For Other Professionals
New in Schools: a Bridge to Kindergarten
San Francisco Chronicle
About 40,000 California children, age 4 and with November birthdays, qualified for the post-preschool, prekindergarten program—created after the state decided to move back the birthday cutoff for kindergarten entry from Dec. 2 to Nov. 1 this year. The new law has eliminated a conundrum long faced by California parents of children born in the fall. Even though their kids qualified for kindergarten, many chose to hold their children back to allow for an extra year of maturation. Other parents opted to put their 4-year-olds into elementary school during their first year of eligibility, sometimes because they couldn't afford another year of preschool. Yet too many of those 4-year-old kindergartners have struggled academically, socially or both, and many were held back a year, which put them at risk of future academic failure, teachers said.
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