Existing law establishes a public school financing system that requires state funding for county superintendents of schools, school districts, and charter schools to be calculated pursuant to a local control funding formula (LCFF), as specified. Existing law requires funding pursuant to the LCFF to include, among other things, the sum of a base grant based on grant, supplemental grant, and concentration grant, if applicable, multiplied by average daily attendance. attendance, as provided.

Existing law authorizes a school district or charter school to maintain a transitional kindergarten program. Existing law requires a school district or a charter school, as a condition of receipt of apportionment for pupils in a transitional kindergarten program, to ensure that, beginning with the 202526 school year, a child who will have their 4th birthday by September 1 of a school year be admitted to a transitional kindergarten program maintained by the school district or charter school. Under existing law, pursuant to the LCFF, school districts and charter schools receive, as funding for transitional kindergarten, the sum of a base grant amount, an additional adjustment to that amount, grant, a supplemental grant, a concentration grant, if applicable, and a transitional kindergarten add-on, all of which are based on add-on, multiplied by transitional kindergarten average daily attendance, as provided.

Under existing law, school districts that receive local revenues that exceed the LCFF amount do not receive an a specified apportionment of LCFF funds, as provided, and are known as basic aid school districts or excess tax entities. Existing law provides for the funding of necessary small schools and high schools, as specified. Existing law requires that funding to include, among other things, various specified per-pupil and per-teacher amounts for different tiers based on the number of pupils and teachers, as specified. Under existing law, these necessary small school calculations modify the LCFF calculations for school districts with necessary small schools, as provided. law, notwithstanding those provisions, requires charter schools and school districts, including basic aid districts, to receive a minimum level of state-aid funding, as provided.

This bill would, commencing with the 202526 fiscal year, and for each fiscal year thereafter, require the Superintendent of Public Instruction to allocate funding for pupils attending transitional kindergarten in basic aid school districts or in certain necessary small schools, as provided. The bill would require this allocation to include, for any average daily attendance generated by pupils attending a transitional kindergarten program in the basic aid school district, or the necessary small school, the sum of the above-described LCFF base grant, base grant adjustment, supplemental grant, and concentration grant, if applicable, and transitional kindergarten add-on amounts, as provided. The bill would, commencing with the 202526 fiscal year, and for each fiscal year thereafter, appropriate each fiscal year the amount of funding necessary to implement the required allocations for the applicable fiscal year from the General Fund to the Superintendent for allocation to necessary small schools under these provisions.

Funds appropriated by this bill would be applied toward the minimum funding requirements for school districts and community college districts imposed by Section 8 of Article XVI of the California Constitution.

Existing law requires the governing board of each school district to prescribe and enforce the course of study for preschool, kindergarten, grades 1 to 6, inclusive, and grades 7 and 8 of those elementary districts maintaining grades 7 and 8, and authorizes the governing board to cooperate with the county board of education and the county superintendent of schools in the development of the required courses of study.

This bill would make nonsubstantive changes to those provisions.

Date of Hearing: May 14, 2025

ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

Buffy Wicks, Chair

ABPCA Bill Id:AB 1391

Author:(Addis) – As Amended Ver:April 21, 2025

Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: No Reimbursable: No

SUMMARY:

This bill requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI), beginning with the 2025-26 fiscal year (FY), to allocate average daily attendance (ADA) based funding for students attending a transitional kindergarten (TK) program to a basic aid school district or necessary small school (NSS) district, as defined.

FISCAL EFFECT:

Ongoing Proposition 98 General Fund costs likely in the low hundreds of millions of dollars for the state to provide additional funding under the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) to NSS districts and basic aid districts.

Assuming the FY 2024-25 ADA figures and rates, including the current TK add-on rate of $3,077, the bill would increase funding for basic aid and NSS districts by about $137.6 million.

The bill does not specify the new TK add-on rate for basic aid districts. Additionally, the FY 2025-26 Governor’s budget proposes to more than double the existing TK add-on for all LEA’s to $6,404. Increasing the add-on rate to the 2025-26 Governor’s budget proposal could add an additional $30.6 million to this estimate.

COMMENTS:

1. Purpose. According to the author:

When the Legislature established TK, the intent was to create a universal grade level available to every 4-year old in California. However, the complex funding formulas were not adjusted to include TK dollars for community-funded districts or necessary small schools. For these districts and schools, this has resulted in the massive burden of funding an entirely new grade level from existing budgets. Layoffs, program cuts, and increasing class sizes are all direct impacts of this cost.

1. Background. TK.. TK is the first year of a two-year kindergarten program. California’s Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2010 revised the cutoff date by which children must turn five for kindergarten entry in that year. The act established September 1 as the new kindergarten eligibility date, three months earlier than the previous date of December 2. The Kindergarten Readiness Act also established TK for all students affected by the birthdate eligibility change. Instead of enrolling in regular kindergarten, students who reach age 5 between September 2 and December 2 instead would receive an “age and developmentally appropriate” experience in TK prior to entering kindergarten the following year.

The 2021-22 Budget Act included the expansion of TK, to make TK available to all 4-year-olds by 2025-26. All LEAs offering kindergarten are required to provide access to TK for eligible four-year olds, but attendance is not mandatory. The minimum instructional minutes for TK is the same as for kindergarten.

Basic Aid Districts. School districts receive funding for TK under the LCFF within the Kindergarten through grade three grade span as well as a per TK ADA add-on to support staffing ratio requirements. The LCFF calculates a funding entitlement for every school district based on ADA and demographic factors, funded first by available local property tax revenues and any remaining amount provided by the state from Proposition 98 General Fund. In about 10% of school districts, local property tax revenues exceed the school district’s LCFF entitlement. State law terms these districts as “basic aid” or “excess tax.”

Basic aid refers to a constitutional requirement for no school district to receive less than $120 per ADA in any given year. Most basic aid districts receive state funding for other categorical programs, such as AB 602 special education funding, well in excess of this minimum amount. To the extent a basic aid district exits excess tax status (its LCFF entitlement exceeds available local property tax revenues) the state provides Proposition 98 General Fund to cover the difference. Conversely, to the extent a basic aid district’s LCFF entitlement increases due to an influx of ADA, such as from TK expansion, this represents increased baseline costs relative to available local property tax revenues. However, in the latter case, such a district still receives more per-ADA revenue than a non-basic aid district. Per-ADA revenue at basic aid districts may range from as low as $11,000 to as high as $99,000.

According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, since the enactment of the LCFF in FY 2013-14 through 2023-24, average annual growth in funding per-ADA for basic aid districts was 8%. Over the same period, LCFF per-ADA revenue for all districts statewide grew by an average of 7.7%. This means that, on average, revenue growth for basic aid districts has kept pace with or exceeded revenue growth of all other districts.

This bill provides an unspecified dollar amount add-on multiplied by a basic aid district’s TK ADA, funded by Proposition 98 General Fund.

Does TK Warrant Additional State Funding? Because current law describes TK as the first year of a two-year kindergarten program, historically, guidance from the Department of Finance and the California Department of Education has been that if a school district offers kindergarten, the state expects it to offer TK as well. In practice, especially as the state expands TK to all four-year-olds, some school districts have chosen to not offer TK due to the cost increase, staffing shortages, or lack of available facilities, or a combination of these factors, among others.

Recently, the Hope Elementary School District and Sunnyvale School District filed a test claim with the California Commission on State Mandates alleging that TK requirements impose a reimbursable state-mandated program that merits additional state funding in the case of basic aid districts as they do not receive funding from the state for additional students admitted through TK expansion. Notably, the commission’s final staff recommendation, published on May 6, 2025, stated the following:

No, there are no costs mandated by the state. Even if there is a state-mandated program, the state has provided additional revenue specifically intended to fund the costs of the TK program within the meaning of Government Code section 17556(e)… Just like the school districts in CSBA that were disappointed by the Legislature’s decision to satisfy its mandate obligations by decreasing the amount of unrestricted state funding available to them for other purposes, basic aid districts are not entitled to a baseline level of excess property tax revenue.

Therefore, providing additional state funding to basic aid districts for TK expansion costs would contradict the commission’s staff recommendation and interpretation of case precedent.

Necessary Small Schools. State law defines a “necessary small school” as an elementary school with an ADA of less than 97 students, excluding those attending the 7^th and 8^th grades of a junior high school. There are added conditions around distances to be traveled to the nearest other public elementary school. A “necessary small high school” is a high school with an ADA of less than 287 students, again with conditions around distances required to be traveled to attend another public high school. Funding for NSS districts is based on the combination of ADA and the number of full-time teachers for elementary schools or the number of full-time equivalent certificated employees for high schools, whichever provides the lesser amount, with different ranges of these figures falling within a specified funding “band”. This means that even as TK ADA increases within an NSS district, it may not result in a proportional increase in funding if they do not move into a separate funding band.

This bill would provide an additional per-TK ADA funding add-on amount for NSS districts.

Analysis Prepared by: Aaron Heredia / APPR. / (916) 319-2081

Date of Hearing: April 30, 2025

ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION

Al Muratsuchi, Chair

ABPCA Bill Id:AB 1391 (

Author:Addis) – As Amended Ver:March 24, 2025

SUBJECT: Education finance: transitional kindergarten: funding for basic aid school districts and necessary small schools

SUMMARY: Requires, beginning in 2025-26 and each year thereafter, the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) to allocate funding to basic aid districts and necessary small school districts for any average daily attendance (ADA) generated by students attending a transitional kindergarten (TK) program. Specifically, this bill:

1. Requires the SPI, beginning in 2025-26 and each year thereafter, to allocate funding for ADA generated by students attending TK in a basic aid school district or a necessary small school in a necessary small school district.
2. Requires the funding allocated to include:
   1. The current base grant for kindergarten through 3^rd grade, as adjusted for inflation;
   2. The current grade span adjustment to the kindergarten through 3^rd grade base grant, to support average class sizes of 24; and
   3. The relevant add-on to a school’s base, supplemental, and concentration grants to cover the costs of the required adult-to-child ratios in TK.
3. Requires, beginning with the 2025-26 fiscal year and each year thereafter, the funding necessary to implement these provisions is appropriated from the General Fund to the SPI for allocation, as described.
4. Defines the following terms:
5. “Basic aid school district” as a school district that does not receive an apportionment of state funds, excluding specified entitlements;
6. “Necessary small school” as an elementary school with an ADA of less than 97 students, excluding students attending the 7^th and 8^th grades of a junior high, as specified;
7. “Necessary small school district” as a school district that (A) is not a basic aid district, (B) includes one or more necessary small schools, and (C) receives necessary small school allowances, as specified; and
8. “Transitional kindergarten program” means the first year of a two-year kindergarten program that uses a modified kindergarten curriculum that is age and developmentally appropriate.

EXISTING LAW:

1. Requires, as a condition of receipt of apportionment, a school district or charter school to admit children to a TK program, as follows:
2. In the 2012-13 school year, a child who will have their fifth birthday between November 2 and December 2;
3. In the 2013-14 school year, a child who will have their fifth birthday between October 2 and December 2;
4. In the 2014-15 school year to the 2021-22 school year, a child who will have their fifth birthday between September 2 and December 2;
5. In the 2022–23 school year, a child who will have their fifth birthday between September 2 and February 2;
6. In the 2023–24 school year, a child who will have their fifth birthday between September 2 and April 2;
7. In the 2024–25 school year, a child who will have their fifth birthday between September 2 and June 2; and
8. In the 2025–26 school year, and in each school year thereafter, a child who will have their fourth birthday by September 1. (Education Code (EC) 48000)
9. Defines “transitional kindergarten (TK)” as the first year of a two-year kindergarten program that uses a modified kindergarten curriculum that is age and developmentally appropriate. (EC 48000)
10. Requires school districts or charter schools offering TK programs to maintain an average class enrollment of no more than 24 children, and, beginning with the 2022-23 school year, to maintain at least one adult for every 12 children in the TK classroom, and beginning with the 2025-26 school year, to maintain at least one adult for every 10 children. (EC 48000)
11. Requires, by August 1, 2025, that credentialed teachers first assigned to a TK classroom after July 1, 2015 have one of the following:
12. At least 24 units in early childhood education (ECE), childhood development, or both;
13. As determined and documented by the LEA employing the teacher, professional experience in a classroom setting with preschool age children meeting the criteria established by the governing board or body of the LEA, comparable to the 24 units of education; or
14. A child development teacher permit, or an ECE specialist credential, issued by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC). (EC 48000)

1. Establishes compulsory education, requiring children to attend school from age 6 to 18 years of age. (EC 48200)
2. Defines a “necessary small school” as an elementary school with an ADA of less than 97 pupils, excluding pupils attending the 7th and 8th grades of a junior high school, maintained by a school district to which any of the following conditions apply:
3. If as many as five pupils residing in a school district with fewer than 2,501 units of ADA and attending kindergarten and grades 1 to 8, excluding pupils attending the 7th and 8th grades of a junior high school would be required to travel more than 10 miles one way from a point on a well-traveled road nearest their home to the nearest other public elementary school;
4. If as many as 15 pupils residing in a school district with fewer than 2,501 units of ADA, excluding pupils attending the 7th and 8th grades of a junior high school would be required to travel more than five miles one way from a point on a well-traveled road nearest their home to the nearest other public elementary school; and
5. If as many as 15 pupils residing in a school district with more than 2,500 and fewer than 5,001 units of ADA, excluding pupils attending the 7th and 8th grades would be required to travel more than 30 miles one way from a point on a well-traveled road nearest their home to the nearest other public elementary school. (EC 42283)
6. Defines a “necessary small high school” as a high school with an ADA of less than 287 students that meets any of the following conditions:
7. The high school has an ADA of less than 96 pupils in grades 9 to 12 and is more than 15 miles by well-traveled road from the nearest other public high school and either 90% of the pupils would be required to travel 20 miles or 25% of the pupils would be required to travel 30 miles one way from a point on a well-traveled road nearest their homes to the nearest other public high school;
8. The high school has an ADA of 96 pupils or more and less than 144 pupils in grades 9 to 12 and is more than 10 miles by well-traveled road from the nearest other public high school and either 90% of the pupils would be required to travel 18 miles or 25% of the pupils would be required to travel 25 miles one way from a point on a well-traveled road nearest their homes to the nearest other public high school;
9. The high school has an ADA of 144 pupils or more and less than 192 pupils in grades 9 to 12 and is more than 71/2 miles by well-traveled road from the nearest other public high school and either 90% of the pupils would be required to travel 15 miles or 25% of the pupils would be required to travel 20 miles one way from a point on a well-traveled road nearest their homes to the nearest other public high school;
10. The high school had an ADA of 192 pupils or more and less than 287 pupils in grades 9 to 12 and is more than 5 miles by well-traveled road from the nearest other public high school and either 90% of the pupils would be required to travel 10 miles or 25% of the pupils would be required to travel 15 miles to the nearest other public high school; and
11. Topographical or other conditions exist in the school district that would impose unusual hardships on the pupils if the number of miles specified were required to be traveled. In these cases, the SPI may, when requested, and after investigation, grant exceptions from the distance requirements. (EC 42285)

1. Specifies that a school district that does not receive an apportionment of state funds pursuant to the local control funding formula (LCFF), excluding funds apportioned as minimum state aid, as defined, are considered a “basic aid school district” or “excess tax entity”. (EC 42238.02)

FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown

COMMENTS:

Need for the bill. According to the author, “When the Legislature established TK, the intent was to create a universal grade level available to every 4-year old in California. However, the complex funding formulas were not adjusted to include TK dollars for community-funded districts or necessary small schools. For these districts and schools, this has resulted in the massive burden of funding an entirely new grade level from existing budgets. Layoffs, program cuts, and increasing class sizes are all direct impacts of this cost.

AB 1391 provides a simple solution: it extends equitable universal transitional kindergarten (UTK) funding to community-funded districts and necessary small schools, ensuring that all 4-year olds in California have truly universal access to TK.”

California schools are required to offer TK. TK is the first year of a two-year kindergarten program. California’s Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2010 revised the cutoff date by which children must turn 5 for kindergarten entry in that year. The act established September 1 as the new kindergarten eligibility date, 3 months earlier than the previous date of December 2. The Kindergarten Readiness Act also established TK for all students affected by the birthdate eligibility change. Instead of enrolling in regular kindergarten, students who reach age 5 between September 2 and December 2 instead would receive an “age and developmentally appropriate” experience in TK prior to entering kindergarten the following year.

The 2021-22 Budget Act included the expansion of TK, to make TK available to all 4-year-olds by 2025-26. All LEAs offering kindergarten are required to provide access to TK for eligible 4-year olds, but attendance is not mandatory. The minimum instructional minutes for TK is the same as for kindergarten.

What is a basic aid district? Basic aid districts generate more local property taxes than would be required to fully fund their Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) allocation. According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) in 2024-25, there are approximately 157 basic aid districts serving a total ADA of 311,353, representing approximately 5-6% of the total statewide ADA.

The California Constitution requires the state to apportion at least $120 per student for public education. For most districts, their LCFF appropriation far exceeds the Constitutional minimum. For a small number of districts, their LCFF entitlement is met entirely with local property tax funds. However, the state provides funds above this as a means of meeting the $120 per student minimum, designated as Minimum State Aid to fund certain categorical programs, including the Expanded Learning Opportunity Program (ELOP), Proposition 28 funding for the arts, mandates block grant, transportation reimbursement, and the equity multiplier. The LAO estimates that in the 2024-25 school year, approximately $450 million was allocated to basic aid districts for Minimum State Aid and these categorical programs. This does not include funding that basic aid districts receive from the state for special education or school nutrition programs.

Inequities in funding between school districts. Before the LCFF was enacted in 2013, California’s education finance system relied on revenue limits and categorical funding streams, resulting in significant funding disparities between districts. These categorical programs each had unique restrictions, complicating district budgeting and limiting local discretion. The LCFF represented a significant shift toward funding simplicity, transparency, equity, and local flexibility, consolidating many categorical programs and targeting additional resources explicitly toward specific student populations: low-income students, those eligible for Free or Reduced Price Meals (FRPM), English learners, and foster youth. These are categorized as unduplicated pupils (UPP).

As recent research has emphasized, the LCFF was a major step forward in educational equity, empowering districts to align funding decisions with local priorities and student needs. At the same time, it is widely recognized that the LCFF has limitations, and ongoing research and policy discussions continue to explore ways to strengthen the formula to better support all students.

The 2023 Learning Policy Institute (LPI) report, School Funding Effectiveness: Evidence From California’s Local Control Funding Formula, stated that LCFF-induced increases in per-pupil spending have improved students’ math and reading achievement, reduced the probability of grade repetition, increased the likelihood of high school graduation and college readiness, and decreased suspensions and expulsions. Improvements in student outcomes have been more pronounced for cohorts exposed to funding increases for more of their school-age years.

However, none of the recent major reports on LCFF have directly addressed funding disparities between basic aid and non-basic aid districts. In recent research, the absence of attention to this issue suggests that equity efforts under LCFF have primarily focused on system-wide structural reforms, rather than inter-district funding differences tied to local property tax variations.

Basic aid districts range in per-pupil funding from as low as $11,000 to as high as $99,000. Some basic aid districts consistently generate local property tax revenues substantially exceeding their LCFF entitlements, while others, known as marginal basic aid districts, exceed their state entitlements by only a slim margin and frequently alternate between basic and non-basic aid status.

Of the basic aid districts, where data was available for the 2024-25 school year, the table on this page shows how many earned different rates of excess taxes above their LCFF entitlement.

Legislative Analyst Office (LAO), 2024-25 Data.

At least 30 of these districts are earning 100% or more above what they would be entitled to under LCFF.

Calculating per-pupil amounts including a basic aid district’s total tax revenue plus Minimum State Aid, 22 basic aid districts earn over $35,000 per-pupil, approximately three times the funding level for LCFF-funded districts. Some examples of these figures include the following data from the LAO, based upon the 1^st principal apportionment for the 2024-25 school year:

*Includes (LCFF Entitlement Amount + Excess Taxes+ Minimum State Aid)/ADA

LAO, 2024-25 P1

The following table includes the equivalent LCFF appropriation for a sample of comparable non-basic aid districts:

*Total LCFF entitlement

LAO, 2024-25 P1

This bill would provide additional funding to all basic aid districts to fund TK, regardless of how far above their LCFF entitlement they are currently funded. The Committee may wish to consider the degree to which this would further widen the per-pupil funding gap between basic aid and other school districts.

The requirement to offer TK is under discussion at the Commission on State Mandates. As noted previously, statute requires “upon receipt of apportionment” that schools offering kindergarten must offer TK to age-eligible children with full implementation for all four-year olds by the 2025-26 school year. According to the LPI, based on a survey of LEAs conducted by the California Department of Education (CDE), 96% of school districts and 91% of charter schools in California offered TK in the 2023-24 school year. Of these, 85% offered TK at all of their elementary school sites.

According to an article in CalMatters in 2022, at least a dozen basic aid districts had not offered TK and had no plans to do so despite the mandate, as they are not receiving any funding from the state to do so. The 2024 LPI study noted:

Many LEAs said that securing sustainable funding and resources for UPK implementation is a critical challenge. Costs associated with staffing, facilities upgrades, and curriculum development often exceed the funding provided by the state, placing a strain on budgets. This concern was especially prevalent among basic aid districts that do not receive additional funding for TK students.

A letter to county and district superintendents and charter school administrators from the SPI dated March 21, 2025, notes, in part:

Under Education Code Section 48000, any school district that offers kindergarten is required to also offer TK and comply with the TK requirements, such as adult-to-student ratio, class size, and teacher credentialing. This requirement includes basic aid districts, which primarily rely on local property tax revenue to fund their LCFF entitlement.

The Commission on State Mandates released a draft proposed decision on March 27, 2025 on the requirement to offer TK and to meet the class size and adult-to-pupil ratios. The Commission will hear the matter at their meeting on May 23, 2025. The draft decision contends that the statute does not impose a reimbursable state-mandated program as:

By law, school districts are authorized, but not required to offer TK programs, and if a school district does not offer TK, the only consequence is that it does not receive an apportionment of funding for the students that would have been in the TK program. The claimants are not legally compelled to provide TK, and this interpretation is supported by the statute’s plain language, by the TK program’s legislative history, and by the fact that a few school districts have chosen not to offer TK.

Nor is there substantial evidence that claimants are practically compelled to provide TK. The available alternative is to not have a TK program, which is a demonstrably viable alternative, as there are school districts that do not offer TK. Withholding the funding they would have received for the TK program is not a severe penalty that rises to the level of practical compulsion. Rather, it is up to the claimants to determine if on balance, the benefits of the TK program under the state’s conditions for funding outweigh its costs.

Furthermore, even if there were legal or practical compulsion, there are no costs mandated by the state pursuant to Government Code section 17556(e), as the state has provided funding specifically intended to fund the TK program and the requirements imposed by the test claim statute. The LCFF is used to calculate school districts’ funding entitlements, and this formula provides funding for TK students based on their ADA, including adjustments and add-ons that provide additional funding to maintain an average class size and to maintain an average of one adult for every 12 pupils in a TK classroom.

School districts are required to use the funding they receive exclusively for the support of the schools within the district, with at least 60% going towards classroom teacher salaries. Thus, the state has provided funding intended to support the TK program and its requirements in an amount sufficient to fund the cost of the state mandate.

Although the claimants argue that as basic aid districts, their LCFF entitlement is completely offset by their local property tax revenue, meaning they do not receive any additional state funding for the program and have less excess tax revenue available to spend on local funding priorities, they are not entitled to a specific amount of excess property tax revenue. Property tax revenue used to offset the LCFF entitlement is considered part of the state apportionment, not local proceeds of taxes, and the Legislature has broad discretion with how it satisfies its reimbursement obligations, so long as the chosen method is consistent with Proposition 98 and other constitutional guarantees.26 Accordingly, there are no costs mandated by the state pursuant to Government Code section 17556(e).

The Committee may wish to consider whether it is premature to adjust the funding structure for basic aid districts to provide TK before the Commission weighs in on this matter.

Necessary small schools. School districts with qualifying schools that serve a small population of students and are geographically isolated qualify for a necessary small school allowance in lieu of LCFF base grant funding. According to the author, “Necessary Small Schools serve students in some of California’s most rural and remote areas, where geographic isolation or long travel distances make it impossible to consolidate schools or transport students to larger campuses. Because of their small size and unique circumstances, these schools are funded outside of the standard LCFF. Instead, they receive support through a specialized state formula based on the number of teachers and school type, which ensures they can meet fixed operating costs even with low enrollment.”

Statute defines a “necessary small school” as an elementary school with an ADA of less than 97 students, excluding those attending the 7^th and 8^th grades of a junior high school. There are added conditions around distances to be traveled to the nearest other public elementary school.

A “necessary small high school” is a high school with an ADA of less than 287 students, again with conditions around distances required to be traveled to attend another public high school. The definition also includes:

• A high school maintained by a school district for the exclusive purpose of educating juvenile hall students or students with exceptional needs; and
• A high school maintained by a unified school district as the only comprehensive high school if the high school has an ADA of less than 287 students and the school district has 50 or fewer students per square mile living within the district.

Funding for necessary small school districts is based on the combination of ADA and the number of full-time teachers for elementary schools or the number of full-time equivalent certificated employees for high schools, whichever provides the lesser amount.

California commits to universal TK. AB 130 (Committee on Budget), Chapter 44, Statutes of 2021 established a plan to gradually expand TK eligibility to all 4-year-old children with a phased approach from the 2022-23 to 2025-26 school year and required that schools offering TK to:

• Maintain an average class enrollment of not more than 24 pupils at each schoolsite;
• Beginning with the 2023-24 school year, maintain an average ratio of at least one adult for every 12 pupils;
• Beginning with the 2023-24 school year, maintain an average ratio of at least one adult for every 10 pupils in TK classrooms, subject to an appropriation for this purpose; and
• Ensure that teachers assigned to a TK classroom meet specified requirements regarding early childhood experience by August 1, 2023.

Subsequent legislation delayed the 1:10 ratio to the 2025-26 school year and the teacher credentialing requirements to August 1, 2025.

According to the LAO, TK enrollment has grown 70% since 2019. In 2023-24, 151,500 students across the state were enrolled in TK. This reflects an increase of 76,000 students or 101% from the 2021-22 school year, the year prior to expansion. As shown in the figure below, TK enrollment declined during 2020-21 due to the pandemic, then started to increase more quickly in the expansion years.

Source: LAO, 2025

Although schools are required to offer TK, families are not required to enroll their 4-year old children as compulsory education applies to children beginning at 6-years old. According to research by the Learning Policy Institute (LPI), the uptake in 2023-24 was 59%, as shown in the figure below:

Source: LPI, 2024

TK Funded Through LCFF. According to the LAO, similar to all other K-12 students, eligible TK students generate attendance-based funding through LCFF. The LCFF includes a per-student base grant that varies by grade level. In 2024-25, the base grant for students in TK through third grade is $10,025 per ADA.

The LCFF also includes a grade span adjustment for students in TK through third grade of 10.4% of the base grant ($1,043 per ADA in 2024-25). To receive this adjustment, districts must maintain average TK through third-grade class sizes of 24 students or fewer for each of their school sites.

In 2024-25, TK students generate a total of $11,068 per ADA from the base grant and grade span adjustment. Districts also receive LCFF supplemental and concentration grant funding for unduplicated TK students, namely those who are English learners, foster children, or who are eligible for free or reduced-price meals.

TK adult-to-child ratios. In addition to setting a maximum TK class size of 24, the 2021-22 budget agreement set minimum requirements for the number of adults required in a TK classroom. These requirements bring the adult-to-student ratio closer to the ratios in State Preschool and other programs that serve four-year olds (typically one adult for every eight students).

Due to the class size and staffing ratio requirement, TK classrooms typically have 24 students or fewer, with one credentialed teacher and one instructional aide. Beginning in 2022-23, districts were required to maintain, on average, 1 adult for every 12 TK students at each school site. In 2024-25, districts will receive $3,077 per TK ADA as an add-on to the LCFF base grant to cover the costs of this requirement.

Starting in 2025-26, state law requires the adult-to-student ratio be reduced to, on average, one adult for every ten students. The Governor’s January 2025 budget proposes to increase the add-on amount to $6,404 per student to fund the requirement. Districts incur penalties if they do not comply with the TK class size and staffing ratio requirements.

State support for TK expansion. The State has provided additional support for TK expansion through a number of initiatives in recent years, including:

• $590 million in non-Proposition 98 general fund to construct or retrofit early education facilities to support full-day kindergarten, TK, or district operated California State Preschool Program (CSPP) facilities;
• $500 million Proposition 98 general fund to all LEAs that operate kindergarten programs for teacher recruitment, training, and materials; and
• $100 million Proposition 98 general fund for a competitive grant that LEAs could use to increase the number of high qualified CSPP and TK teachers.

Research supports the value of California’s TK program. A comprehensive evaluation of the impact of TK on California students as implemented in the 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years included the following findings:

• TK improves mathematics knowledge and problem-solving skills for participating students, giving them almost a three-month advantage in problem-solving skills over students who did not attend TK;
• TK also improves students’ literacy skills, putting them ahead of their peers who did not attend TK by six months at kindergarten entry;
• TK has a positive impact on the language, literacy, and math skills of all students at kindergarten entry. It has a particularly strong effect on the English language skills of dual language learners (DLLs) and on the math skills of low-income students;
• TK improves mathematics knowledge and problem-solving skills for DLL students, giving them almost a six-month advantage over DLL students who did not attend TK;
• TK also improves literacy skills for DLL students, putting them ahead of their peers who did not attend TK by more than seven months at kindergarten entry;
• Participating in TK gives DLL students a substantial boost in their English language development, including speaking and listening skills and overall language proficiency. This benefit holds true for DLL students from all language groups;
• TK has a persisting impact on all students’ letter and word identification skills at the end of kindergarten, on literacy and math skills for low-income students, and on math skills for Hispanic students; and
• TK structured as a standalone classroom had a similar impact on students’ skills as classrooms with TK and kindergarten combined.

The benefit of TK for participating children varied little, if at all, with teachers’ specific instructional practices. It may be that what is driving TK’s impact is what TK classrooms have in common: highly qualified teachers, alignment with kindergarten, and mixed-income classrooms (AIR, 2017).

Arguments in support. The Sunnyvale School District writes, “When TK was created for a small cohort of students and later expanded to a full grade level, the state did not adjust the funding formula for uniquely funded school districts, such as those that rely on property taxes (community-funded school districts). As such, for the past decade, community-funded districts have been left to fund this new grade level out of existing resources, the vast majority of which—like any other school—are dedicated to existing teachers and support staff. This cost has become increasingly impossible to bear as more students have become eligible for TK, reaching full implementation next school year.

While acknowledging these new costs at the state level—nearly $4 billion is estimated in the Governor’s Budget to fully implement UTK in 2025-26—the LCFF was not amended to account for the unique funding structure of community-funded districts. All TK average daily attendance is used to calculate that total cost of implementing TK, including those in community-funded school districts, but the dollars that those students generate have no way of actually benefiting their school since these districts do not receive any additional dollars when their LCFF entitlement grows.

As a result, districts implementing TK are being squeezed—districts are cutting programs, laying off teachers, reducing support staff—to accommodate this new, unfunded grade level. In Sunnyvale this means reduction of student behavioral supports, increased class sizes, reduction of instructional coaching support, and reduction of after school interventions and programs that provide childcare.

AB 1391 solves this problem by creating a funding mechanism to provide an equitable amount of UTK funding to community-funded districts as state-funded districts. We agree with the state that all four-year-olds deserve a great place to start their grade-school career: AB 1391 ensures that all districts have the resources to provide that great start through truly universal TK.”

Related legislation. SB 743 (Cortese) of the 2025-26 Session would establish the Equalization Reserve Account in the General Fund to, upon appropriation, provide additional per-pupil funding for non-basic aid school districts. Funding for this account would be transferred from the General Fund in years when Proposition 98 increases from the prior year, subject to voter approval of an unspecified constitutional amendment.

AB 2548 (Ta) of the 2023-24 Session would have waived the penalty for LEAs not meeting the adult-to-child ratio or maximum classroom enrollment requirements for TK classrooms enrolling early enrollment children during the 2023-24 school year. This bill was held in the Assembly Education Committee.

AB 1555 (Quirk-Silva) of the 2023-24 Session would have provided teacher assigned to TK classrooms a two-year extension to meet specified credentialing requirements. This bill was held at the Senate Desk.

AB 130 (Committee on Budget), Chapter 44, Statutes of 2021 established UTK by expanding eligibility for TK to all 4-year olds by the 2025-26 school year and established requirements for TK classrooms related to adult-to-child ratios, maximum class sizes, and TK teacher requirements.

SB 443 (Rubio) of the 2019-20 Session would have deleted the provision that prohibits a child admitted to TK who has their 5th birthday after December 2 from generating ADA or being included in the enrollment or unduplicated pupil count until they turn 5-years-old, thereby expanding eligibility for TK to all 4-year-olds. This bill was held in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

AB 2500 (McCarty) of the 2019-20 Session would have deleted the provision that prohibits a child admitted to TK who has their 5th birthday after December 2nd from generating ADA or being included in the enrollment or unduplicated pupil count until they turn 5-years-old, thereby expanding eligibility for TK to all 4-year-olds. This bill was held in the Assembly Education Committee.

SB 217 (Portantino) of the 2019-20 Session would have created the Early Intervention Grant Program to increase inclusive access to early education programs for children with exceptional needs and expand eligibility for TK to include children with exceptional needs turning 5-years-old at any time during the school year. This bill was amended to include content outside of the jurisdiction of education.

AB 1754 (McCarty) of the 2017-18 Session would have required the state to provide all eligible low-income 4-year-old children with access to early care and education programs. This bill was held in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

SB 837 (Dodd) of the 2017-18 Session would have expanded eligibility for TK to all 4-year olds, phased in over a two-year period beginning in the 2020-21 school year. This bill was held in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:

Opposition

1 individual

Analysis Prepared by: Debbie Look/ ED. / (916) 319-2087