill
would bill would allow districts to claim funding for two years
of kindergarten for children born between September and
December, assuming certain conditions are met.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 Fund
Age of admission/ Major savings from K age of
admission General*
Transitional Kindergarten change. These savings would
likely be
more than offset by creation of a
2-year
Transitional Kindergarten program.
Major costs to state once initial
cohorts
exit from the K-12 system. (See
analysis).
*Counts toward meeting the Proposition 98 minimum funding
guarantee
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STAFF COMMENTS: This bill meets the criteria for referral to the
Suspense File.
Current law makes education compulsory for individuals aged 6
through 18. While current law does not compel kindergarten
attendance, it requires districts to offer admittance to
kindergarten at the beginning of the school year for a child who
will turn 5 on before December 2 of that calendar year. Thus
many children begin kindergarten several months before their
fifth birthday. By moving the cutoff date of admission to
September 1 (the change would be phased in over 3 years), this
bill would essentially ensure that kindergarteners would be aged
5 or older at or near the beginning of the school year.
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SB 1381 (Simitian)
Current law provides for general purpose funding to school
districts through the revenue limit program. Each district has
a defined revenue limit per unit of average daily attendance
(ADA) that is based on historical expenditures on education as
modified through various statutory adjustments. A district's
total revenue limit apportionment is calculated based on the
greater of current or prior year ADA.
Current law establishes the state preschool program, for
purposes of providing part-day and full-day programs of
educational development for three- and four-year old children.
Costs for full day preschool are approximately $3,700 per child,
annually.
This bill would phase in a change to the date by which districts
must offer kindergarten admission one month at a time, so that
the current cutoff of December 2 of the year in which a child
turns 5 would move back one month per year, commencing with the
2012-13 fiscal year, until settling in at September 1 in the
2014-15 year and each year thereafter. The bill would make a
conforming adjustment for 6-year olds entering the first grade.
The bill would further allow district to claim ADA for children
participating in transitional kindergarten (TK) who turn 5
between September 2 and December 2 of the year in which they
turn 5. A TK program is defined as the first year of a two-year
kindergarten program that uses a modified kindergarten
curriculum that is both age and developmentally appropriate. The
bill specifies that districts could not claim more than two
years of funding for a pupil in kindergarten or a combination of
two years in kindergarten or transitional kindergarten. The
bill would specify that for good cause, the governing board of a
school district may permit a child of proper age to be admitted
to a class after the first school month of the school term. The
bill further states Legislative intent that the ADA claimed
through TK counts for calculating revenue limit apportionments
and for the funding requirements of Proposition 98.
By adjusting the date of admission back one month in three
successive years, this bill would reduce the size of the
kindergarten cohort by approximately 1/12th of the size it would
otherwise have been for three successive years. These reduced
cohorts will flow though the K-12 system for 13 years each,
achieving programmatic savings in Proposition 98 programs during
that time. The largest programmatic cost savings would be in
the revenue limit program.
These savings, however, are unlikely to materialize due to the
bill's creation of a transitional kindergarten for pupils who
turn age 5 during the between September 2 and December 2 (this
would also be phased in over three years). By allowing pupils
born between September 2 and December 2 to attend transitional
kindergarten, this bill would lead to ongoing costs once the
initial smaller cohorts leave the system, if not sooner. This is
because the TK program essentially allows certain children to
attend two years of kindergarten instead of one depending on
their date of birth.
According to data provided by the Legislative Analyst's Office,
the earlier version of this bill would have reduced the number
of students in the K-12 system by approximately 43,000 in the
2012-13 school year, by 89,000 in the 2013-14 school year, and
by
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SB 1381 (Simitian)
126,000 for the 2014-15 school year and for several years
thereafter, until these cohorts begin exiting the system in
2026-27. These estimates assumed 8 percent of eligible
kindergartners were "red shirted" (i.e., voluntarily held out of
school for a year even though eligible), annually.
Whether this bill will lead to immediate costs or savings
depends on the attractiveness of the new TK program to parents
of eligible children. The Assembly Committee on Appropriations,
using the LAO data, for example, finds that if all parents who
would have otherwise chosen to red shirt their children choose
to enroll their children in the TK program, this bill would
result in new costs of approximately $19.8 million in the
2012-13 fiscal, $40.4 million in the 2013-14 fiscal year, and
$57.2 million in 2014-15 and several years thereafter.
The TK option may be an attractive one for parents, as it would
be free, presumably have a curriculum more aligned with the K-12
curriculum than would a typical preschool or day care situation,
and would represent a good landing spot for parents who would
otherwise hold a child back out of concern that he or she were
not quite ready for traditional kindergarten. On the other
hand, to the extent parents hold their children back for
competitive purposes (i.e., they would prefer their child to be
older than other children in their class), this bill would be
unlikely to impact their decision to red shirt the child. Staff
anticipates that while some parents will continue to hold their
children back, this bill will likely result in costs in the
millions, though perhaps not to the full extent estimated by
Assembly Committee on Appropriations.
Once the initial cohorts begin to move out of the K-12 system,
this bill would clearly result in major costs to the state. In
the 2027-28 fiscal year, the reduced initial kindergarten
cohorts will have moved out of the system, but the state
commitment to fund TK for 130,000 to 150,000 children would
remain. These costs would be approximately $700 to $900
million, annually.
It's possible the bill would also result in other costs or cost
pressures. The bill indicates that transitional kindergarten is
to involve a modified curriculum that is age appropriate. While
it is not clear how districts would address this issue, the
design of a modified curriculum could lead to local costs for
administration, professional development, and materials. These
costs would likely be in the millions, though they would likely
be local rather than reimbursable at the state level. There
would likely be pressure at the state level to fund these costs,
though.
Broadly, the Committee should consider whether delaying the age
of admission for traditional kindergarten is worth the cost
exposure to the state of providing an additional ongoing year of
transitional kindergarten for children that is accessible only
to children who are born between September 2 and December 2 and
that is not based on need.
A previous version of this bill passed out of the committee in a
different form. That bill phased in the change in age for
kindergarten admission and expressed the intent of the
Legislature that half of the revenue limit savings resulting
from
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SB 1381 (Simitian)
the reduction in ADA be used to expand access to preschool.
That version provided major programmatic savings the state over
a 15-year period.