South San Francisco: Vote no on allowing Transitional Kindergarten students to jump to Kindergarten!

The SSFUSD board packet for 10-23-14 proposes a policy where Transitional Kindergarten students can be promoted to Kindergarten (see pages 196-200). The students must have an SST, take unspecified assessments and have their fifth birthday. If the SST team decides the student is 'ready', the student will be transferred to Kindergarten. The assistant superintendents can overrule the SST teams decision.

The State of California changed the entrance age for Kindergarten after overwhelming evidence showed that younger students struggle academically. The CDE says that promoting TK students to Kindergarten is a 'rarely used option'. The CDE also recommends an agreed upon assessment that our policy fails to have. Many other districts do not allow early entrance into kindergarten.

TK students being promoted to Kindergarten would be promoted on their birthdays (September 2- December2) could potentially miss the first 70 days out of 180 days of Kindergarten.

This policy is not in the best interest of SSFUSD or its students.